SUBWAY - Random Thoughts Topic

[Lex]

20 minutes ago, RR503 said:

Gives the  space to take its slow diverge and merge to/from the  w/o backing up Lex. 

Northbound isn't so bad, but southbound is an absolute joke.

[Lance]

11 hours ago, RR503 said:

My hot take is that Jamaica Van Wyck is the best looking station in the system. I challenge any of you to change my mind. 

All of the Archer Ave stations have nice designs. I'm more partial to the one at Sutphin Blvd though, especially with the vaulted ceilings on the upper level, but I can see why one would like Jamaica-Van Wyck Blvd. It is a shame those skylights remain shuttered as it would go a long way toward making that station look less drab. It would also help if they actually maintained those three stations' appearances over the years. Roosevelt Island and 21 St-Queensbridge, built and opened around the same time, don't look as severe as these three do.

9 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

Knowing the way the IND was designed and built I would say this is most likely correct.

In my opinion, its the one thing they got wrong. In most other respects, the IND did a pretty good job future proofing itself, compared to the BMT and especially the IRT, which was clearly designed for the New York of 1904 not now. (The sheer complexity of the grade separated interlockings on the IND particularly West 4th, 59th and in the vicinity of 53rd and 6th are very impressive)  Of course if the Second System was built, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Well, the IND had 30 years to see the neighborhoods develop after the BMT and IRT built their lines in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The IRT lines ran through literal farmland when they opened in the early 1900s. The BMT is no better since most of their lines were built in the late 1800s. It's hard to anticipate future ridership with no real point of reference.

[R68OnBroadway]

Roosevelt Island to me has to have the best design. It’s wide and open, has a great station house, has great views from the escalator landing, etc.) It is however odd though that while it has an elevator, there are ADA strips on the platform.

[N6 Limited]

10 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Look at today’s  train route from Downtown Brooklyn for a general idea about Lafayette service.

Well of course it would travel under Lafayette Ave, but The  train turns north on Marcy Ave towards LIC and then the IND rammed a new street named Union Ave through most of Williamsburg, I doubt the IRT would have been able to do that.

[bobtehpanda]

14 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

Knowing the way the IND was designed and built I would say this is most likely correct.

In my opinion, its the one thing they got wrong. In most other respects, the IND did a pretty good job future proofing itself, compared to the BMT and especially the IRT, which was clearly designed for the New York of 1904 not now. (The sheer complexity of the grade separated interlockings on the IND particularly West 4th, 59th and in the vicinity of 53rd and 6th are very impressive)  Of course if the Second System was built, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Eeeh, the way the IND was built was iffy. Cranberry St should've been four tracks, and 53rd as well. And this is before we get into things like how they insisted on doing things as expensively as possible (keeping PATH and the Sixth Av El in service, or Fulton El in service, while subway construction was ongoing), or their love of crazy interlined service patterns, or an extreme hatred of reasonable transfers. (West Fourth St's entire middle level is super overkill for what it is.)

[Enjineer]

3 hours ago, N6 Limited said:

then the IND rammed a new street named Union Ave through most of Williamsburg, I doubt the IRT would have been able to do that.

The IRT had done it before the IND! When the 7 Av Line was extended south of Times Square, they create 7th Avenue South to run the subway under and literally cut straight through the West Village 

[Trainmaster5]

3 hours ago, N6 Limited said:

Well of course it would travel under Lafayette Ave, but The  train turns north on Marcy Ave towards LIC and then the IND rammed a new street named Union Ave through most of Williamsburg, I doubt the IRT would have been able to do that.

I don't think that the IRT would have traveled very far directly up Lafayette considering that the BMT  Myrtle and Lexington Els surround Lafayette up to Broadway. Just my opinion.  Carry on. 

[R68OnBroadway]

Things the IND got right:

• decent curves
• reasonable stop spacing
• flying junctions

Things the IND did poorly:

• Transfers. Fulton is completely useless unless you are right on it; you either choose the unreliable  , distant and crowded  , or the doesn't-feel-like-showing-up  . Had Hylan not had been so Cuomoesque and gotten his head out of his *ss, we could have a reasonable transfer near Atlantic and Franklin could have been express (the shuttle can be lifesaver when transferring). 
• Piss-poor track design. Thanks to the idiotic insistence that no one wanted a local train between boroughs we end up with the shitsh*w that is Fulton/8th/CPW; had they just built 53rd and Cranberry with 4 tracks SE Queens could get decent service, QBL could get all service sent via 53rd (local via 6th, expresses via 8th), and 63rd could actually do what it was meant for. Concourse and upper 8th is also a mess- had everything north of 145th on 8th had been local, we could avoid all the interlining we currently face. 

Now here are some other IND-related opinions I have that some find unpopular:

The Archer Avenue line to me wasn't 100% needed and was built due to the anti-El bias of the time. Had we kept the Jamaica El up we could have run express/local service further down Hillside without the problem of a lack of frequency.

Reusing the Liberty Av El was a mistake. Had the city gone ahead and instead sent a 4 track underground El, it would be much easier to extend it further out to Cambria Heights. 

Edited April 26, 2019 by R68OnBroadway

[Coney Island Av]

Is it just me or do I think that tomorrow's gonna be a full blown disaster along the ? Remember the weekend  shutdown starts tomorrow.

[4 via Mosholu]

I know that the  train and the  train swap had already been discussed and I know I am beating a dead horse here in that regard, but there seem to be two things that I do not get about that IND swap (note that I do understand the Brooklyn IRT swap in 1983 and the  train and the  train swap in 1987):

How did the  train running via the Grand Concourse get so crowded than the  train running via Washington Heights before March 1998? I seem to think more of the lines that the  train had difficulty transferring its fleet from the overhaul shop at 207th Street to the Grand Concourse Shop just to make service to Bedford Park and Harlem-145th Street weekdays and vice versa to become the  train weekends from 168 to the Chambers Street - World Trade Center local platform.

Also, how did riders become so confused about the  train's three different northern terminals, when the  train that replaced the rush hour  train to Beach 116th back in '92 (thereby cutting the from the western half of the Rockaways during the rush) is in general more overburdened and confusing at best than the  train in terms of terminals as a result of the March 1998 swap?

[Enjineer]

17 minutes ago, R68OnBroadway said:

 

The Archer Avenue line to me wasn't 100% needed and was built due to the anti-El bias of the time. Had we kept the Jamaica El up we could have run express/local service further down Hillside without the problem of a lack of frequency.

Remember, it was originally for the  to also run to Southeastern Queens. Hell, the TA was in no rush to tear down the El but the residents and businesses in Jamaica pressured them into tearing it down earlier than planned. 

[Lex]

1 hour ago, 4 via Mosholu said:

I know that the  train and the  train swap had already been discussed and I know I am beating a dead horse here in that regard, but there seem to be two things that I do not get about that IND swap (note that I do understand the Brooklyn IRT swap in 1983 and the  train and the  train swap in 1987):

How did the  train running via the Grand Concourse get so crowded than the  train running via Washington Heights before March 1998? I seem to think more of the lines that the  train had difficulty transferring its fleet from the overhaul shop at 207th Street to the Grand Concourse Shop just to make service to Bedford Park and Harlem-145th Street weekdays and vice versa to become the  train weekends from 168 to the Chambers Street - World Trade Center local platform.

Also, how did riders become so confused about the  train's three different northern terminals, when the  train that replaced the rush hour  train to Beach 116th back in '92 (thereby cutting the from the western half of the Rockaways during the rush) is in general more overburdened and confusing at best than the  train in terms of terminals as a result of the March 1998 swap?

Route consistency is the name of the game.

[Far rockaway]

2 hours ago, Coney Island Av said:

Is it just me or do I think that tomorrow's gonna be a full blown disaster along the ? Remember the weekend  shutdown starts tomorrow.

I don't know how is this going to go. I think this plan is not going to work out. The MTA should of stuck with the original plan. I know it would of impacted rush hour service and that would be no good, but they planned this out for years, but then the governor decides to swoop in at the last minute and come up with a better plan. I felt like  service should of been full length but instead you are going to have people crammed in like sardines and running to the middle of the platform to catch the train. And the  train has been a problem all this week with recurring signal problems along the line. I don't think that line is ready for the  partial weekend shutdowns. This is my intake on the  train project. 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Far rockaway

[bobtehpanda]

5 hours ago, R68OnBroadway said:

The Archer Avenue line to me wasn't 100% needed and was built due to the anti-El bias of the time. Had we kept the Jamaica El up we could have run express/local service further down Hillside without the problem of a lack of frequency.

To be fair, the original plan for Archer Avenue was to be

1. part of the Super Express

2. Go down to Laurelton via what is today the eastern half of the Atlantic Branch

In that context, it isn't so bad.

The problem with Hillside extensions right now is not the lack of frequency at Hillside, it's the lack of capacity west of, say, Kew Gardens. There's no room for additional riders.

[RR503]

A friend of mine has been working on a stringline viewer for the subway for the past few months — you’ve seen some charts from it in my posts recently. Today, he’s making it public. 

https://pvibien.com/stringline.htm

Each line represents a train; the flat portions are in-station time (which isn’t exactly dwell — it’s when the clock says the train is in the station which usually begins when the train is just outside the station) and the diagonal parts inter-station time. Data can sometime be crappy, but an extremely useful tool. 

Enjoy! If you have feedback, I can pass along. 

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

Success.

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[Calvin]

As of 10:30PM, at Union Sq, there are lines with barricades and team members in 2 sections to board the train (west or east of 14 St). Also, NYPD blocked the Broadway line stairway this weekend (going on late nights and slow rating weekday nights).

That's a long wait for the Jay Z fans trying to get the   back to Brooklyn with double the headways.

 

Also:

 trains will add up on the afternoon hours on weekends 

http://web.mta.info/nyct/service/pdf/t7cur.pdf

 

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by Calvin

[SubwayFan3000]

Why does the Astoria-Ditmars Blvd Bound / Trains skips 39th Avenue, 36th Avenue, Broadway and 30th Avenue?

[Lance]

19 hours ago, R68OnBroadway said:

Now here are some other IND-related opinions I have that some find unpopular:

The Archer Avenue line to me wasn't 100% needed and was built due to the anti-El bias of the time. Had we kept the Jamaica El up we could have run express/local service further down Hillside without the problem of a lack of frequency.

Reusing the Liberty Av El was a mistake. Had the city gone ahead and instead sent a 4 track underground El, it would be much easier to extend it further out to Cambria Heights. 

As @bobtehpanda stated, Archer Ave was less about removing the Jamaica elevated in the area, though that was the final intention, but rather about system expansion. That the MTA and the city as a whole went completely broke in the '70s is why the lines end at Parsons Blvd instead of some other useful location. Also, while a lack of an Archer Ave line would allow for more service on Hillside Ave, Queens Blvd would lose overall in terms of a lack of nearby connections. Both the JFK AirTrain and the Jamaica LIRR stations would be blocks away from the Sutphin Blvd - Hillside Ave station. The multitude of buses that stop at Parsons Blvd and Archer Ave would not stop there if there was no Archer Ave line, meaning riders heading east of the and terminals would have to walk over to the 165th Street Bus Terminal to continue their trips as they did prior to December 1988.

In regards to a new subway line over reusing the Liberty Ave elevated, the idea was to get service to Richmond Hill and the Rockaways as soon as possible. With their acquisition of the Rockaway Beach branch from the LIRR in '52, the BOT needed a connection from the Fulton St line and they had a perfectly good, fairly new stretch of track available. The alternative would've been to wait a decade or so for them to build a new tunnel connection all the while with the Rockaways line standing idle. Remember, these are the same folks who attempted to build the Second Ave line twice at this point with nothing so show for it. Besides, neither the Liberty Ave or Rockaways stations are that heavily used to justify a four-track extension beyond Euclid Av.

19 hours ago, 4 via Mosholu said:

I know that the  train and the  train swap had already been discussed and I know I am beating a dead horse here in that regard, but there seem to be two things that I do not get about that IND swap (note that I do understand the Brooklyn IRT swap in 1983 and the  train and the  train swap in 1987):

How did the  train running via the Grand Concourse get so crowded than the  train running via Washington Heights before March 1998? I seem to think more of the lines that the  train had difficulty transferring its fleet from the overhaul shop at 207th Street to the Grand Concourse Shop just to make service to Bedford Park and Harlem-145th Street weekdays and vice versa to become the  train weekends from 168 to the Chambers Street - World Trade Center local platform.

Also, how did riders become so confused about the  train's three different northern terminals, when the  train that replaced the rush hour  train to Beach 116th back in '92 (thereby cutting the from the western half of the Rockaways during the rush) is in general more overburdened and confusing at best than the  train in terms of terminals as a result of the March 1998 swap?

It wasn't so much passenger confusion as it was an operational headache at the time. At the tail end of the line's days, those trains came out of Coney Island since they shared a fleet with the . The line's fleet at the time all came out of 207th Street, but that wasn't an issue since the line was rush hours only. When the and were merged into one line back in '88 and more so when the former's service was expanded over the years, it became more annoying to move the cars around every week. When the started running to 168 Street on weekends, that was when the 1988 service pattern started becoming unattainable. 

11 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

Success.

<various tweets>

Eh, I'll give it a few days before the "I told you so."s. How many major service changes have gone off without a hitch? For instance, I recall the first passenger train up Second Ave got stuck in traffic.

11 hours ago, subwayfan1998 said:

Why does the Astoria-Ditmars Blvd Bound / Trains skips 39th Avenue, 36th Avenue, Broadway and 30th Avenue?

First off, welcome to the forums. I see you've been busy, which is wonderful. However, for a lot of your queries, they can be found on the MTA's site or looking through the most recent posts in the relevant threads. Using this one as an example, if you look at the MTA's site, you'll see they're doing major renovations at Astoria Blvd, which will require trains skipping the local stations as needed.

[paulrivera]

I love how the GO is for Saturday only this weekend, yet the soccer match at Yankee Stadium is also on Saturday. The  was also supposed to skip 161 downtown this weekend but they had to change that last-minute as well.

I thought the game was tomorrow based on the GO, but I look on YES and they're playing now. Oops.

Edited April 27, 2019 by paulrivera

[N6 Limited]

For the  queues in Union Square, are they telling riders to take the to Bleeker street for the  or  to ?

Or.  to Fulton street for the  to ?

Basically if they're not going to Bedford Ave then there is no need for them to go near the  in Manhattan when they can get around the bottle neck where there is more service between Lorimer St and Rockaway Parkway.

(Also, have they thought about running more frequent Manhattan shuttles to get people between alternative subway lines?:

Edited April 27, 2019 by N6 Limited

[Mtatransit]

15 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

Success.

 

Based on the transit App schedule, the there were two trains that consecutively ends at Lorimer , leaving a 40 minute gap.  Wonder if its just a system glitch or an actual gap

Edited April 27, 2019 by Mtatransit

[Calvin]

 to the train : Velina Mitchell voices the  to Lorimer St-Metropolitian Av bound train

Edited April 27, 2019 by Calvin

[Lance]

4 hours ago, N6 Limited said:

(Also, have they thought about running more frequent Manhattan shuttles to get people between alternative subway lines?:

The infrequent intervals are due to the lowered capacity in the tunnels and the track layout. They have to run single-track operations from Bedford Av to Union Square, which makes it impossible to run much more service than what is already being put out.

1 hour ago, Calvin said:

 to the train : Velina Mitchell voices the  to Lorimer St-Metropolitian Av bound train

Meh. I can't say I'm surprised. I think I've mentioned this before, but using Ms. Mitchell speeds up the process of updating the announcements. It's all inhouse now as opposed to before where they had to work around the schedules of the Bloomberg gang to get new recordings completed.

[Armandito]

Does anyone know why Hudson Yards and the Second Avenue Subway are already suffering from water leakage? I mean, it's shocking how such new stations are now falling victim to the same fate as Archer Avenue despite being the newest ones in the system...

Edited April 28, 2019 by lara8710