How would you improve subway service in the Bronx?

[bobtehpanda]

Why in the hell are all of those trains ending at Bay Plaza??

 

Second who says these areas want subway service?  The people living there in Throggs Neck do so specifically because there is NO subway and like it isolated.  I don't have a subway in Riverdale and I don't want one.  Maybe the area of Throggs Neck by the housing projects would want it, but I can assure that areas such as Edgewater Park, Silver Beach Gardens and other parts of Throggs Neck east of the expressway near the Long Island sound want no subway coming there.  They are content with driving or taking the BxM9 express bus.

 

Third how are these subways supposed to be built?  

 

Pelham Pkwy east of WPR is extremely wide, so it's not difficult, and the same can be said for the Bruckner. The already has yard tracks that extend to the river under 207 St. The yellow train is a northward extension of the from planned tracks at Second Avenue and 129 St alongside the existing MNR Harlem Line. And the can just go over the Bruckner; it's been planned since the conception of the Co-op City development. Bay Plaza is a massive bus hub, and it's not exactly unrealistic for two trains to go under Pelham Pkwy since the Bx12 is the second or third busiest bus route in the city depending on the year. If two trains under Pelham Pkwy were excessive, you could just terminate the at Fordham Plaza.

[trainfanrod]

THE is already a long route as it is extending it further can cause delays i perfer some sort of shuttle train similar to the franklin ave shuttle

[Via Garibaldi 8]

THE is already a long route as it is extending it further can cause delays i perfer some sort of shuttle train similar to the franklin ave shuttle

This is all an over exaggeration anyway... The Bx12 works just fine...

[MysteriousBtrain]

This is all an over exaggeration anyway... The Bx12 works just fine...

I'm like 90% sure you never rode a Bx12 before.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

I'm like 90% sure you never rode a Bx12 before.

You're 100% wrong.... Just because a bus line has high ridership doesn't mean that we should spend billions on a subway.  Where is this money supposed to come from? The work would take YEARS to complete and face all sorts of obstacles.  Three lines terminating in Co-Op City? How when the land there (marsh land) is sinking?

[bobtehpanda]

You're 100% wrong.... Just because a bus line has high ridership doesn't mean that we should spend billions on a subway.  Where is this money supposed to come from? The work would take YEARS to complete and face all sorts of obstacles.  Three lines terminating in Co-Op City? How when the land there (marsh land) is sinking?

 

You can elevate it in the vicinity of Bay Plaza and east of WPR (and good portions of the city used to be marshland; if that was an issue, then a good portion of Manhattan would be sliding into the Hudson). No one is going to care about an elevated line over the Bruckner Expressway, because they already live next to a massive, congested highway. And once again, you can also just build a three-track terminal at Fordham Plaza and terminate trains there, so that only the runs to Fordham Plaza, and only the runs to Bay Plaza with a short extension of the .

 

An over-congested surface transportation network is the entire reason we are building the Second Avenue Subway. High-ridership bus lines are the entire reason that there are calls for an extension of the to Fordham Plaza and the to Kings Plaza in Brooklyn. Above a certain point it is no longer cost-effective to carry people on buses, because buses have high labor costs and an upper limit on how reliably you can actually run them. Plus, Fordham Road and Pelham Parkway are not exactly free from congestion. If there was a place in the Bronx to add a subway, Pelham Pkwy would be the most logical place due to the sheer amount of riders there.

[MysteriousBtrain]

Like it was said before, the is long enough. Here's how I think the Fordham Line would work out:

1. Turn the to Lefferts into a revived and have it run between Fordham Plaza and Queens, no stops changed. Or.....

2. Simpily extend the to the new terminal in the bronx and give some inwood residents some local service.

Not sure how late night service would work, but I think that can be determined by any of ya.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

You can elevate it in the vicinity of Bay Plaza and east of WPR (and good portions of the city used to be marshland; if that was an issue, then a good portion of Manhattan would be sliding into the Hudson). No one is going to care about an elevated line over the Bruckner Expressway, because they already live next to a massive, congested highway. And once again, you can also just build a three-track terminal at Fordham Plaza and terminate trains there, so that only the runs to Fordham Plaza, and only the runs to Bay Plaza with a short extension of the .

 

An over-congested surface transportation network is the entire reason we are building the Second Avenue Subway. High-ridership bus lines are the entire reason that there are calls for an extension of the to Fordham Plaza and the to Kings Plaza in Brooklyn. Above a certain point it is no longer cost-effective to carry people on buses, because buses have high labor costs and an upper limit on how reliably you can actually run them. Plus, Fordham Road and Pelham Parkway are not exactly free from congestion. If there was a place in the Bronx to add a subway, Pelham Pkwy would be the most logical place due to the sheer amount of riders there.

Well you can call for it all you want but it will be some time before anything actually happens.  The reality is it's EXPENSIVE and anything above ground will be an eyesore.  The Bronx is already ugly enough with tons of expressways rammed through areas that were literally destroyed and led to DECADES of decay.  The only decent areas were those where subways and massive highways were kept at bay and that's a fact that cannot be ignored.  The Bronx is an example of what happens when poor infrastructure is implemented.

[RtrainBlues]

How would you extend the A to Fordham Rd/Grand Concourse?  Would you simply reroute it off the A line at 125th and run it up the D line?  Then the C would go to 207th/Inwood instead?

[JubaionBx12+SBS]

I'm not a fan of the school of thought that improving subway service means adding coverage. What does adding coverage do for the existing coverage over than possibly lower it's ridership? It's not like subway lines in the Bronx are pulling world-beater levels of ridership anyway. Look at the Fordham Road proposal presented above. The thing would basically be the Bx12 Select on rails. There's a couple of problems with it a) if it's an extension of a preexisting route (the in this case) we have a case where the line would be long as shit and many trains would be short-turned to avoid serving the Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd portion. b) If it's a separate line that's not integrated or poorly integrated with the existing network it's not much more useful than a shuttle and service levels will reflect that. Sure, Bx12 buses can be very crowded particularly the Select ones. But the crowds aren't that high to justify a ridiculous increase in the capacity of vehicles being used to serve the corridor. A subway running east/west along that or any corridor in the Bronx would tank service levels and the usefulness of many of the "overcrowded" bus routes in question is built on their high service levels. Overcrowded was put in quotes because what are we considering overcrowded? There are quite a few examples I can pull out of bus routes in other places that have usage similar to or higher than the Bx12 that have not had serious proposals for subway duplication. In Mexico City there is a route in the MetroBus (their network of BRT routes) that pulls over 250,000 riders per weekday. That's about 5 times the ridership of the Bx12 which we're claiming is so crowded it needs some relief. What I see is that in general our ridership ceilings  (maximum amount of ridership one individual route can afford to carry) in this city are just too low for a city which thrives on high public transit usage. 

 

Instead of finding ways to tank service levels by providing excessive coverage the discussions should be focused on how to better manage passenger distribution with the resources we currently have. What we need is a Bx12 that can carry 50,000 riders per weekday and possibly more without things bursting at the seams. What we need is a line that doesn't have passengers crammed in like sardines before trains have come close to their peak load point in Manhattan. Or better yet find ways to provide service where passenger loads can reach capacity without affecting reliability. In places like Hong Kong, Tokyo and what not trains are frequently overcrowded yet they almost never deviate from their respective headways. The way I've always seen it is that if overcrowding is the only negative thing riders frequently point out about a system then it's doing pretty damn good and is likely a world class system. 

 

I just advise folks to not just think about what the coverage will look like on a map when making proposals. Also think about what the operation of said service would look like in the real world. It in most cases will be far from the pipe dream you propose. Most of my objections come from the fact that the "overcrowded" services we try to improve don't operate at the greatest service levels to begin with and the proposals many in here and around the transit community come up with only seek to reduce the riderbase reliant on those routes. That in turn means less service will be provided overall and people's commutes made worse in the process just for some freaking personal space. 

[Wallyhorse]

I previously noted my idea to extend the to the Bronx to make it the only line to The Bronx that doesn't directly go through Manhattan to get there.

My plan would continue the north after Ditmars with one new stop in Queens at 20th Avenue and then over one or two new bridges (depending on whether or not you include a stop on Rikers Island) and have it first stop in The Bronx at Food Service Drive before going back underground. 

Such would include stops at East 180th to transfer to the and Elder/Westchester Avenue for the before terminating at Jacobi Medical Center.

This would give those in Queens looking for the Bronx a way to do so without going into Manhattan.

[Union Tpke]

I previously noted my idea to extend the to the Bronx to make it the only line to The Bronx that doesn't directly go through Manhattan to get there.

 

My plan would continue the north after Ditmars with one new stop in Queens at 20th Avenue and then over one or two new bridges (depending on whether or not you include a stop on Rikers Island) and have it first stop in The Bronx at Food Service Drive before going back underground. 

 

Such would include stops at East 180th to transfer to the and Elder/Westchester Avenue for the before terminating at Jacobi Medical Center.

 

This would give those in Queens looking for the Bronx a way to do so without going into Manhattan.

That is absolutely needed. The next step in Bronx-Queens connection would be a line over the Whitestone.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

I'm not a fan of the school of thought that improving subway service means adding coverage. What does adding coverage do for the existing coverage over than possibly lower it's ridership? It's not like subway lines in the Bronx are pulling world-beater levels of ridership anyway. Look at the Fordham Road proposal presented above. The thing would basically be the Bx12 Select on rails. There's a couple of problems with it a) if it's an extension of a preexisting route (the in this case) we have a case where the line would be long as shit and many trains would be short-turned to avoid serving the Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd portion. b) If it's a separate line that's not integrated or poorly integrated with the existing network it's not much more useful than a shuttle and service levels will reflect that. Sure, Bx12 buses can be very crowded particularly the Select ones. But the crowds aren't that high to justify a ridiculous increase in the capacity of vehicles being used to serve the corridor. A subway running east/west along that or any corridor in the Bronx would tank service levels and the usefulness of many of the "overcrowded" bus routes in question is built on their high service levels. Overcrowded was put in quotes because what are we considering overcrowded? There are quite a few examples I can pull out of bus routes in other places that have usage similar to or higher than the Bx12 that have not had serious proposals for subway duplication. In Mexico City there is a route in the MetroBus (their network of BRT routes) that pulls over 250,000 riders per weekday. That's about 5 times the ridership of the Bx12 which we're claiming is so crowded it needs some relief. What I see is that in general our ridership ceilings  (maximum amount of ridership one individual route can afford to carry) in this city are just too low for a city which thrives on high public transit usage. 

 

Instead of finding ways to tank service levels by providing excessive coverage the discussions should be focused on how to better manage passenger distribution with the resources we currently have. What we need is a Bx12 that can carry 50,000 riders per weekday and possibly more without things bursting at the seams. What we need is a line that doesn't have passengers crammed in like sardines before trains have come close to their peak load point in Manhattan. Or better yet find ways to provide service where passenger loads can reach capacity without affecting reliability. In places like Hong Kong, Tokyo and what not trains are frequently overcrowded yet they almost never deviate from their respective headways. The way I've always seen it is that if overcrowding is the only negative thing riders frequently point out about a system then it's doing pretty damn good and is likely a world class system. 

 

I just advise folks to not just think about what the coverage will look like on a map when making proposals. Also think about what the operation of said service would look like in the real world. It in most cases will be far from the pipe dream you propose. Most of my objections come from the fact that the "overcrowded" services we try to improve don't operate at the greatest service levels to begin with and the proposals many in here and around the transit community come up with only seek to reduce the riderbase reliant on those routes. That in turn means less service will be provided overall and people's commutes made worse in the process just for some freaking personal space. 

The fact that the can't even match service levels on their current lines is one reason why all of these proposals for new lines or extensions is just a joke and a pipeline that will probably not happen in our lifetimes.  Too costly and too much time to build these things out.  I say make use of the lines that currently already exist and call it a day.  They're implementing Metro-North in the Northeast Bronx.  Bronx residents can use that or deal with the subway or take the express buses that run in those areas.

[bobtehpanda]

I'm not a fan of the school of thought that improving subway service means adding coverage. What does adding coverage do for the existing coverage over than possibly lower it's ridership? It's not like subway lines in the Bronx are pulling world-beater levels of ridership anyway. Look at the Fordham Road proposal presented above. The thing would basically be the Bx12 Select on rails. There's a couple of problems with it a) if it's an extension of a preexisting route (the in this case) we have a case where the line would be long as shit and many trains would be short-turned to avoid serving the Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd portion. b) If it's a separate line that's not integrated or poorly integrated with the existing network it's not much more useful than a shuttle and service levels will reflect that. Sure, Bx12 buses can be very crowded particularly the Select ones. But the crowds aren't that high to justify a ridiculous increase in the capacity of vehicles being used to serve the corridor. A subway running east/west along that or any corridor in the Bronx would tank service levels and the usefulness of many of the "overcrowded" bus routes in question is built on their high service levels. Overcrowded was put in quotes because what are we considering overcrowded? There are quite a few examples I can pull out of bus routes in other places that have usage similar to or higher than the Bx12 that have not had serious proposals for subway duplication. In Mexico City there is a route in the MetroBus (their network of BRT routes) that pulls over 250,000 riders per weekday. That's about 5 times the ridership of the Bx12 which we're claiming is so crowded it needs some relief. What I see is that in general our ridership ceilings  (maximum amount of ridership one individual route can afford to carry) in this city are just too low for a city which thrives on high public transit usage. 

 

Instead of finding ways to tank service levels by providing excessive coverage the discussions should be focused on how to better manage passenger distribution with the resources we currently have. What we need is a Bx12 that can carry 50,000 riders per weekday and possibly more without things bursting at the seams. What we need is a line that doesn't have passengers crammed in like sardines before trains have come close to their peak load point in Manhattan. Or better yet find ways to provide service where passenger loads can reach capacity without affecting reliability. In places like Hong Kong, Tokyo and what not trains are frequently overcrowded yet they almost never deviate from their respective headways. The way I've always seen it is that if overcrowding is the only negative thing riders frequently point out about a system then it's doing pretty damn good and is likely a world class system. 

 

I just advise folks to not just think about what the coverage will look like on a map when making proposals. Also think about what the operation of said service would look like in the real world. It in most cases will be far from the pipe dream you propose. Most of my objections come from the fact that the "overcrowded" services we try to improve don't operate at the greatest service levels to begin with and the proposals many in here and around the transit community come up with only seek to reduce the riderbase reliant on those routes. That in turn means less service will be provided overall and people's commutes made worse in the process just for some freaking personal space. 

 

The point of providing more coverage is to ease more commutes by reducing overcrowding and accommodate future growth. In 2007 we were predicted to go from 8 million to 9 million by 2030. We hit 8.5 million last year, in only 8 years. Not only do we need to accommodate this ridership, but we need to make commutes shorter. Ridership is not a zero-sum game; sure, some ridership might be siphoned off, but if the line is overcrowded that is not a bad thing, and additional riders will use a route or make new trips on a route if it is faster or more convenient, and additional people will move in next to a new subway because those commutes are significantly shorter.

 

If the Bx12 took half the time it did tomorrow, you would see a very significant ridership increase today. Subways have this effect; light rail and BRT, when accommodated for properly, also allow for this. However, saying Bx12 Select is BRT is like saying Kraft Singles is a fine French cheese. BRT in Latin America has high ridership because it's high quality; dedicated lanes all the way, sometimes with dedicated passing lanes, subway-style stations, etc., not a glorified bus shelter, some red paint and a sticker slapped on the side of the bus. "Real BRT" is unworkable in most of the city; 207 St and Fordham Road are not wide enough, and you can't use the parkland on Pelham Parkway without replacing it. And in the narrowest sections, it makes more sense to go underground anyways.

 

Let's look at Bx12 ridership; 2015 ridership was 15.8 million riders a year. The route is 6.7 miles long. If you do the math, the Bx12 gathers about 6400 riders per mile, per day. This is more than every single light rail system in the United States except the Boston Green Line, which is actually four light rail lines feeding into a downtown subway. So even for a bus that isn't reliable and isn't particularly fast, it  has very heavy ridership. Imagine what ridership could be if you got it up to even local subway speeds. A Bx12 leaving Inwood-207 at 6:00PM is going to make it to Bay Plaza in 52 minutes. That's 7.8 MPH, which is fairly slow. The R train makes every stop on Queens Blvd at an average speed of 18MPH during the same time period, which is more than twice as fast. And then think about all the buses that were on the Bx12 Select; even if you keep the local, that's still a lot of man-hours on buses that you could divert to other routes, boosting service on maybe the Bx1/2 or the Q44 or the Bx9, or wherever really needs more service. You save money too, because it's cheaper to operate light rail or subway for the same amount of capacity; BRT only works in Latin America because living standards are lower, so they don't have to pay drivers as much as we do. If you need two or three buses to match a light rail or ten of them to match a train, it adds up.

 

The subway is at track capacity - even if you were to route all the 7th Av trains to WPR, 7th Avenue trains have been overcrowded from quite some time; when I commuted downtown from Penn, getting passed up by two or three trains was a fairly  normal occurrence. Hong Kong is at track capacity, so they are building more. Tokyo has been at track capacity for decades, but they still build new infrastructure. Even old places build new subway. Paris is throwing 120B EUR at new subway, even though their city is literally an ossified museum with a negligible growth rate. London is both investing in its decrepit system and spending $20B+ on Crossrail and other London-area rail projects. What do we have to show for it? A system that is still suffering from 30 years of neglect, an overpriced hole in the ground for Long Island, two top-down station remodelings and five new subway stops. CBTC is too far away to do anything. There is no space for real BRT. We need to talk about solutions, and new subway, like it or not, is going to have to be a part of that discussion, because dismissing out of hand just because it costs too much is silly when our competitors in the global economy are spending way more than we are, and when we make 2/3s of the tax money in this state and our GDP is 8% of the world's biggest economy.

 

The fact that the can't even match service levels on their current lines is one reason why all of these proposals for new lines or extensions is just a joke and a pipeline that will probably not happen in our lifetimes.  Too costly and too much time to build these things out.  I say make use of the lines that currently already exist and call it a day.  They're implementing Metro-North in the Northeast Bronx.  Bronx residents can use that or deal with the subway or take the express buses that run in those areas.

 

It's hard to add service if the tracks are at capacity. Making use of the existing lines is not going to cut it if we are to continue to grow at the rate that we have been since the '90s. Look at this track diagram; red means hitting track and train capacity, yellow means hitting track capacity, and green means having room on both the tracks and the trains.

 

[JubaionBx12+SBS]

 

The point of providing more coverage is to ease more commutes by reducing overcrowding and accommodate future growth. In 2007 we were predicted to go from 8 million to 9 million by 2030. We hit 8.5 million last year, in only 8 years. Not only do we need to accommodate this ridership, but we need to make commutes shorter. Ridership is not a zero-sum game; sure, some ridership might be siphoned off, but if the line is overcrowded that is not a bad thing, and additional riders will use a route or make new trips on a route if it is faster or more convenient, and additional people will move in next to a new subway because those commutes are significantly shorter.

 

If the Bx12 took half the time it did tomorrow, you would see a very significant ridership increase today. Subways have this effect; light rail and BRT, when accommodated for properly, also allow for this. However, saying Bx12 Select is BRT is like saying Kraft Singles is a fine French cheese. BRT in Latin America has high ridership because it's high quality; dedicated lanes all the way, sometimes with dedicated passing lanes, subway-style stations, etc., not a glorified bus shelter, some red paint and a sticker slapped on the side of the bus. "Real BRT" is unworkable in most of the city; 207 St and Fordham Road are not wide enough, and you can't use the parkland on Pelham Parkway without replacing it. And in the narrowest sections, it makes more sense to go underground anyways.

 

Let's look at Bx12 ridership; 2015 ridership was 15.8 million riders a year. The route is 6.7 miles long. If you do the math, the Bx12 gathers about 6400 riders per mile, per day. This is more than every single light rail system in the United States except the Boston Green Line, which is actually four light rail lines feeding into a downtown subway. So even for a bus that isn't reliable and isn't particularly fast, it  has very heavy ridership. Imagine what ridership could be if you got it up to even local subway speeds. A Bx12 leaving Inwood-207 at 6:00PM is going to make it to Bay Plaza in 52 minutes. That's 7.8 MPH, which is fairly slow. The R train makes every stop on Queens Blvd at an average speed of 18MPH during the same time period, which is more than twice as fast. And then think about all the buses that were on the Bx12 Select; even if you keep the local, that's still a lot of man-hours on buses that you could divert to other routes, boosting service on maybe the Bx1/2 or the Q44 or the Bx9, or wherever really needs more service. You save money too, because it's cheaper to operate light rail or subway for the same amount of capacity; BRT only works in Latin America because living standards are lower, so they don't have to pay drivers as much as we do. If you need two or three buses to match a light rail or ten of them to match a train, it adds up.

 

The subway is at track capacity - even if you were to route all the 7th Av trains to WPR, 7th Avenue trains have been overcrowded from quite some time; when I commuted downtown from Penn, getting passed up by two or three trains was a fairly  normal occurrence. Hong Kong is at track capacity, so they are building more. Tokyo has been at track capacity for decades, but they still build new infrastructure. Even old places build new subway. Paris is throwing 120B EUR at new subway, even though their city is literally an ossified museum with a negligible growth rate. London is both investing in its decrepit system and spending $20B+ on Crossrail and other London-area rail projects. What do we have to show for it? A system that is still suffering from 30 years of neglect, an overpriced hole in the ground for Long Island, two top-down station remodelings and five new subway stops. CBTC is too far away to do anything. There is no space for real BRT. We need to talk about solutions, and new subway, like it or not, is going to have to be a part of that discussion, because dismissing out of hand just because it costs too much is silly when our competitors in the global economy are spending way more than we are, and when we make 2/3s of the tax money in this state and our GDP is 8% of the world's biggest economy.

 

 

It's hard to add service if the tracks are at capacity. Making use of the existing lines is not going to cut it if we are to continue to grow at the rate that we have been since the '90s. Look at this track diagram; red means hitting track and train capacity, yellow means hitting track capacity, and green means having room on both the tracks and the trains.

 

 

Bold: That's all fine and dandy but that figure includes the local which would be kept if any rail service were to run along the line. We need to be looking into SBS usage as a determination of how rail along Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd would fare and since SBS/local splits are not included in the ridership stats (they very well should) we don't know how many riders use the SBS. If we were to estimate using numbers posted in the one year update and possibly account for increases since we could say the SBS is used by around 35,000 riders a day. Also ridership per mile isn't the most accurate indication of crowding ability for a bus route because it doesn't take into account how stops are spaced along said mileage. A route with high ridership per mile and stops at basically every block (Manhattan crosstowns serve as an example) aren't as much of a concern as a route with sightly lower ridership per mile and stops more widely spaced out. 

 

Italics: Riders on the Bx12 aren't taking the bus from end to end. The speed of the full run is not what matters. It's the amount of time an individual rider is on the bus. I'm rarely on the bus longer than 35 minutes and that's including trips where I'm only cutting out Manhattan and the stops on Fordham west of the . As long as i'm not enduring a long trip on the bus I don't give a crap what the speed of the trip ended up being. Based on that the Bx12 works from a speed perspective. There's frequent rider turnover (for evidence of this look at stops like Pelham Bay and Pelham Pkwy/WPR) which suggests average trips aren't that long and riders are finding that bus service suits their needs. I don't see a huge surge in riders coming if rail service comes along because the only real savings would come from trips that don't have a high demand. 

 

Underline: There aren't that many buses used on the Bx12 Select. Based on the headways set during the school year, during the peak hour of morning travel 17 buses are scheduled westbound and 16 are scheduled eastbound. Since the run is less than an hour and the eastbound peak is half hour or so later than the westbound peak the maximum amount of buses put out on the route is 29. If rail service of any quality were to run along Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd you would not have reduced costs since subways run with 2 person crews (the motorman making more than a bus driver), and a light rail needs drivers to be trained on a new set of equipment since that would be unique to the city. Most of those 29 buses that are put out during the peak end up staying on the line afterwards since service does not get reduced between AM Rush and Midday as significantly as it does on many other routes. That is actually pretty efficient since you can avoid interlining runs with other routes to make service and keep full time drivers out in revenue service. The Bx12 is the most cost efficient bus route in the system so the argument about costs doesn't apply well in this case. 

 

If we have highly used bus service that is not cost efficient and experiences low rider turnover then rail service as an alternative needs to be looked into. Despite the high ridership of the Bx12 bus service along Fordham Road makes more financial sense than rail service. 

 

What we need to be looking into as a transit system is wait times. Overall wait times are just too long for buses and trains in this city compared to that of other world class cities. The average NYC subway route runs at a headway of slightly over 5 minutes during peak hours. Outside of the United States it is difficult to find a metro system where the lines average worse than a 3 minute headway during the peak. In a system where trains frequently get delayed that is a huge problem. Another problem is that the "uniqueness" of some routes and the desire for one seat rides in many cases forces riders into waits that exceed the 5 minute average. High wait times allows crowd build up on platforms which makes it tougher for trains to pick up without overcrowding setting in. We need to streamline the system so that we have more routes that on paper look like the or and thus bring the high service levels riders on those routes experience further beyond the Manhattan core. What I proposed with the and recently is part of that aim. Also for commuters like me waiting even a small amount of time for a bus or subway just seems unproductive and drives up the anxiety of commuting. I would say about 90% of my commutes I found most troublesome started with a wait time of 5 minutes or longer during the rush hour. The goal in any crowded bus or train network should be to put butts in seats or feet in the vehicle ASAP so that passenger flow can remain efficient at bus stops and plaforms. We need to get better at accomplishing that goal.

[bobtehpanda]

Bold: That's all fine and dandy but that figure includes the local which would be kept if any rail service were to run along the line. We need to be looking into SBS usage as a determination of how rail along Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd would fare and since SBS/local splits are not included in the ridership stats (they very well should) we don't know how many riders use the SBS. If we were to estimate using numbers posted in the one year update and possibly account for increases since we could say the SBS is used by around 35,000 riders a day. Also ridership per mile isn't the most accurate indication of crowding ability for a bus route because it doesn't take into account how stops are spaced along said mileage. A route with high ridership per mile and stops at basically every block (Manhattan crosstowns serve as an example) aren't as much of a concern as a route with sightly lower ridership per mile and stops more widely spaced out. 

 

Italics: Riders on the Bx12 aren't taking the bus from end to end. The speed of the full run is not what matters. It's the amount of time an individual rider is on the bus. I'm rarely on the bus longer than 35 minutes and that's including trips where I'm only cutting out Manhattan and the stops on Fordham west of the . As long as i'm not enduring a long trip on the bus I don't give a crap what the speed of the trip ended up being. Based on that the Bx12 works from a speed perspective. There's frequent rider turnover (for evidence of this look at stops like Pelham Bay and Pelham Pkwy/WPR) which suggests average trips aren't that long and riders are finding that bus service suits their needs. I don't see a huge surge in riders coming if rail service comes along because the only real savings would come from trips that don't have a high demand. 

 

Underline: There aren't that many buses used on the Bx12 Select. Based on the headways set during the school year, during the peak hour of morning travel 17 buses are scheduled westbound and 16 are scheduled eastbound. Since the run is less than an hour and the eastbound peak is half hour or so later than the westbound peak the maximum amount of buses put out on the route is 29. If rail service of any quality were to run along Pelham Pkwy/Fordham Rd you would not have reduced costs since subways run with 2 person crews (the motorman making more than a bus driver), and a light rail needs drivers to be trained on a new set of equipment since that would be unique to the city. Most of those 29 buses that are put out during the peak end up staying on the line afterwards since service does not get reduced between AM Rush and Midday as significantly as it does on many other routes. That is actually pretty efficient since you can avoid interlining runs with other routes to make service and keep full time drivers out in revenue service. The Bx12 is the most cost efficient bus route in the system so the argument about costs doesn't apply well in this case. 

 

If we have highly used bus service that is not cost efficient and experiences low rider turnover then rail service as an alternative needs to be looked into. Despite the high ridership of the Bx12 bus service along Fordham Road makes more financial sense than rail service. 

 

What we need to be looking into as a transit system is wait times. Overall wait times are just too long for buses and trains in this city compared to that of other world class cities. The average NYC subway route runs at a headway of slightly over 5 minutes during peak hours. Outside of the United States it is difficult to find a metro system where the lines average worse than a 3 minute headway during the peak. In a system where trains frequently get delayed that is a huge problem. Another problem is that the "uniqueness" of some routes and the desire for one seat rides in many cases forces riders into waits that exceed the 5 minute average. High wait times allows crowd build up on platforms which makes it tougher for trains to pick up without overcrowding setting in. We need to streamline the system so that we have more routes that on paper look like the or and thus bring the high service levels riders on those routes experience further beyond the Manhattan core. What I proposed with the and recently is part of that aim. Also for commuters like me waiting even a small amount of time for a bus or subway just seems unproductive and drives up the anxiety of commuting. I would say about 90% of my commutes I found most troublesome started with a wait time of 5 minutes or longer during the rush hour. The goal in any crowded bus or train network should be to put butts in seats or feet in the vehicle ASAP so that passenger flow can remain efficient at bus stops and plaforms. We need to get better at accomplishing that goal.

 

Bold: Even if you were to divide that ridership statistic in half (and I really doubt that ridership is split evenly between SBS and local, or in favor of the local), the Bx12 would still be the fourth or fifth busiest "light rail" system in the US even though it just uses buses. Rail, whether it is light rail or subway, does come with intrinsic capabilities that make it better for intra-city travel, like faster acceleration, and if you do end up speeding the trip significantly you will get a similarly significant increase in riders, and this is before we talk about development generation and such. Also, according to your logic, the metric would matter more to the Bx12 Select, since the stops are pretty widely spaced apart for a bus.

 

Italics: If speed increases by two or three times, that is still pretty significant for trips that don't take the entire route. If you spend 15 minutes on a bus, a doubling of speeds is going to save you 7 minutes, and a tripling of speeds is going to save you 10. 7 or 10 minutes of time saving in each direction is a pretty big deal when the average New York commute is 40 minutes long: that's shaving off anywhere from 15-25% of your commute right there. (To put this in the context of why we need to improve commute times, the average American commute is 20 minutes long.) Consistently, almost every rail opening that has occurred in the nation in the past 20 years has significantly boosted rail ridership over whatever previous bus ridership served the exact same corridor, and has also beaten ridership expectations set when the building of the rail was being planned. Induced demand theory works not only for highways, but for trains as well, both in the short and long term. And it doesn't just help people who take only the bus; it helps people who take the bus to the train, or the bus to another bus, thus improving more than just this one route.

 

Underline: One bus is a pretty big deal. 29 is a very big deal. If it takes a bus an hour to do its routes, 4 buses an hour in the peak direction is going to be a bus every fifteen minute. Adding a bus to that is a 25% increase in capacity, and a bus every twelve minutes. Adding two buses to thtat is a 50% increase in capacity and a bus every ten minutes. And we can provide that kind of peak capacity boost to multiple routes with 29 buses. The boost would be even more pronounced during the midday, since there are comparatively less buses running. Cost-efficient bus service is actually the best candidate for subway replacement, since that indicates that it generates enough ridership to plausibly justify rail service: who is going to spend billions of dollars on inefficient rail service? And rail is even more cost-efficient than bus service, so the route will only become more cost-efficient: if you were to get rid of MTAB and NYCT Bus tomorrow, the subway would make money.

 

The cost of running a bus for an hour is going to be a same regardless of ridership, and so is the cost of running a train or a tram for an hour. A bus carries 120 people at most. A light rail vehicle carries around 250 people, and a subway car carries roughly the same amount, so just think how many people a four, eight, or ten car train carries. Unless you are suggesting that light rail drivers earn twice as much, and motormen and T/Os earn about sixteen to twenty times the benefits and salary of a bus driver (hint: they don't), a train is going to be more cost-efficient than a bus, in terms of labor cost.

 

I'm not saying we shouldn't improve wait times. But that would require the MTA to get into a state of good repair in its rail system in the first place. Even with all the money the MTA wants to shovel into the system, and with the capital plan shortfall we have, we are not going to get there in the foreseeable future. And even if we did get there, most of the system is already at capacity. CBTC is promising, but it's not being rolled out fast enough, and it can't be rolled out any faster because Queens Blvd is the guinea pig for whether or not we can do it in a system as complex as ours. Streamlining also wouldn't be a good solution; if it was a good solution, the IRT/BMT/IND or the City would've done it many years ago. As it is the transfer stations are not big enough to handle that kind of transfer load, and reconstructing them to do so would be an extremely expensive endeavor. Look at 125 St on the Lex to see what happens when you concentrate a significant amount of transfers at a location that can't handle it; the stop is so congested that it actually reduces capacity on the Lex. If you were to isolate the 2 and the 4, 149 St-GC and Franklin Av in Brooklyn would reduce the capacity of the system due to overcrowded platforms, and you'd also make train service a lot less convenient for everyone involved. And even if you did do the core of the system is already at capacity anyways, so you're not actually providing more capacity for trains or people. So in the end it's not really a solution at all. 

[j4lambert]

After completing the first two phases of the Second Avenue Subway, it would be more logical to extend the Second Avenue Subway to the Bronx to fix this issue. The solution is to extend the T to the Bronx via a new fully-underground environment. The extension would run parallel to the IRT White Plains Road Line (2, 5) and the IND Concourse Line (B, D), crossing the IRT line at East 180th Street station. A new subway line between East 180th Street and 116th Street, served by the T, would relieve congestion on the 2 and the 5 in the Bronx.