Service Changes: NYC Transit Committee Notification: A-Division Subway Schedule Changes Spring 2017

[bobtehpanda]

Why not change the service pattern to run the to New Lots, to Utica and the to Flatbush full-time?

 

If you did this Franklin Av would become a major transfer point gumming up the whole thing.

Except we aren't. We are in a country where capitalism rules and people will do their damnedest to get as much money as possible as someone. We are in a country that inflated ITS OWN costs because we feel that wasting Billions on war is a good thing. And on that note, pumping so much money into the system that it's devalued itself.

 

We LIVE in a city where the amount of crap above and below the streets needs to be shored and/or relocated so something can be built underground which can also inflate costs. We LIVE in a city where our politicians could give two shits about the mismanagement of their own agency causing some of these inflated costs, and then has the audacity to complain about it. The riding public ain't any better on that issue either.

 

The wars are irrelevant, and over. Los Angeles builds through tar fields, Paris builds through catacombs full of dead people, Amsterdam is below sea level, Tokyo is literally an earthquake zone, Rome is built on millennia of cities, Berlin occasionally finds unexploded bombs underground. Yet somehow a city with broad avenues and favorable geology (hard rock is easier to tunnel through than soft clay) is the most expensive place to build a subway on Earth. If you want crap to change, get off your behind and start advocating somewhere that isn't an internet forum.

[RailRunRob]

If you did this Franklin Av would become a major transfer point gumming up the whole thing.

 

The wars are irrelevant, and over. Los Angeles builds through tar fields, Paris builds through catacombs full of dead people, Amsterdam is below sea level, Tokyo is literally an earthquake zone, Rome is built on millennia of cities, Berlin occasionally finds unexploded bombs underground. Yet somehow a city with broad avenues and favorable geology (hard rock is easier to tunnel through than soft clay) is the most expensive place to build a subway on Earth. If you want crap to change, get off your behind and start advocating somewhere that isn't an internet forum.

I agree, New York's transit block and issues are no questions man-made. As you pointed out Science, Technology, Engineering and human ingenuity say something completely different.  In regards to Franklin Ave, you don't see the increased fluidity and headway's mitigating overflow at that station? I don't have the data that could be a factor.

[Around the Horn]

That's a good point. Is there some way we could crunch the numbers or simulate it to find out?

[RailRunRob]

That's a good point. Is there some way we could crunch the numbers or simulate it to find out?

Yep we can.. Hey you know what being your getting into planning you should start playing with Carto DB. Maybe your already using it just thought I might throw that out there. If not should be some video's on youtube to start learning.

 

https://carto.com/

 

You can signup with the MTA to tap into there API's for scheduling that's what all the 3rd party apps use. Should be able to get a key here.

 

http://datamine.mta.info/

 

Here are some other data feeds you may want to play with.

 

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/datafeeds.shtml

 

I'll have some time later this week ill try to see what I can put together I'll have to alter to the current dataset to stimulate more trains, terminal shifts and maybe shorter travel time between stations that's the hard part the simulation itself is easy.  The other dimension would be ridership numbers that's another layer as well. We'd have to not only create a view of the conveyor belt but how the weight shifts with the new headways. That's our point of interest!  I'm going to have to dig for that im sure.

[MassTransitHonchkrow]

I ride the and it is ridiculous.  The service is a separate issue from the and and needed its own service improvements.  The fact that they can't add more service will just negate any benefits of adding more service, so yes it is ridiculous because they are already at track capacity for the . I already let several trains go before I can get on one as it is...

However if they don't hop on these repairs then these issues will worsen. Throughout the year a handful of rain storms have caused more delays and exposes wiring still frayed by SSS. Besides, with service not in Brooklyn those extra trains are now free to do other things, like boosting service on the which I believe will have extended service in Brooklyn when these changes occur.

[bobtehpanda]

In regards to Franklin Ave, you don't see the increased fluidity and headway's mitigating overflow at that station? I don't have the data that could be a factor.

 

Well, the and are actually blocked from running more trains due to dwell times at 125 St because of all the transfers. Separating the two is going to be like separating the Northern Line; the platforms are simply not equipped to do it, and the dwell times will hold trains up.

However if they don't hop on these repairs then these issues will worsen. Throughout the year a handful of rain storms have caused more delays and exposes wiring still frayed by SSS. Besides, with service not in Brooklyn those extra trains are now free to do other things, like boosting service on the which I believe will have extended service in Brooklyn when these changes occur.

 

See above.

[MassTransitHonchkrow]

Well, the and are actually blocked from running more trains due to dwell times at 125 St because of all the transfers. Separating the two is going to be like separating the Northern Line; the platforms are simply not equipped to do it, and the dwell times will hold trains up.

 

See above.

makes sense. I think platform controllers are needed on weekends as many of the problems are rider caused. People know trains are behind one another but they don't care. That self serving mindset in a public enterprise has a ripple effect.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

However if they don't hop on these repairs then these issues will worsen. Throughout the year a handful of rain storms have caused more delays and exposes wiring still frayed by SSS. Besides, with service not in Brooklyn those extra trains are now free to do other things, like boosting service on the which I believe will have extended service in Brooklyn when these changes occur.

We shall see, but what really concerns me is the ongoing delays on a daily basis during rush hour on these lines.  They are clearly overwhelmed with the crowds during the rush and that means folks can't relay on the subway to get anywhere in a reason amount of time on a consistent basis.  I now give myself an hour to get from Midtown to the Upper West Side at night for what should be a 20 minute commute at the most.  

[RailRunRob]

Well, the and are actually blocked from running more trains due to dwell times at 125 St because of all the transfers. Separating the two is going to be like separating the Northern Line; the platforms are simply not equipped to do it, and the dwell times will hold trains up.

 

It's quite possible that could happen. But then I'd have to measure that 20% extra dwell @ Frankin to the major ripple effects in delays and breakdowns that might happen 60% less with optimizing the junction extra credit might be the 10-15% increase in service on the Westside as well on top of that 60%. Now we'd have to figure out the value of those percentages. Id take 20% of a billion vs 60% of a million  It's multidimensional.  You're going to lose something either way but how do you mitigate loss? Hurricane or Tornado you have to pick.

[LTA1992]

If you did this Franklin Av would become a major transfer point gumming up the whole thing.

 

The wars are irrelevant, and over. Los Angeles builds through tar fields, Paris builds through catacombs full of dead people, Amsterdam is below sea level, Tokyo is literally an earthquake zone, Rome is built on millennia of cities, Berlin occasionally finds unexploded bombs underground. Yet somehow a city with broad avenues and favorable geology (hard rock is easier to tunnel through than soft clay) is the most expensive place to build a subway on Earth. If you want crap to change, get off your behind and start advocating somewhere that isn't an internet forum.

Wars are totally relevant because they use up materials. When you have less of something, it will cost more. Ergo, inflation. And we've already seen that world events have a LARGE impact on what can be done here. I won't bother listing because we should all know what projects I'm alluding to. It's the same reason why things cost so much more now. Why in my short 23 years and 364 days of life, I've seen a dollar that used to get me enough snacks to last me a bit reduced to a bill that can barely get me a half filled bag of chips. And thanks to that, homelessness has doubled in many places across the country. In this city alone, the shelters can only accommodate half of the total population, myself included. It's why jobs were laying off people left and right a few years back. There IS a domino effect whether you want to see it or not, but at that point, it's just willful ignorance. Which in itself, is a part of the problem.

 

Secondly, Los Angeles did not build through any tar pits. The Purple Line doesn't even run that far yet. The Westside Extension will pass near, not through, the LaBrea Tar Pits. Burial grounds exist everywhere. NYC ha built through them time and time again. While I will agree that it is a feat to build through what were originally Limestone quarries in the 1890s, those tunnels actually stand on stilts. They required larger trenches than normal to build such supports. Today, that wouldn't even be too much of a problem. If anything, the preservation of history would be the biggest deterrent to such construction.

 

Nice try with Amsterdam, but only three and a half kilometers of that entire system is underground and that's in the city center.

 

Tokyo can dish out project after project because the government has more authority as opposed to ours. Japan can also manufacture most things it needs for construction within it's borders and the high usage of rail transit through the country an in the cities creates a demand that would bring down prices. And the fact that every structure built within that country needs to withstand earthquakes to some degree, would not drive up prices. Because if it did, then it would be cost prohibitive to build anything.

 

A Millennia of cities aren't going to be an impediment to construction. The only times there is actual difficulty, is building the stairways and shafts needed to get from the surface to the bored tunnels. Rome knows whats under its streets and takes measures to avoid them. While that's not always possible, the only real delays to construction there are archaeological finds. But that would happen anywhere and is thus not exclusive to Rome.

 

Lastly, the notion that hard rock is easier to tunnel through than clay is false. While both has their own issues, my research into TBMs has found that the most ideal ground character for TBM boring is, in fact, clay. Some of the best being London Clay. Manhattan Schist is some of the hardest bedrock in the world. It's also not uniform as it does rot. Accidents are more likely when tunneling through this rock. It was true when the first subways were built and it's just as true today. The tunnel boring under Second Avenue encountered a lot of issues due to the varied character of this metamorphic rock.

 

And I'm already taking small steps right now for change. And believe it or not (and your likely not since all you seem to do is try to bring others down) IS HERE. Passing information as it is learned. Finding solutions that can THEN, be spread to others outside of here. You education the masses, I'm educating the masses. It starts with us. The people who have knowledge of the situation. Just a couple Sundays back, I pretty much gave a lecture on transit issues to a few people in the signal room at the Transit Museum. Introduced these pretty engaged individuals to new information and even passed along some resources that they could look at to find more answers. Finishing with the fact that there was a time where people of this city would demand their needs and most of the time, it was done. And they agreed that people these days don't and we then talked about how that could be changed. Had to have been an hour. Who knows what they did with that but guess what? That's six more people who are slightly more educated in the transit problem, and they have they own idea to what could be done. We may even meet the right person who will know how to bring said solutions to light. Part of the very reason I'm learning film is to get these solutions onto a medium that most people can digest. Visual media. I have ll the tools that I need. Technology, as well as people in high places that can get my creations where they need to be. I just need the skill. 

 

But like with any movement and advocacy, it begins with word of mouth and the sharing of ideas. All of us here are starting that process.

 

Remember that.

[LTA1992]

Accidental double post.

[bobtehpanda]

Wars are totally relevant because they use up materials. When you have less of something, it will cost more. Ergo, inflation. And we've already seen that world events have a LARGE impact on what can be done here. I won't bother listing because we should all know what projects I'm alluding to. It's the same reason why things cost so much more now. Why in my short 23 years and 364 days of life, I've seen a dollar that used to get me enough snacks to last me a bit reduced to a bill that can barely get me a half filled bag of chips. And thanks to that, homelessness has doubled in many places across the country. In this city alone, the shelters can only accommodate half of the total population, myself included. It's why jobs were laying off people left and right a few years back. There IS a domino effect whether you want to see it or not, but at that point, it's just willful ignorance. Which in itself, is a part of the problem.

 

Secondly, Los Angeles did not build through any tar pits. The Purple Line doesn't even run that far yet. The Westside Extension will pass near, not through, the LaBrea Tar Pits. Burial grounds exist everywhere. NYC ha built through them time and time again. While I will agree that it is a feat to build through what were originally Limestone quarries in the 1890s, those tunnels actually stand on stilts. They required larger trenches than normal to build such supports. Today, that wouldn't even be too much of a problem. If anything, the preservation of history would be the biggest deterrent to such construction.

 

Nice try with Amsterdam, but only three and a half kilometers of that entire system is underground and that's in the city center.

 

Tokyo can dish out project after project because the government has more authority as opposed to ours. Japan can also manufacture most things it needs for construction within it's borders and the high usage of rail transit through the country an in the cities creates a demand that would bring down prices. And the fact that every structure built within that country needs to withstand earthquakes to some degree, would not drive up prices. Because if it did, then it would be cost prohibitive to build anything.

 

A Millennia of cities aren't going to be an impediment to construction. The only times there is actual difficulty, is building the stairways and shafts needed to get from the surface to the bored tunnels. Rome knows whats under its streets and takes measures to avoid them. While that's not always possible, the only real delays to construction there are archaeological finds. But that would happen anywhere and is thus not exclusive to Rome.

 

Lastly, the notion that hard rock is easier to tunnel through than clay is false. While both has their own issues, my research into TBMs has found that the most ideal ground character for TBM boring is, in fact, clay. Some of the best being London Clay. Manhattan Schist is some of the hardest bedrock in the world. It's also not uniform as it does rot. Accidents are more likely when tunneling through this rock. It was true when the first subways were built and it's just as true today. The tunnel boring under Second Avenue encountered a lot of issues due to the varied character of this metamorphic rock.

 

And I'm already taking small steps right now for change. And believe it or not (and your likely not since all you seem to do is try to bring others down) IS HERE. Passing information as it is learned. Finding solutions that can THEN, be spread to others outside of here. You education the masses, I'm educating the masses. It starts with us. The people who have knowledge of the situation. Just a couple Sundays back, I pretty much gave a lecture on transit issues to a few people in the signal room at the Transit Museum. Introduced these pretty engaged individuals to new information and even passed along some resources that they could look at to find more answers. Finishing with the fact that there was a time where people of this city would demand their needs and most of the time, it was done. And they agreed that people these days don't and we then talked about how that could be changed. Had to have been an hour. Who knows what they did with that but guess what? That's six more people who are slightly more educated in the transit problem, and they have they own idea to what could be done. We may even meet the right person who will know how to bring said solutions to light. Part of the very reason I'm learning film is to get these solutions onto a medium that most people can digest. Visual media. I have ll the tools that I need. Technology, as well as people in high places that can get my creations where they need to be. I just need the skill. 

 

But like with any movement and advocacy, it begins with word of mouth and the sharing of ideas. All of us here are starting that process.

 

Remember that.

 

The Iraq and Afghan Wars are not attributed to driving up world commodity prices; if you told any analyst that they would laugh in your face. WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War all involved massive buildups and actual commodities usage than the last two wars, which is why those wars were sufficient to derail projects, but we didn't see large-scale work stoppages on projects in the US during that time period. High modern American costs are also in the context of PPP dollars; given that $1 in 1990 is now approximately $1.88 today, there is no logical explanation as to why the SAS is $1.7B/km when Paris, not exactly a bastion of free trade or a city with easy geological conditions, had a per mile cost of less than $300M/km.

 

Los Angeles may not literally be digging through the La Brea Tar Pits under Hancock Park, but Hancock Park is right next door to Wilshire/La Brea station, they are essentially digging into the same geological formations and running into archaeological finds of all sorts. They are also in the same country, so they are subject to the same inflation that we are. To put this in perspective, SAS Phase II somehow already needs $5-6B before rigorous cost estimates, even though all the tunnels except for a short stretch north of 116 St exist already. It is very rare that quoted prices get lower for a metro area project once someone spits out a number.

 

As far as Amsterdam goes, I am talking about Amsterdam's North South line project, which at $400M/km is a bad project for the wealthy Dutch. That line is mostly underground.

 

Archaeological finds are always expensive to deal with; because Rome rests entirely on top of a giant archaeological find, you can't avoid stuff of historical importance. Line C, originally projected to be finished in 2000, is still not completed yet due to the difficulty with archaeological finds, and yet it is still somehow cheaper. 

 

As far as change goes, I put my money where my mouth is. I donate to groups that I think will further the cause (Rider's Alliance), I vote for candidates who will best represent my interests at every level when I can have them, etc. I may not be available in person because I am at uni, but I do what I can.

It's quite possible that could happen. But then I'd have to measure that 20% extra dwell @ Frankin to the major ripple effects in delays and breakdowns that might happen 60% less with optimizing the junction extra credit might be the 10-15% increase in service on the Westside as well on top of that 60%. Now we'd have to figure out the value of those percentages. Id take 20% of a billion vs 60% of a million  It's multidimensional.  You're going to lose something either way but how do you mitigate loss? Hurricane or Tornado you have to pick.

 

The main problem is that unlike Camden Town, where the platforms are not immediately next to each other so you can just build more capacity in between the platforms, the layout of Franklin Avenue is fixed. Making the layout accommodate the transfers from separating lines like that would be far more expensive than just building the flying junction and calling it a day,

[Trainmaster5]

The system, as constructed, was set up with Franklin Avenue as a major transfer point. I don't remember if there are any old pictures of the station online but the station had dispatchers located at the north and south ends of the direction of travel. Furthermore, the tower which controlled both north and southbound service was connected by line speaker and was located south of the station at Nostrand Junction. Until the mid-'80s the basic pattern was a Lex Express to Utica and a 7th Ave train to New Lots while the Nostrand line had Lex and the 7th Avenue service. This was the basic rush hour service plan because at other times there was no express train service south of Atlantic. Back then the ran weekend express service to Utica Avenue until the last left Flatbush Avenue n/b and the service began running to Flatbush instead. What I'm trying to get across in my long-winded explanation is that Franklin Avenue was designed as the major transfer point for the Brooklyn IRT and as an out of system transfer point to the Franklin-Brighton BMT line Botanic Garden station. The connecting staircase/passageway was built into the IRT station. To sum it all up the station was built to handle the east-west side transfers more so than Nevins, or Atlantic during peak hours while providing a transfer point for riders traveling to/from or between Flatbush and Crown Heights, Brownsville, or East New York. Now why the Eastern Parkway Line was constructed the way it was is another question but the Frankin Avenue station's layout is a direct result of that. Carry on.

[RailRunRob]

 

The main problem is that unlike Camden Town, where the platforms are not immediately next to each other so you can just build more capacity in between the platforms, the layout of Franklin Avenue is fixed. Making the layout accommodate the transfers from separating lines like that would be far more expensive than just building the flying junction and calling it a day,

 Yep, I'm familiar with the Northern line Camden Town has like 4 platforms so I get what you're saying with widening width kind of like the Lower lower of 145th in a basic sense lack of a 4th track makes the platform wider on the northbound side.. I think my thinking is in line with TM5. I'm not understanding the difference between a Franklin and Grand Central or Times Square are the dimensions that different? Do you think you'd see that level of crowds that the platform would have major alterations like that?  Rogers major reconfigure is going to be a hard one.

[Caelestor]

 Yep, I'm familiar with the Northern line Camden Town has like 4 platforms so I get what you're saying with widening width kind of like the Lower lower of 145th in a basic sense lack of a 4th track makes the platform wider on the northbound side.. I think my thinking is in line with TM5. I'm not understanding the difference between a Franklin and Grand Central or Times Square are the dimensions that different? Do you think you'd see that level of crowds that the platform would have major alterations like that?  Rogers major reconfigure is going to be a hard one.

 

For some perspective, each year Camden Town serves 20+ million passengers, Broadway - 96 St serves 13 million passengers, Lex Ave - 125 St serves 10 million passengers, and Franklin Ave serves 5 million passengers. I think Franklin Ave can handle any increased transfer loads fairly easily.

[2Line1291]

Comparing to the northern halves of the lines and the flexibility of coverage in the Bronx, the problem with the Brooklyn IRT is there's a lack of good terminals, yards and no flexibility at all if ish hit the fans. It's just Nostrand Ave and New Lots vs. in the Bronx you have Dyre Ave, White Plains Rd and Jerome Av. A Utica Ave Line to Kings Plaza with the serving the line would remedy Rogers Junction bottleneck by shifting the cross-merging to Utica Ave to an lesser extent where the is merging in front of the instead of Rogers Junction where the is merging in front of the trains. Now this way the would to go New Lots and the delay free on Flatbush.

[RailRunRob]

Comparing to the northern halves of the lines and the flexibility of coverage in the Bronx, the problem with the Brooklyn IRT is there's a lack of good terminals, yards and no flexibility at all if ish hit the fans. It's just Nostrand Ave and New Lots vs. in the Bronx you have Dyre Ave, White Plains Rd and Jerome Av. A Utica Ave Line to Kings Plaza with the serving the line would remedy Rogers Junction bottleneck by shifting the cross-merging to Utica Ave to an lesser extent where the is merging in front of the instead of Rogers Junction where the is merging in front of the trains. Now this way the would to go New Lots and the delay free on Flatbush.

Yep, we talked about that a few months ago on another thread here's the visuals from that for the most part same idea.

[RailRunRob]

For some perspective, each year Camden Town serves 20+ million passengers, Broadway - 96 St serves 13 million passengers, Lex Ave - 125 St serves 10 million passengers, and Franklin Ave serves 5 million passengers. I think Franklin Ave can handle any increased transfer loads fairly easily.

Quite the perspective if 96th is handling 13 Million I can't see Franklin at the extreme do more than double that 5 with transfers what the ridership on the Nostrand branch daily? 

[2Line1291]

Yep, we talked about that a few months ago on another thread here's the visuals from that for the most part same idea.

YES!!!!.... this is exactly what I'm talking about

[Around the Horn]

Yep we can.. Hey you know what being your getting into planning you should start playing with Carto DB. Maybe your already using it just thought I might throw that out there. If not should be some video's on youtube to start learning.

 

https://carto.com/

 

You can signup with the MTA to tap into there API's for scheduling that's what all the 3rd party apps use. Should be able to get a key here.

 

http://datamine.mta.info/

 

Here are some other data feeds you may want to play with.

 

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/datafeeds.shtml

 

I'll have some time later this week ill try to see what I can put together I'll have to alter to the current dataset to stimulate more trains, terminal shifts and maybe shorter travel time between stations that's the hard part the simulation itself is easy.  The other dimension would be ridership numbers that's another layer as well. We'd have to not only create a view of the conveyor belt but how the weight shifts with the new headways. That's our point of interest!  I'm going to have to dig for that im sure.

 

Thanks for the links!

[RailRunRob]

Thanks for the links!

Not a problem my pleasure.

[JubaionBx12+SBS]

For some perspective, each year Camden Town serves 20+ million passengers, Broadway - 96 St serves 13 million passengers, Lex Ave - 125 St serves 10 million passengers, and Franklin Ave serves 5 million passengers. I think Franklin Ave can handle any increased transfer loads fairly easily.

London Underground cites entry and exit numbers when providing ridership totals so a commuter exiting a station in the morning and entering it in the afternoon is counted twice. Such is not the case in NYC so the numbers are not directly comparable. Also in both systems there is no way to directly account for the added passenger volume on platforms and mezzanines due to people using a station to transfer between lines. 

 

For example at Lexington Av/53 Street somewhere between 70-75 thousand entries are recorded each day. However, the majority of the commuting demand for the station is due to the transfer between the and lines. So that 75,000 severely underestimates how busy of a station Lex-53 is and also gives no hint as to the transfer penalty that exists between the and lines given how slow it can be to walk along that crowded mezzanine.