Severe Overcrowding at Grand Central

[VIP]

9 hours ago, Deucey said:

Except the trains are 30-some odd years old...

Their former 142A’s looked 30yrs old. And ran like they were 25 years old.

[Calvin]

11 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Wait, the has NO R142A's left!?! What happened to the 4 remaining sets that were on there?

There's only 1 at Westchester but unknown to either be in service or to be moved to the  . And the 4 remaining sets were transferred over to Jerome Av Yard. 

 

The is scrambled through timing: one train will arrive at a station 5 minutes away, then with a 6 minute to 10 minute gap later on. 

 * Also, the did relieve crowding only between 59 St until 96 St. With the using only R62As, the space isn't that much like it was before with R62As and a mix of R142As. There's also a pattern that trains have to depart after the closing doors announcement but with more passengers holding car doors to squeeze in, it's an additional 5 minutes+ before it's a sign knowing it's "good to go". 

*If a train is delayed, then the platforms on one of the stations will be filled up and it'll be a chance to either you can fit on board or have to wait as many trains till there's enough space. 

 

- In oberservation at Grand Central, it's very busy but, at least, there's another entrance by 42 St. 

[Calvin]

15 hours ago, <6>PelhamExp said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that service on the  line was reduced after the  was extended to 96th Street. I believe they used to run every 2-4 minutes and now they are "scheduled to run" every 3-5 minutes. In addition, the  lost its remaining R142As to the  line and I am not sure if they received any additional R62As from the  or  to compensate for that loss.

I do believe, however, that the swap of car fleet that occurred between Westchester and Corona Yards in part, has affected service on the . 

2456-2475 was the given sets from this swap and 2146-2150. 

 

But, technically, the isn't like before where it'll have spares but after the swap occurred, there's no leftovers during the rush.  

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Below is the response that I received to my original complaint:

Quote

Original Complaint:

To Whom It May Concern:

There has been an alarming trend over the last few weeks. At night from about 18:20 until the end of the rush, the 6 train service has been abysmal. According to the schedule on the MTA website, there should be a 6 train roughly every 3-5 minutes, and we have not been getting that level of frequency. There are not enough 6 trains to keep up with the loads that the 4 and 5 trains dump onto the platform at Grand Central, and the crowding has become so bad that I've been seeing workers blocking certain staircases to the platforms. We need more 6 service. As it stands sometimes we only get one 6 train while two 4 trains and two 5 trains may come in the same time frame and the service is not acceptable. Last night I was late for a meeting on the Upper East Side because I could not get on a 6 train despite two of them coming. I had to take an express train to 86th street and backtrack to my destination. What has been noticeable of late is that the delays on the 6 line have been horrendous, and sometimes we've had to wait almost 10 minutes during rush hour for one 6 train to come and then we can't even get on. Ever since the 6 train lost its newer cars to the 7 line, service has gone down the toilet and the MTA needs to fix it and fast.

 

Quote

Response:

Response By Email (Pamela R.) (12/18/2017 04:13 PM)

Thank you for contacting us.

This is to acknowledge your email to MTA New York City Transit.                                                                                                                                                           

The MTA is committed to providing safe, courteous, reliable, and accessible service.

Please be assured that all comments, suggestions, compliments and complaints we receive from our customers are forwarded to the appropriate managerial personnel for review and any necessary action.    

We encourage you to e-mail us at www.mta.info where you can send your comments and concerns via the “Customer Self Service” link. We look forward to serving you better now and in the future.  Please note your reference number above.

Thank you for contacting us.

Pamela Richardson

Customer Correspondence

I have to take the  train this week, so we'll see if anything changes.  If it doesn't, my next step is start writing elected officials to ensure that the  is meeting the frequency of service that it claims is supposed to exist.

On 12/16/2017 at 3:02 AM, Calvin said:

There's only 1 at Westchester but unknown to either be in service or to be moved to the  . And the 4 remaining sets were transferred over to Jerome Av Yard. 

 

The is scrambled through timing: one train will arrive at a station 5 minutes away, then with a 6 minute to 10 minute gap later on. 

 * Also, the did relieve crowding only between 59 St until 96 St. With the using only R62As, the space isn't that much like it was before with R62As and a mix of R142As. There's also a pattern that trains have to depart after the closing doors announcement but with more passengers holding car doors to squeeze in, it's an additional 5 minutes+ before it's a sign knowing it's "good to go". 

*If a train is delayed, then the platforms on one of the stations will be filled up and it'll be a chance to either you can fit on board or have to wait as many trains till there's enough space. 

 

- In oberservation at Grand Central, it's very busy but, at least, there's another entrance by 42 St. 

Well that's a convenient excuse, but they simply aren't providing the level of trains that they claim they are, and that's my problem.  If they can't make service, then they need to figure something out because as it stands even if they were using R142s, the overcrowding would still exist.   I mean we're talking about a small difference in space, but if you're only getting say two trains every 10 minutes (I'm being generous with this because sometimes it's more like one train in that time frame) when there should be three, well that means at least an entire train load of people have to squeeze onto whatever comes, and given the long waits in between trains, good luck getting on one of them.

[Lance]

You're better off just forwarding this to someone else. It's obvious they sent you a form letter and have no intention of actually fixing this problem.

To add on to this discussion, I've done a bit of research on the issue and it turns out, service has been reduced. This time a year ago, the required 400 cars or 40 trains to meet service demands. As of the most recent car assignments (5 November), that requirement has dropped down to 350 cars or 35 trains for rush hour service. Conversely, both the  and have been increased by two train sets, and now total up to 36 trains on each line. I cannot answer why this has been done, but it makes no sense that this would be the result of the extension last January. As @6 Lexington Ave stated, both the and serve wildly different sets of riders.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

22 minutes ago, Lance said:

You're better off just forwarding this to someone else. It's obvious they sent you a form letter and have no intention of actually fixing this problem.

To add on to this discussion, I've done a bit of research on the issue and it turns out, service has been reduced. This time a year ago, the required 400 cars or 40 trains to meet service demands. As of the most recent car assignments (5 November), that requirement has dropped down to 350 cars or 35 trains for rush hour service. Conversely, both the  and have been increased by two train sets, and now total up to 36 trains on each line. I cannot answer why this has been done, but it makes no sense that this would be the result of the extension last January. As @6 Lexington Ave stated, both the and serve wildly different sets of riders.

I've gotten these types of responses before and the problem was actually resolved, so I'm going to wait and see how things go before doing anything else.  When you say service was reduced, you mean that the  had an unofficial cut?

[Lance]

I mean there are less trains running on the line. Someone here reported that the most recent schedule has trains arriving every 3-5 minutes, which is a reduction from the previous 2-4 minutes riders have become used to over the years. I will have to check the archives to confirm, but even without those, there is no other way to slice this. It does look like an unofficial service cut. The and have seen a slight increase in service as it pertains to the car assignments at the expense of the  line.

[MysteriousBtrain]

1 hour ago, Lance said:

As of the most recent car assignments (5 November), that requirement has dropped down to 350 cars or 35 trains for rush hour service.

I'm guessing this is not on the JoeKorner site? I think there was a list of archives posted somewhere but I forgot where.

 

Either way, the is indeed getting worse and if the cuts are official, then it is definitely is stupid because nowadays the only trains from the Bronx that actually have space to squeeze on are the morning short-turns to 3 Av.

[QM1to6Ave]

There was an NY Times article recently where they counted the number of trains in an hour and the numbers didn't lie, there were a lot fewer trains running on the  than were scheduled. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

6 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:

There was an NY Times article recently where they counted the number of trains in an hour and the numbers didn't lie, there were a lot fewer trains running on the  than were scheduled. 

This must be the article you're talking about. I knew it wasn't imagining things.  It looks the situation is even worse than I imagined:

 

New York’s Subways Are Not Just
Delayed. Some Trains Don’t Run at All.

By FORD FESSENDEN, EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS, K.K. REBECCA LAI and ADAM PEARCE AUG. 7, 2017

Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

The nation’s most crowded subway line is jammed every morning with a crush of people waiting to board trains. Angry riders often have to let a train or two pass before they can wedge themselves inside.

It turns out that the route — the Lexington Avenue line in New York City — is regularly failing to meet its train schedule, especially during rush hour, leading to dozens of trains being canceled every day and reducing the system’s capacity by tens of thousands of riders, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Case Study:   Scheduled vs. Actual Trains on a Busy Subway Line

Chart shows the number of and  trains passing through Grand Central-42 Street on average in June and July 2017

See link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/nyregion/new-yorks-subways-are-not-just-delayed-some-trains-dont-run-at-all.html

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority data | Note: Data shows trains that made a recorded stop at Grand Central-42 Street Station in the M.T.A.’s data feed from June 9 to July 31, excluding weekends, holidays and days when the M.T.A.’s data feed was interrupted.

On the Lexington Avenue line, which carries the No. 4, 5 and 6 trains, just 77 of 90 scheduled trains routinely run through the busy Grand Central Station stop from 8 to 9 a.m. The rest, 14 percent of trains, are effectively canceled, at a time when the system needs them most.

Again in the evening, from 5 to 6 p.m., only 76 of 88 scheduled trains stop at the station, on average. Each canceled train accounts for roughly 1,000 passengers who could be accommodated if the system met its published schedule.

As the subway reaches a crisis point, prompting officials to announce an ambitious rescue plan to fix the system, a critical challenge will be to increase the frequency of trains to carry riders more reliably across the city.

Many of the problems afflicting the subway have already been chronicled by The Times, including an antiquated signal system, severe overcrowding and trains that are breaking down at a much higher rate than in the past. The cancellation of trains at times of peak demand is in many ways intertwined with some of those other challenges.

Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority acknowledged that the schedules were not being met, and they blamed overcrowding for the shortfall. Trains are stuck in stations as passengers struggle to get on and off, subway officials say, leading to a cascade of delays along the line.

But subway data reviewed by The Times reveal just how severe a toll overcrowding is taking on the subway. The Lexington Avenue line is the system’s most congested, but the same problem plagues other lines as well, leading to a greatly reduced number of trains during peak periods across the system.

“It’s a self-feeding problem,” said Ellyn Shannon, associate director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, a riders’ group at the transportation authority. “Crowds get bigger and slow the trains down more, and you lose capacity. But if you have fewer trains, the crowding will build and the trains slow down more.”

A System That is Consistently Behind

The shortfalls are not occasional or seasonal or exceptional. In the last two months, the number of times the Lexington Avenue line has reached its hourly weekday rush-hour scheduled train count is zero.

Case Study: Scheduled vs. Actual Trains on a Busy Subway Line

For days with available data in June and July, the system never sent the scheduled numbers of trains

See link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/nyregion/new-yorks-subways-are-not-just-delayed-some-trains-dont-run-at-all.html

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority data | Note: Data shows trains that made a recorded stop at Grand Central-42 Street Station in the M.T.A.’s data feed from June 9 to July 31, excluding weekends, holidays and days when the M.T.A.’s data feed was interrupted.

Officials say they are running as many trains as they can at peak hours, and the problem is capacity on an aging system. But the shortage stretches throughout the day, even when the system has fewer riders and runs trains less frequently.

When trains are delayed, workers continue to space trains at consistent intervals, instead of running trains more closely together, one after another, according to train data. Officials believe that is the best way to reduce the average time riders are stuck waiting on platforms. But, inevitably, that means fewer trains and reduced capacity.

Transit advocates say officials failed to adequately plan for a booming ridership and criticize the agency’s strategy of focusing on keeping trains evenly spaced rather than meeting its schedules.

Here’s how that focus leads to cancellations. On June 20, a Tuesday, at 7:55 a.m., subway officials reported delays on the No. 6 train. The data show only one southbound 6 train at Grand Central Station from 8:04 a.m. to 8:23 a.m. instead of the five scheduled. When service resumed, trains were still spaced fairly evenly at two- to four-minute intervals. The trains that were supposed to arrive during that time period were effectively canceled, and by 9 a.m., just 17 of 23 scheduled trains had made the trip.

See link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/nyregion/new-yorks-subways-are-not-just-delayed-some-trains-dont-run-at-all.html

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority data

The cancellations have contributed to an on-time rate for trains that has dropped steeply over the last decade to about 65 percent systemwide, from more than 90 percent. On the Lexington Avenue line — which carries about 1.6 million people each day, more than the number of daily riders on Washington’s and Chicago’s subways combined — the on-time rate is as low as 35 percent.

A Focus on Wait Time

The authority’s chairman, Joseph J. Lhota, said his priority was reducing the intervals between trains, rather than meeting the posted schedules so riders are not kept waiting too long. The current schedules are largely based on lower ridership figures from 2012, Mr. Lhota said, before overcrowding delays skyrocketed, clogging the system.

The focus on train intervals over schedules has indeed kept wait-time performance from falling sharply, even as on-time-performance has plummeted. But even that metric has been trending downward since 2013.

Even Spacing Between Trains or Maintaining a Schedule

The MTA’s two measurements for systemwide subway performance

See link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/nyregion/new-yorks-subways-are-not-just-delayed-some-trains-dont-run-at-all.html

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority data

In a recent interview, Mr. Lhota said the agency should adjust the published schedules to reflect current conditions, and offer the public improved performance metrics that tell riders how long they should expect to wait between trains.

“What I care about is being able to maintain a headway closer to target,” Mr. Lhota said, referring to an industry term describing the time between trains. “Obviously, to do that we’d have to put more trains through, and we could if we didn’t have the congestion problem.”

As for off-peak cancellations, subway officials blame maintenance work they must tackle during less busy periods of the day. The noticeable reduction in train speeds is because of a confluence of events, including stricter rules for slowing trains during repairs to avoid hitting workers and signal controls intended to maintain a safe distance between trains to prevent crashes.

The subway’s antiquated 1930s-era signal system is also a barrier to spacing trains closer together. Modern signals would allow trains to run more frequently, increasing the subway’s capacity, but officials say installing them systemwide could take a half-century and billions of dollars.

The growing disregard for the schedules frustrates transit advocates who view them as a promise to riders about the kind of service they should expect.

“It’s a public commitment to how much service they’re running,” Ms. Shannon said. “The amount of service they’re running is based on the loading guidelines, which say you have to put out this many trains to transport this many people.”

Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

A Cramped and Unreliable Commute

On a recent morning, express trains arrived at Grand Central with hordes of sweaty riders pressed against the glass doors. Their faces revealed a mix of misery and resignation.

Tameka Mullins likens her morning commute to being stuffed into a sardine can. If the authority keeps raising fares, then it should run a full schedule of trains, said Ms. Mullins, 47, who lives in Brooklyn.

“At times, it takes an hour and a half to get somewhere, when you should get there in 30 to 45 minutes,” she said, while riding a No. 6 train in Manhattan. “It’s because the train keeps stopping because of the train congestion. If there were more trains, and it was running more smoothly, then I think that problem would be solved.”

Another rider, Olivia French, said her commute was often “hit or miss.” Some days, the No. 6 train arrives every two minutes. But other times, Ms. French, 25, who lives on the Upper East Side, has to wait eight minutes between trains.

“If they ran more trains, the schedule would be more regular and more dependable,” she said, “and that’s the biggest factor for me.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/nyregion/new-yorks-subways-are-not-just-delayed-some-trains-dont-run-at-all.html

 

 

 

 

 

[BrooklynBus]

So let me understand. They are running fewer than the scheduled number of trains which results in severely overcrowded trains. But instead of explaining why they are not meeting the schedule, the MTA claims that the overcrowding is causing the fewer number of trains to be run. Sounds like which came first, the chicken or the egg. Overcrowding does slow down the trains, but the decision first has to be made not to meet the schedule, and from what I understand fewer trains are scheduled now then 20 or 30 years ago when trains operated every two minutes for at least a two hour period and now it is only for the peak 45 minutes, and that isn't even met now. So the MTA is blaming the passengers now for their problems. Just typical of them. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

18 minutes ago, BrooklynBus said:

So let me understand. They are running fewer than the scheduled number of trains which results in severely overcrowded trains. But instead of explaining why they are not meeting the schedule, the MTA claims that the overcrowding is causing the fewer number of trains to be run. Sounds like which came first, the chicken or the egg. Overcrowding does slow down the trains, but the decision first has to be made not to meet the schedule, and from what I understand fewer trains are scheduled now then 20 or 30 years ago when trains operated every two minutes for at least a two hour period and now it is only for the peak 45 minutes, and that isn't even met now. So the MTA is blaming the passengers now for their problems. Just typical of them. 

What I find extremely alarming about that NY Times article is the  admits that they can't make service ,but haven't adjusted the schedule to reflect what the real service that they're running, and in addition to that, they claim that they're keeping the trains spaced apart just the same, which means you have an ongoing overcrowding problem that just continues throughout the day, so my question is, what is happening to all the trains that are scheduled but never come? Are they paying workers to essentially show up but not run the service?  The whole thing is not only absurd but it's infuriating because they are practicing this on other lines, and what it allows them to do as follows:

Well we can't run X amount of trains because of XYZ, so we'll just cancelled them.  That means they can just run whatever service they want, which is in a way what they want to do, and what I've been saying they've been doing, and people said I was claiming that there was a conspiracy theory out there.  Well I wouldn't call it that at all, but as I said, this scenario that is playing out on other lines just absolves them of any accountability in terms of reliability, making service or being held to any sort of schedule, so basically we should just be happy whenever a train shows up, even if we can't get on it.  The Transit Advocacy Groups should be raising hell about this.  The NY Times focuses on the rush, but I'm willing to bet this going on outside of the rush as well given how crowded the trains are.

[LGA Link N Train]

Last time I went to Grand Central, it was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO RAIL FAN there.

 It's just TOO DAMN crowded

[6 Lexington Ave]

It seems there there are multiple issues with 6 train service which have led to the current situation. I'm gonna try to summarize what I think are the problems.

 

• Shortage of trains/rolling stock. It's gradually becoming apparent that the number of train sets currently available are not enough to provide the scheduled service. This maybe due to the number of train sets or that coupled with the fact that there are only R62As on the line now, which, in my opinion,  cannot cope with the line's needs, even though they have a higher MDBF than the R142As. This leads to scheduled trips never leaving the terminals. It's very often that I see stops being skipped heading uptown or no trains available at Pelham Bay Park which leads to huge gaps between trains and more stops skipped as the trains leave to head downtown. 2 times in a row when I needed to take the 6 going downtown around 6pm from Buhre Ave there were no trains available at Pelham Bay. The first uptown train skipped the stop and the second was right behind (though this a bunching issue which I will discuss later on in this post). When the downtown train arrived it was packed by the time it reached Parkchester. 
• ATS/RCC. Part of the problem I think has to do with the fact that RCC does not pay attention. I cannot count the times when I was on an uptown 6 express to Pelham Bay during rush hour which was switched to the local track south of the 3rd/138th, only to be switched to the the express track north of the station. This, of course, causes confusion among the passengers who begin holding doors and it is often that not even the train crews are sure if the train is gonna be local or express. Plus, it seems that RCC takes forever to make up they mind. I have been on express trains which went local to Parkchester only to skip the rest of the stops, except Westchester Square, to Pelham because they were late.. Makes no sense at all. 
• Train Crews. Though this is not very frequent, I have seen conductors opening doors on the wrong side at 3rd/138th and Hunts Point. I remember an instance in particular when I decided not to wait for the train at 125th and instead decided to take the Parkchester local to 138th/3rd and wait for the Pelham train there. When the train arrived the conductor opened the doors on the wrong side. I was all the way in the front and I told the T/O. He tried to tell the conductor to open the doors on the other side but the conductor could not hear him!! So he never opened the correct side and the train left after having stayed in the station for a good 5 minutes and with people on the platform having to wait 10 minutes for the next train! 

 

And finally, this is an incident that occurred today, around 7:30am. Apparently a 6 train had to be taken out of service at Pelham Bay Park. The train headed to the yard using the downtown local track. It stayed between Buhre Av and Middletown Rd for a good 10 minutes because there was a work train heading to the yard in front of it. An in service downtown train was waiting outside Buhre Av during this time. People were just watching. When the train finally moved and was switched to the yard south of Middletown Rd the downtown train was able to proceed into Buhre Av. I got on the train and guess what.. We waited for at least another 10 minutes at Middletown Rd as we could not get the lineup to proceed due to the train which had just entered the yard having not moved further into the yard.. All in all a half hour delay just like that...

 

This is how bad service has become..

[Via Garibaldi 8]

11 hours ago, 6 Lexington Ave said:

It seems there there are multiple issues with 6 train service which have led to the current situation. I'm gonna try to summarize what I think are the problems.

 

• Shortage of trains/rolling stock. It's gradually becoming apparent that the number of train sets currently available are not enough to provide the scheduled service. This maybe due to the number of train sets or that coupled with the fact that there are only R62As on the line now, which, in my opinion,  cannot cope with the line's needs, even though they have a higher MDBF than the R142As. This leads to scheduled trips never leaving the terminals. It's very often that I see stops being skipped heading uptown or no trains available at Pelham Bay Park which leads to huge gaps between trains and more stops skipped as the trains leave to head downtown. 2 times in a row when I needed to take the 6 going downtown around 6pm from Buhre Ave there were no trains available at Pelham Bay. The first uptown train skipped the stop and the second was right behind (though this a bunching issue which I will discuss later on in this post). When the downtown train arrived it was packed by the time it reached Parkchester. 
• ATS/RCC. Part of the problem I think has to do with the fact that RCC does not pay attention. I cannot count the times when I was on an uptown 6 express to Pelham Bay during rush hour which was switched to the local track south of the 3rd/138th, only to be switched to the the express track north of the station. This, of course, causes confusion among the passengers who begin holding doors and it is often that not even the train crews are sure if the train is gonna be local or express. Plus, it seems that RCC takes forever to make up they mind. I have been on express trains which went local to Parkchester only to skip the rest of the stops, except Westchester Square, to Pelham because they were late.. Makes no sense at all. 
• Train Crews. Though this is not very frequent, I have seen conductors opening doors on the wrong side at 3rd/138th and Hunts Point. I remember an instance in particular when I decided not to wait for the train at 125th and instead decided to take the Parkchester local to 138th/3rd and wait for the Pelham train there. When the train arrived the conductor opened the doors on the wrong side. I was all the way in the front and I told the T/O. He tried to tell the conductor to open the doors on the other side but the conductor could not hear him!! So he never opened the correct side and the train left after having stayed in the station for a good 5 minutes and with people on the platform having to wait 10 minutes for the next train! 

 

And finally, this is an incident that occurred today, around 7:30am. Apparently a 6 train had to be taken out of service at Pelham Bay Park. The train headed to the yard using the downtown local track. It stayed between Buhre Av and Middletown Rd for a good 10 minutes because there was a work train heading to the yard in front of it. An in service downtown train was waiting outside Buhre Av during this time. People were just watching. When the train finally moved and was switched to the yard south of Middletown Rd the downtown train was able to proceed into Buhre Av. I got on the train and guess what.. We waited for at least another 10 minutes at Middletown Rd as we could not get the lineup to proceed due to the train which had just entered the yard having not moved further into the yard.. All in all a half hour delay just like that...

 

This is how bad service has become..

You're telling me. I actually decided to change my commute last night to the Upper East Side. I opted for the bus instead, but there was too much traffic so I walked over to a  stop.  Luckily the train I boarded was fine though we crawled to the stop I needed.  I cannot add more time to my commute, as I already give myself a good 45 minutes just to go a few stops and then walk from there.  It's becoming way too much of a chore to say the least.

[BrooklynBus]

On 12/19/2017 at 9:51 AM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

What I find extremely alarming about that NY Times article is the  admits that they can't make service ,but haven't adjusted the schedule to reflect what the real service that they're running, and in addition to that, they claim that they're keeping the trains spaced apart just the same, which means you have an ongoing overcrowding problem that just continues throughout the day, so my question is, what is happening to all the trains that are scheduled but never come? Are they paying workers to essentially show up but not run the service?  The whole thing is not only absurd but it's infuriating because they are practicing this on other lines, and what it allows them to do as follows:

Well we can't run X amount of trains because of XYZ, so we'll just cancelled them.  That means they can just run whatever service they want, which is in a way what they want to do, and what I've been saying they've been doing, and people said I was claiming that there was a conspiracy theory out there.  Well I wouldn't call it that at all, but as I said, this scenario that is playing out on other lines just absolves them of any accountability in terms of reliability, making service or being held to any sort of schedule, so basically we should just be happy whenever a train shows up, even if we can't get on it.  The Transit Advocacy Groups should be raising hell about this.  The NY Times focuses on the rush, but I'm willing to bet this going on outside of the rush as well given how crowded the trains are.

I wrote a long response to you but lost it as soon as I was about to hit the send button.

[VIP]

Can we all get together and petition for Better  service? I get it, most of the Bronx portion is “slummy” but what about manhattan riders? Or Pelham Bay riders? It’s not the R62’s that’s a problem, it’s the constant gaps in service and not enough trains, also the fumigation/turns at Parkchester sucks. 

[B35 via Church]

13 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I wrote a long response to you but lost it as soon as I was about to hit the send button.

That used to happen to me quite a bit, before the new forum update....

Now with the new forum update, all you have to do is reopen whatever thread you "lost" content in, click on the reply area (or quote someone else's post) & your content will automatically be restored (which is probably why you're getting laughed at or whatever)... Hell, you could still try it now & check & see if your content is still stored....

 

 

[BrooklynBus]

3 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Tharight awaypen to me quite a bit, before the  new forum update....

Now with the new forum update, all you have to do is reopen whatever thread you "lost" content in, click on the reply area (or quote someone else's post) & your content will automatically be restored (which is probably why you're getting laughed at or whatever)... Hell, you could still try it now & check & see if your content is still stored....

 

 

Yes with the new forum update. I looked right away and the content was gone. Thats how i knew it was lost.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

9 hours ago, VIP said:

Can we all get together and petition for Better  service? I get it, most of the Bronx portion is “slummy” but what about manhattan riders? Or Pelham Bay riders? It’s not the R62’s that’s a problem, it’s the constant gaps in service and not enough trains, also the fumigation/turns at Parkchester sucks. 

Maybe it is the R62's that are a problem because how else do you explain the gaps in service? I used it last night and it was fine, but there also weren't many people riding because of the upcoming holiday.  As I said I'm going to monitor this because without the  I have to alter my commute and it's really annoying.  If it worsens I'm going to start contacting elected officials in Manhattan.  

[Porter]

On 12/13/2017 at 6:25 PM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

The problem has really only been with the

SAS to the Bronx would help with that, but oh well. I try to avoid the for this reason, and I truly feel for those who don't have a better option.

[Lance]

On ‎12‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 11:25 AM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Maybe it is the R62's that are a problem because how else do you explain the gaps in service? I used it last night and it was fine, but there also weren't many people riding because of the upcoming holiday.  As I said I'm going to monitor this because without the  I have to alter my commute and it's really annoying.  If it worsens I'm going to start contacting elected officials in Manhattan.  

I don't think it really matters what type of train is used here. A drop of five trains required for service and an increase from 2-4 to 3-5 minute intervals between trains is going to make for a worse commute, regardless of which train type is in service on the line. That's the question that needs to be asked: why was it determined that the needs less trains for service despite growing ridership?

Besides, the 62As are not going anywhere as the 142As/188s are on the for CBTC and will remain there for the foreseeable future. The only other viable option would be to swap the cars between the and  lines, where the latter gets the 142s/142As in lieu of the current fleet.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 minutes ago, Lance said:

I don't think it really matters what type of train is used here. A drop of five trains required for service and an increase from 2-4 to 3-5 minute intervals between trains is going to make for a worse commute, regardless of which train type is in service on the line. That's the question that needs to be asked: why was it determined that the needs less trains for service despite growing ridership?

Besides, the 62As are not going anywhere as the 142As/188s are on the for CBTC and will remain there for the foreseeable future. The only other viable option would be to swap the cars between the and  lines, where the latter gets the 142s/142As in lieu of the current fleet.

That wasn't my point. The question is are they able to make service with the current fleet, or are these trains breaking down more frequently, thus resulting in fewer trains being available? I don't think anyone knows the answer to that immediately unless they're on the inside.

[Lance]

The fleet has been on the and  lines for years without major incident. I don't see why it would be an issue after being transferred over to the  line. The only reasons I can think of that pertain to an increase in car failures are either an inadequate amount of maintenance workers at Westchester Yard or intentional sabotage. Based on the various reports I've seen, including recent ones from the Times, I'm more inclined to believe it's the former rather than the latter. Of course, increasing the intervals between trains do not help matters in the slightest.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

42 minutes ago, Lance said:

The fleet has been on the and  lines for years without major incident. I don't see why it would be an issue after being transferred over to the  line. The only reasons I can think of that pertain to an increase in car failures are either an inadequate amount of maintenance workers at Westchester Yard or intentional sabotage. Based on the various reports I've seen, including recent ones from the Times, I'm more inclined to believe it's the former rather than the latter. Of course, increasing the intervals between trains do not help matters in the slightest.

Those trains are known to have problems.  The  and  in particular have had all sorts of HVAC issues in the last few years, so I wouldn't be surprised if more breakdowns were occurring.