news MTA Releases Culver Line Report, Proposes Viaduct Express Service

[CenSin]

Rather than insulting my job title, why don't you answer the damn question. HOW IS THIS GOING TO SAVE ANYONE 15 MINUTES, as the article claims???

Simple: the express trains along that section are covered by Geico. If it’s a lucky day, the train may even save everyone more than 15 minutes.

 

 

Jokes aside,

It takes 15~18 minutes to get from Church Avenue to Jay Street–MetroTech. Unless the train teleports between Church Avenue and Jay Street–MetroTech, you cannot possibly save 15 minutes on a trip that takes 15 minutes. Even when taking into account the getting in the way of the local, it shouldn’t save an extra 8 minutes over the maximum time gained by running express.

 

The Greenfield plotician (or whatever his name is) obviously doesn’t know how to measure time when he said that some people might save 15 minutes.

[GojiMet86]

Your job title really has nothing to do with the topic, but sure I'll answer the question.  Ride the train when it starts and then you'll see for yourself.  Seems simple enough, or do you only use the system for work purposes?

 

 

Tell that to the people who take the train at Carroll, Smith, 4th Ave, 7 Ave, 15th, and Fort Hamilton, who will have to wait more for their train. It is precisely THIS section that makes up the MAJORITY of the Culver line's ridership. How many minutes will THEY save then?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Tell that to the people who take the train at Carroll, Smith, 4th Ave, 7 Ave, 15th, and Fort Hamilton, when they will have to wait more for their train. How many minutes will they save then?

Yeah well someone has to lose in this ordeal since the doesn't want to add more service, which is what they should be doing, given the growth all along the train.

[GojiMet86]

The growth thar, according to this study, has been mainly at ....wait for...

 

THE section that makes up the MAJORITY of the Culver line's ridership.

 

Which is...

 

Carroll, Smith, 4th Ave, 7 Ave, 15th, and Fort Hamilton!

[Around the Horn]

Yup. This express skips all the stops that are growing on the line...

[Via Garibaldi 8]

The growth thar, according to this study, has been mainly at ....wait for...

 

THE section that makes up the MAJORITY of the Culver line's ridership.

 

Which is...

 

Carroll, Smith, 4th Ave, 7 Ave, 15th, and Fort Hamilton!

And for that you can blame the for not adding more service.  Just because they're not doing their part doesn't mean that these folks shouldn't get the express service that they've been requesting for years.  

[Around the Horn]

And for that you can blame the for not adding more service.  Just because they're not doing their part doesn't mean that these folks shouldn't get the express service that they've been requesting for years.  

To tie this in to the other thread, why should residents of southeast queens not get the subway service they are requesting, for years now?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

To tie this in to the other thread, why should residents of southeast queens not get the subway service they are requesting, for years now?

lol... Comparing oranges and apples... We've talking about express service, and you're taking about destroying peoples' homes for subway lines... Can't even begin to compare the two.

[Around the Horn]

lol... Comparing oranges and apples... We've talking about express service, and you're taking about destroying peoples' homes for subway lines... Can't even begin to compare the two.

I never said I would destroy people's homes.

 

There is a perfectly good ROW already running through there(the LIRR) which can either cede the enter ROW to the and move those trains to the St Albans branch or already has room for construction of additional tracks for the .

 

Bobtehpanda posted about this in the proposals thread:

[Via Garibaldi 8]

I never said I would destroy people's homes.

 

There is a perfectly good ROW already running through there(the LIRR) which can either cede the enter ROW to the and move those trains to the St Albans branch or already has room for construction of additional tracks for the .

 

Bobtehpanda posted about this in the proposals thread:

That's cute... So have the subway lines run along the same LIRR areas with stations that currently aren't used... lol P.S. Is this the same bobtehpanda that claimed that the LIRR stations were accessible enough?  If that's the case, you'd need to spend more resources re-routing more buses to the areas in question.  Additionally, it still leaves big swaths of Southeast Queens dependent on buses.

[LTA1992]

That's cute... So have the subway lines run along the same LIRR areas with stations that currently aren't used... lol P.S. Is this the same bobtehpanda that claimed that the LIRR stations were accessible enough?  If that's the case, you'd need to spend more resources re-routing more buses to the areas in question.  Additionally, it still leaves big swaths of Southeast Queens dependent on buses.

 

You're being dense. If the subway utilizes the LIRR ROW, then areas without subway service will now have an affordable mans of transit to the rest of the City. Rapid transit, that is.

[CenSin]

The growth thar, according to this study, has been mainly at ....wait for...

 

THE section that makes up the MAJORITY of the Culver line's ridership.

 

Which is...

 

Carroll, Smith, 4th Ave, 7 Ave, 15th, and Fort Hamilton!

I went to the MTA’s train timetable to get some average travel times for the going northbound.

 

Today’s Rush Hour Travel Time

24 minutes: local, 4 Avenue–9 Street to 34 Street–Herald Square

43 minutes: local, Kings Highway to 34 Street–Herald Square

55 minutes: local, Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue to 34 Street–Herald Square

 

Average Rush Hour Waiting Time For Train

2.5 minutes: 4 Avenue–9 Street

2.5 minutes: Kings Highway

5 minutes: Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue

 

Effective Average Rush Hour Travel Time

26.5 minutes: local, 4 Avenue–9 Street to 34 Street–Herald Square

45.5 minutes: local, Kings Highway to 34 Street–Herald Square

60 minutes: local, Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue to 34 Street–Herald Square

 

The MTA’s trials indicate a time saving of 6 to a little over 7 minutes when running express.

Estimated Rush Hour Travel Time When 50% Are Express

24 minutes: local, 4 Avenue–9 Street to 34 Street–Herald Square

37 minutes: express, Kings Highway to 34 Street–Herald Square

49 minutes: express, Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue to 34 Street–Herald Square

 

Average Rush Hour Waiting Time For Train When 50% Are Express

5 minutes: 4 Avenue–9 Street

2.5 minutes: Kings Highway

5 minutes: Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue

 

Effective Average Rush Hour Travel Time When 50% Are Express

29 minutes: local, 4 Avenue–9 Street to 34 Street–Herald Square

39.5 minutes: express, Kings Highway to 34 Street–Herald Square

54 minutes: express, Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue to 34 Street–Herald Square

 

Change In Average Rush Hour Travel Time When 50% Are Express

+2.5 minutes: local, 4 Avenue–9 Street to 34 Street–Herald Square

−6 minutes: express, Kings Highway to 34 Street–Herald Square

−6 minutes: express, Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue to 34 Street–Herald Square

 

 

Now I see no reason why these figures couldn’t extend to similar stations, so…

+2.5 minutes: Fort Hamilton Parkway, 15 Street–Prospect Park, 4 Avenue–9 Street, Smith–9 Streets, Carroll Street, Bergen Street

−6 minutes: Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, West 8 Street, Neptune Avenue, Avenue X, Avenue U, Kings Highway, Avenue P, Avenue N, Bay Parkway, Avenue I, 18 Avenue, Ditmas Avenue, Church Avenue

−3 minutes: 7 Avenue

 

The MTA’s report also presents a table of ridership figures for the rush hour. These represent the number of people that each station adds to a train during AM rush.

Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue: 450

West 8 Street: 140

Neptune Avenue: 220

Avenue X: 490

Avenue U: 350

Kings Highway: 580

Avenue P: 520

Avenue N: 540

Bay Parkway: 150

Avenue I: 180

18 Avenue: 380

Ditmas Avenue: 580

Church Avenue: 1,290

Fort Hamilton Parkway: 1,150

15 Street–Prospect Park: 1,220

7 Avenue: 1,650

4 Avenue–9 Street: 1,000

Smith–9 Streets: 260

Carroll Street: 1,300

Bergen Street: 1,550

 

What do we do with this data now? We multiply the number of people by the number of minutes gained or lost at the stations to get a total number of man-minutes gained or lost at each station. Do that, we we get this:

40170 man-minutes gained for all the express stops and the station south of Church Avenue

16200 man-minutes lost for all the local stops north of Church Avenue

 

That, I believe, is what the MTA has been trying to get at. Yes, the MTA is “taking service away from A to give to B.” There is no denial. But this is how the MTA is looking at it. And that is how the MTA made this figure:

 

At a glance, you can see that the benefits are modest but outweigh any negatives.

 

 

What’s not considered by my calculations:

1. With an extra TPH of 9 at the skipped local stations, passengers could get on to the relatively empty trains and transfer. They would not be losing the average 2.5 minutes in this scenario; the average loss would be even less.
2. The motivated riders who live in between an express and local station chooses to head to the express station to take advantage of the full 15 TPH service. That would skew numbers so that the man-minutes lost would be less, and the man-minutes gained would be more.
3. The MTA reports that where the serves areas that are also also served by the Sea Beach or Brighton Lines, the ridership may be lower because there is no express service. Were such a service to be in effect, ridership figures may go up for stations along the lower portion of the Culver Line. How it would compare to the local ridership north of Church Avenue is anyone’s guess; the MTA doesn’t try to estimate in the report.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

You're being dense. If the subway utilizes the LIRR ROW, then areas without subway service will now have an affordable mans of transit to the rest of the City. Rapid transit, that is.

Or the expense can be saved and just lower the LIRR fare slightly, though it's funny how areas in Northeast Queens that also don't have subways don't seem to complain about the LIRR fare, nor the stations not being accessible.  That solution would be a lot cheaper, esp. given the population density in those areas.  

[Interested Rider]

Quite honestly, i do not see where the ridership for the express service will come from either the Sea Beach or the Brighton Lines. There may have been some increase since this past January as the northbound platforms of the Sea Beach Line are closed at 86th Street, Avenue U and Kings Highway but east of Ocean Parkway, the passengers go to the Brighton Line.  This could be seen by the larger number of riders taking the buses west from the Brighton Line as compared with those taking the buses east of the F train. This will not change at all as the ones who want the express service are in the Trump Village and Warbasse housing, not particularly those passengers from approximately Avenue U to 18th Avenue as again the Ocean Parkway boundary influences ridership. 

The reality is that it is quite hard to convince people to change their riding habits especially when there are two services available on the Brighton Line  and when the Q returned to Broadway, the  service became more reliable.

I tend to agree with the MTA on this one (not with their conclusion) as they are just staying on the sidelines as the earliest it can go into effect is next summer or over a year from now. In the meantime, just watch the politicians fight over this and just have a good laugh for the silly season has just begun. For those who want more on this subject: Bay News May 20 26, 2016 pp 2,4  has both sides of Church Avenue and the political mouthpieces giving their views

[Fresh Pond]

And for that you can blame the for not adding more service. Just because they're not doing their part doesn't mean that these folks shouldn't get the express service that they've been requesting for years.

Queens Blvd says otherwise. You just can't pump more trains through there while it's already maxed out. In order to get more trains through there, you gotta cut service, and they themselves fought tooth and nail to get the service they have now.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Queens Blvd says otherwise. You just can't pump more trains through there while it's already maxed out. In order to get more trains through there, you gotta cut service, and they themselves fought tooth and nail to get the service they have now.

Then surely they can short-turn some trains somewhere along the route....

[bobtehpanda]

Then surely they can short-turn some trains somewhere along the route....

 

Within Manhattan, there is nowhere to send them to. The only kind of reasonable place to send them would be 96 St/2nd Av, but interlining should really be kept to a minimum, and a three-stop subway extension does not need all that service.

That's cute... So have the subway lines run along the same LIRR areas with stations that currently aren't used... lol P.S. Is this the same bobtehpanda that claimed that the LIRR stations were accessible enough?  If that's the case, you'd need to spend more resources re-routing more buses to the areas in question.  Additionally, it still leaves big swaths of Southeast Queens dependent on buses.

 

Just going to point out that basically none of those stations on that diagram currently exist. The only ones that do exist are at St. Albans, Laurelton, and Rosedale, so trains currently pass the bulk of the population anyways.

 

The point of extension is not to cover everything, but to make existing transportation more efficient. Taking a 5 minute bus ride to a station closer to you is a lot more efficient (from both the customer and MTA's perspective) than sending a bus 5 miles into the 6mph morass that is Jamaica Center.

[checkmatechamp13]

Tell that to the people who take the train at Carroll, Smith, 4th Ave, 7 Ave, 15th, and Fort Hamilton, who will have to wait more for their train. It is precisely THIS section that makes up the MAJORITY of the Culver line's ridership. How many minutes will THEY save then?

 

CenSin broke out the calculations, but I notice you ignore 7th Avenue and Church Avenue themselves. I mean, 7th Avenue is right in the heart of Park Slope (right by a major hospital too I might add). Church Avenue.....I mean Church & McDonald is the B35 local terminal and I'm sure there's enough transit ridership in general to justify ending there instead of ending at say, the station at East 18th Street.

 

Also remember that the transfer at Jay Street opened up, so passengers can take the straight there if they want the instead of being forced to transfer at 4th/9th (not to mention that the already covers most of 6th Avenue anyway). 

 

I mean, you say the majority, but a 48/52 split doesn't indicate much, especially when the 48% of riders who would benefit save more time compared to the amount of time lost by the 52% of riders who would lose out (and when you consider little things like people choosing 7th Avenue over PPW or 4th Avenue, or Church Avenue instead of Fort Hamilton Parkway, and the people who take the to 7th Avenue and then take whatever comes first, it probably brings it to a solid 50% or more who benefit). 

 

If that's the case, you'd need to spend more resources re-routing more buses to the areas in question. 

 

No, you'd actually be saving money because buses would just be able to terminate at the nearest (present-day) LIRR station instead of going all the way to Jamaica.

[CenSin]

Then surely they can short-turn some trains somewhere along the route....

The operative word here is surely. But I’m not so sure. And if there is a way, it may not even be worth the headaches (e.g.: merges at Lexington Avenue/63 Street).

[BreeddekalbL]

also aren't the areas of the stops getting skipped have a big weight in city politics? 

The operative word here is surely. But I’m not so sure. And if there is a way, it may not even be worth the headaches (e.g.: merges at Lexington Avenue/63 Street).

 

i don't think it's possible unless they use 2nd ave but that would fudge up frequencies brooklyn bound

[Via Garibaldi 8]

No, you'd actually be saving money because buses would just be able to terminate at the nearest (present-day) LIRR station instead of going all the way to Jamaica.

I disagree, since subways are more frequent, and would likely see more riders, thus requiring more buses. What you aren't thinking about about is subways bring more density. If you seriously think a subway out there wouldn't mean changes in housing, you're sadly mistaken.

[checkmatechamp13]

I disagree, since subways are more frequent, and would likely see more riders, thus requiring more buses. What you aren't thinking about about is subways bring more density. If you seriously think a subway out there wouldn't mean changes in housing, you're sadly mistaken.

 

If the subway brings increased density to the area around the subway stop, then chances are most of those new people will be taking......wait for it.....the subway. You could short-turns a bunch of buses on routes like the Q111/113 instead of running those buses all the way to Jamaica. You could probably reduce Q85 service by a decent amount, since it parallels the ROW. Maybe cut the Q4 back to the Guy R Brewer station or have it continue west along Linden Blvd. Even if areas like Cambria Heights suddenly saw huge increases in development as a result of a subway being a couple of miles closer (which is doubtful, since those areas are further from the Atlantic Branch than South Jamaica is from the right now), it would still be a lot cheaper to run those extra buses for a shorter distance compared to the present-day situation (because the overall number of buses and operators would be reduced).

[CenSin]

I mean, you say the majority, but a 48/52 split doesn't indicate much, especially when the 48% of riders who would benefit save more time compared to the amount of time lost by the 52% of riders who would lose out (and when you consider little things like people choosing 7th Avenue over PPW or 4th Avenue, or Church Avenue instead of Fort Hamilton Parkway, and the people who take the to 7th Avenue and then take whatever comes first, it probably brings it to a solid 50% or more who benefit).

If this were a communist country, we wouldn’t be having this lively discussion right now. The city would come in, change service so that everyone’s ride would take more or less the same amount of time. You live in Windsor Terrace? 33 minutes to Midtown. You live in Gravesend? 35 minutes to Midtown. You live in Coney Island? 49 minutes to Midtown! Then they would look at how long Coney Island folks take to get to Manhattan and raze a row of homes down to build a bypass to get that commute time down to 35 minutes. And then at the end of the day, they’d take all your wages as tax, give you a loaf of bread and some soup and preach to you the greatness of the country.

 

Anyhow, the way things stand, both sides of Church Avenue want what’s best for themselves, and currently those north of Church Avenue are served well at the expense of those south of Church Avenue.

 

40170 man-minutes gained for all the express stops and the station south of Church Avenue

16200 man-minutes lost for all the local stops north of Church Avenue

 

That, I believe, is what the MTA has been trying to get at. Yes, the MTA is “taking service away from A to give to B.” There is no denial. But this is how the MTA is looking at it. And that is how the MTA made this figure:

 

To reframe these numbers, currently, the folks at the local stations cost everyone else a grand total of 40,170 man-minutes per train full of people during AM rush. They, in turn, save 16,200 man-minutes. The commute for someone from Kings Highway is 20 minutes longer than for someone from 4 Avenue–9 Street when it could be a mere 11 minutes longer.

 

Most people get riled up about this service proposal being unfair because they only look at the head count and not what those heads represent. My head has 60 minutes on it. Yours coming out of a Carroll Gardens neighborhood may have only 25 minutes on it.

 

In fact, I just looked at the numbers from another angle; I looked at just the number of heads per station.

MTA Report*: 6,480 people at Bergen, Carroll, Smith, 4 Avenue, 15 Street, Fort Hamilton versus 7,520 people at all the other stations

2014 Ridership Report†‡: 53,849 people at Bergen, Carroll, Smith, 4 Avenue, 15 Street, Fort Hamilton versus 67,204 people at all the other stations

2010 Ridership Report‡: 64,724 people at Bergen, Carroll, Smith, 4 Avenue, 15 Street, Fort Hamilton versus 53,056 people at all the other stations

 

Looking at the 2014 ridership versus 2010, the ridership at Bergen, Carroll, Smith, 4 Avenue, 15 Street, Fort Hamilton grew by 1% versus 4% for all the other stations. So individual stations may have impressive numbers, but as a whole, the growth south of Church Avenue was greater. It also helps that 7 Avenue and Church Avenue serves the some of the highly populated areas in the affected neighborhoods anyway.

 

* The MTA report does an approximate count of the people getting on the train at each station for a train during AM rush.

† Ditmas Avenue and Avenue X were down in ridership numbers for 2015, so to the next most complete set of numbers were used.

‡ Of course, you should not look at these numbers as if they completely belong to the since some stations are shared and we do not know what portion of the ridership goes to the .

 

There’s also the future population growth along the line, and the MTA reports that the Gowanus, Red Hook, and Carroll Gardens are predicted to grow 50%~100%, 50%~100%, and over 100% respectively. Park Slope and Windsor Terrace will see a growth of 2%~5% and 5%~10% respectively. But most of the neighborhoods along McDonald Avenue (Avenue U to Church Avenue) will see a growth of 10%~20%. Coney Island will see a growth of over 100%. The lower portion of the Culver Line has much more potential for growth, and if these projections hold, the combined ridership growth there will out-pace the combined neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Windsor Terrace.

 

But even then, I doubt there will be an end to the fight for and against express service skipping those neighborhoods. Politicians don’t fight with numbers or facts:

Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

Source: http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

[GojiMet86]

Now see, these are the things that would sway me. An very hard solid argument backed by numbers and analysis, not someone making insults.

[checkmatechamp13]

There’s also the future population growth along the line, and the MTA reports that the Gowanus, Red Hook, and Carroll Gardens are predicted to grow 50%~100%, 50%~100%, and over 100% respectively. Park Slope and Windsor Terrace will see a growth of 2%~5% and 5%~10% respectively. But most of the neighborhoods along McDonald Avenue (Avenue U to Church Avenue) will see a growth of 10%~20%. Coney Island will see a growth of over 100%. The lower portion of the Culver Line has much more potential for growth, and if these projections hold, the combined ridership growth there will out-pace the combined neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Windsor Terrace.

 

Hold on, which page are you getting those figures from, because those seem super-high. You're saying the population of Carroll Gardens will double over the course of how long?