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Byford: ‘Overcrowding’ Is Not at the Root of Delays


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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html

 

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‘Overcrowding’ Is Not at the Root of Delays, Subway Chief Says

By SARAH MASLIN NIR and BRIAN M. ROSENTHALFEB. 20, 2018

 

In recent years, as New York City’s subway system descended into a crisis of delays and mechanical problems, transit officials repeatedly used one word to deflect blame: “overcrowding.”

A dramatic increase in riders had overwhelmed the system, clogging platforms and preventing trains from leaving stations, claimed officials from the state Capitol in Albany to the downtown Manhattan headquarters of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway.

More than 300,000 weekday delays were classified as being caused by “overcrowding” in public reports in 2017 — about 40 percent of all delays. The subway was simply a victim of its own success, officials said.

On Tuesday, Andy Byford, the new president of New York City Transit, abruptly broke from the party line, calling the overcrowding classification “not particularly meaningful” and vowing to provide the public with more detailed information. It was the biggest change in the way the M.T.A. measures subway delays in years.

“If we’re to truly improve the service that we offer, you have to get to the underlying root cause,” Mr. Byford said at a meeting of New York City Transit, which oversees the subway and the buses. “So therefore I don’t want to just see ‘overcrowding.’ I want to see what caused that overcrowding, what was the absolute underlying root cause.”

Mr. Byford’s comments followed a New York Times investigation, published in December, that found that officials have used sloppy data collection and accounting games to hide the true causes of the subway’s problems from residents.

Ridership has increased significantly in recent years, with average daily trips increasing from four million in the 1990s to about six million today. That has doubtlessly caused some delays; trains are intended to spend just 30 seconds at the platform before leaving, and riders trying to cram into packed cars can make trains linger longer.

But an analysis of data and documents showed that other delays are inappropriately classified as overcrowding, including when breakdowns or signal problems force some trains or lines to stop running, leaving more people to squeeze onto fewer trains. When ridership actually dipped slightly between March 2015 and March 2017, delays blamed on overcrowding increased from 19,000 to 30,000, records show.

The M.T.A. has also used other techniques in the past, including a category called “supplement schedule,” to obscure problems. Whenever maintenance work in the system caused a scheduling change, virtually all delays were classified under that label, regardless of their cause. Internal reports have found problems with the classification system for years.

In a news conference after the board meeting, Mr. Byford suggested that a more accurate breakdown of delays might also increase the urgency of upgrading the system’s signal system, a move that would allow more trains to run and reduce overcrowding.

Mr. Byford also said he was not necessarily saying that the M.T.A.’s use of the overcrowding classification had misled the public or had blamed riders for subway problems, a point that was echoed by other officials, including a spokesman for the M.T.A. and its chairman, Joseph J. Lhota.

“This is exactly why Lhota hired Andy Byford — a world-class transit expert — to bring a fresh set of eyes to the system, utilize best practices from around the world and turn things around,” said the spokesman, Jon Weinstein.

Still, transit advocates praised Mr. Byford’s comments as a breath of fresh air.

“We are glad to hear that somebody at the M.T.A. has come around, and the real test will be whether they then make the investment in the signals, in the cars, so that they don’t have to use this fig leaf any longer,” said Danny Pearlstein of the Riders Alliance, an advocacy group.

“We are glad for this reckoning, but a reckoning alone is not enough,” Mr. Pearlstein said. “What we need is a credible, long-term plan to end the transit crisis.”

The Riders Alliance and other groups have expressed cautious optimism at the new subway chief’s first few weeks on the job. Mr. Byford, 52, worked his way up at the London subway system and earned a reputation in Toronto for engaging with the public and ultimately turning around a struggling transit system.

In New York, Mr. Byford has pledged to usher in a new era of frankness and transparency for the agency, including using plain language in the subway’s dealings that customers, not just transportation wonks, can understand, and issuing full-throated apologies directly to passengers when things go awry.

He came at an important point in the history of New York’s 113-year-old subway system. Monthly subway delays increased from about 28,000 in 2012 to more than 70,000 last year, and, after a series of track fires and train derailments, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declared a state of emergency. Mr. Cuomo reinstalled Mr. Lhota, a former M.T.A. chairman, as head of the transit authority, and Mr. Lhota established an $836 million plan intended to fix the most pressing problems.

Six months into the action plan, there have been some modest improvements but little progress in the areas important to riders, such as how long they wait for trains.

In Albany, state lawmakers are debating a congestion pricing plan that would charge drivers entering the most congested neighborhoods in Manhattan and would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars for the transit authority. In the M.T.A.’s top leadership ranks, officials have responded to another Times investigation on the authority’s inefficient construction practices by working to implement reforms. And some members of the M.T.A.’s board have become increasingly critical about how projects are prioritized.

 

 

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I would be very thankful if we could start seeing more accurate information on the service status updates.  Tired of seeing "Good Service" when service is in fact a mess.  There still seems to be a shortage of (6) trains Northbound in the evenings.  In fact one night recently they had some express trains running local to compensate, so the idea that "overcrowding" is the problem is absurd. When you have one train arriving when there should be at least three trains, of course the platforms will be overcrowded.  <_<  I can't quite understand the problem.  The (6) is either an absolute $hit show or all is calm and they never make any service updates so that you know things are a mess. It's as if they are hiding the problem, and anyone who uses the line regularly knows there's a problem.  

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1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I would be very thankful if we could start seeing more accurate information on the service status updates.  Tired of seeing "Good Service" when service is in fact a mess.  There still seems to be a shortage of (6) trains Northbound in the evenings.  In fact one night recently they had some express trains running local to compensate, so the idea that "overcrowding" is the problem is absurd. When you have one train arriving when there should be at least three trains, of course the platforms will be overcrowded.  <_<  I can't quite understand the problem.  The (6) is either an absolute $hit show or all is calm and they never make any service updates so that you know things are a mess. It's as if they are hiding the problem, and anyone who uses the line regularly knows there's a problem.  

I just started working at a startup on 49th/Madison. Opted tonight to get on (6) at 51st instead of walking to GCT for (4)(5). Southbound (6) had a 10 minute gap between trains at 6pm tonight according to the NextArrival boards in the station.

Dunno if there was a delay that caused it, but there’s definitely something bad going on with (6) service both ways.

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1 hour ago, Deucey said:

I just started working at a startup on 49th/Madison. Opted tonight to get on (6) at 51st instead of walking to GCT for (4)(5). Southbound (6) had a 10 minute gap between trains at 6pm tonight according to the NextArrival boards in the station.

Dunno if there was a delay that caused it, but there’s definitely something bad going on with (6) service both ways.

I lucked out and got a (6) as I was walking to the platform, but the car I got on in had absolutely no ventilation. Yeah those 10 gaps are the norm when there should be about three trains in that time.

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23 minutes ago, N6 Limited said:

Exactly, stop the "Overcrowding" and "Train Traffic" nonsense, the riders know that they're fibbing. 

We need to start having investigations done as to why in the hell we can't get the trains that are scheduled.  I'd like answers because if you're telling me that service is "Good", the schedule clearly says a train should be coming every 3 minutes or so and it's the heart of rush hour and yet I can only get one train every 10 minutes or so, clearly service is not good.  I'm going to start writing some elected officials along the (6) line to try to force the (MTA) to explain what in the hell is going on. If there's a car shortage, I want them to say so and stop BS-ing like everything is normal. What's annoying is how tight lipped they are about the issue that has been quite noticeable and I suspect it is going on on other lines, so why is their maintenance so horrendous that they can't meet service?

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20 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

We need to start having investigations done as to why in the hell we can't get the trains that are scheduled.  I'd like answers because if you're telling me that service is "Good", the schedule clearly says a train should be coming every 3 minutes or so and it's the heart of rush hour and yet I can only get one train every 10 minutes or so, clearly service is not good.  I'm going to start writing some elected officials along the (6) line to try to force the (MTA) to explain what in the hell is going on. If there's a car shortage, I want them to say so and stop BS-ing like everything is normal. What's annoying is how tight lipped they are about the issue that has been quite noticeable and I suspect it is going on on other lines, so why is their maintenance so horrendous that they can't meet service?

Having been in a union in a past life, I’m gonna guess that it isn’t maintenance, it’s likely employee availability.

This one year at Kaiser Permanente (the largest non-profit HMO in the world), to try to stop us SEIU-UHW folks from voting for a contract provision the company didn’t like, management guaranteed us that our vacation bids would be done so only 5% of us would have our 5-day vacations uninterrupted (we’d request a M-F off, 5 days in a row, and they’d approve it for 95% of us instead of 25% of us being scheduled to work on one of the midweek days - T,W,Th). For a year, we had staff shortages of 15% midweek- getting slammed because out of 48 non-embargoed work weeks with 300 staff in the unit, 30 people each week were gone and put us right above the 265 needed to meet demand - not including the folks who called out sick/FMLA, California Family Leave.

So like in that situation and similarly, with SI bus runs cancelled when drivers call out, I’m suspecting there’s an employee shortage affecting the (6). And im speculating that (MTA) doesn’t have enough on calls or PT employees to fill that gap.

If I’m right - AND I’M SPECULATING HERE WITH NO INTERNAL OPERATIONS KNOWLEDGE OR SOURCES, it probably won’t be resolved until the next time PTO bids are run.

As to whether my speculatory observation is a management screw-up or a deliberate plot by an ally of the Duke of Albany to pressure Hizzoner to cough up money to fund the $836 million, I dunno.

But it seems too deliberate and meticulous to think that the inconvenient rolling stock shortage on one line and rampant failures of track equipment increasing is solely due to age of the system.

/ConspiracyTheories

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(6) service should have never been reduced or lost its 5 sets of its R142A’s... If it’s a car shortage then they need to keep 240th’s R62A’s in addition to the 30 cars that Corona has left over. I don’t Know what is taking people so long to petition or riot on this service disaster. 

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37 minutes ago, VIP said:

(6) service should have never been reduced or lost its 5 sets of its R142A’s... If it’s a car shortage then they need to keep 240th’s R62A’s in addition to the 30 cars that Corona has left over. I don’t Know what is taking people so long to petition or riot on this service disaster. 

I filed a complaint a while ago noting the lack of (6) train service and the inability of the (MTA) to meet the service that they're posting.  I also tweeted about the horrendous service at night and I'm waiting to see what they say (if anything).  My next step is to start contacting elected officials, and then attend some board meetings and speak and put some of them on the spot as to why they can't meet service.  I want answers. I am tired of dealing with this crap every single night when I need the line and you don't know how long you will be waiting, IF you can get on a train and so on when there are plenty of trains scheduled that are simply not showing up.

45 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Having been in a union in a past life, I’m gonna guess that it isn’t maintenance, it’s likely employee availability.

This one year at Kaiser Permanente (the largest non-profit HMO in the world), to try to stop us SEIU-UHW folks from voting for a contract provision the company didn’t like, management guaranteed us that our vacation bids would be done so only 5% of us would have our 5-day vacations uninterrupted (we’d request a M-F off, 5 days in a row, and they’d approve it for 95% of us instead of 25% of us being scheduled to work on one of the midweek days - T,W,Th). For a year, we had staff shortages of 15% midweek- getting slammed because out of 48 non-embargoed work weeks with 300 staff in the unit, 30 people each week were gone and put us right above the 265 needed to meet demand - not including the folks who called out sick/FMLA, California Family Leave.

So like in that situation and similarly, with SI bus runs cancelled when drivers call out, I’m suspecting there’s an employee shortage affecting the (6). And im speculating that (MTA) doesn’t have enough on calls or PT employees to fill that gap.

If I’m right - AND I’M SPECULATING HERE WITH NO INTERNAL OPERATIONS KNOWLEDGE OR SOURCES, it probably won’t be resolved until the next time PTO bids are run.

As to whether my speculatory observation is a management screw-up or a deliberate plot by an ally of the Duke of Albany to pressure Hizzoner to cough up money to fund the $836 million, I dunno.

But it seems too deliberate and meticulous to think that the inconvenient rolling stock shortage on one line and rampant failures of track equipment increasing is solely due to age of the system.

/ConspiracyTheories

With the SI drivers, the (MTA) admitted that they simply don't put in fillers when the drivers call out sick (or at least they weren't going back to 2010 when they made severe service cuts), which saves them money.  To me if I look at the upkeep of the (1) versus the (6) with similar if not identical fleet, there is definitely a difference.  I find myself in far more (6) cars with no ventilation than the (1), and while the waits on the (1) can be bad at times due to signal delays, it seems as if the (6) is struggling to make any sort of service regularly. I find it appalling that they send out one measly train every 10 minutes and this goes on for as much as 30 minutes or more during rush hour. I've sat and waited thinking oh eventually they'll be some back-to-back (6) trains because the other trains are too packed to get on and nope... Same thing over and over, and you keep wondering how is that they can only send out sometimes three or four trains in a 30 minute span during rush hour.  There is nothing about delays on the board either.

Something else I've been paying attention to is how long that back staircase has been closed on the Northbound platform. I think it's been a good two months now. If it is completely closed off, why is it taking so long to install a staircase? It is exacerbating crowding on the platform because there aren't enough staircases in that area to deal with the crowds.  These are all examples of things that shows that it business as usual at the (MTA). There is no way that it takes that long to install a staircase.

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The issue is a car shortage that occurred after the R188s were “ordered” and caused the (6) and (7) to swap cars. The opening of the Second Avenue Subway gave the MTA justification for reducing (6) train service to maintain the spare factor because they claim that the (Q) displaced the riders from Lexington Av so the large number of (6) trains was no longer necessary.

reducing the number of trains in service from 39/40 to 33 is a big deal and a huge cut to service.

this service reduction cannot be undone until the (7) transfers the last 45 R62As it has in corona Yard to Westchester. Then the (6) can have a total of 440 cars in its yard and therefore 37 trains in service + 7 spare trains. Still a reduction but much less noticeable than now.

 

if the R142As 7591-7610 could be retrofitted for the 42 St shuttle, the 24 R62As from that route could be freed up for the (1) and increase the (3)s spare factor and give uniformity to the A Division 

(1) - 384 R62As including spares

(2) - 400 R142

(3) - 310 R62

(4) - 200 R142A, 210 R142

(5) - 420 R142

(6) - 440 R62A

(7) - 506 R188

(S) - 20’R142A + 5 R62

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1 hour ago, darkstar8983 said:

The issue is a car shortage that occurred after the R188s were “ordered” and caused the (6) and (7) to swap cars. The opening of the Second Avenue Subway gave the MTA justification for reducing (6) train service to maintain the spare factor because they claim that the (Q) displaced the riders from Lexington Av so the large number of (6) trains was no longer necessary.

reducing the number of trains in service from 39/40 to 33 is a big deal and a huge cut to service.

this service reduction cannot be undone until the (7) transfers the last 45 R62As it has in corona Yard to Westchester. Then the (6) can have a total of 440 cars in its yard and therefore 37 trains in service + 7 spare trains. Still a reduction but much less noticeable than now.

 

if the R142As 7591-7610 could be retrofitted for the 42 St shuttle, the 24 R62As from that route could be freed up for the (1) and increase the (3)s spare factor and give uniformity to the A Division 

(1) - 384 R62As including spares

(2) - 400 R142

(3) - 310 R62

(4) - 200 R142A, 210 R142

(5) - 420 R142

(6) - 440 R62A

(7) - 506 R188

(S) - 20’R142A + 5 R62

The (7) is The shortest line of the IRT. Why is 506 cars necessary? The (6) needs 450-500 cars. And the “odd ball” R142A’s that is left over and OOS at westchester needs to be placed back onto (6) service. I see no sense in keeping a perfectly good NTT set in storage for no justifiable reason. Also How would the R188 order cause a car shortage when there’s 8 additional full R188 factory sets?? With this swap, the (6) should have gotten a surplus of R62A’s and as far as sending their R142A’s to the (4) was pointless. The (4) didn’t need extra cars or spares. The (MTA) wanted to uniform the IRT yards and shitted on the (6) ... the (Q) to 96th Street didn’t take much ridership off the Lexington Avenue Line... most people are trying to get to 103-125 Streets.

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I would think by now theres enough R188s they can reliably use to provide service on the (7) untill CBTC is online and free up those R62As to the (6). It makes more sense to me for the (6) to have more cars and more service. I've been on the (6) during rush hours and its a soap-opera of a disaster.

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6 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

We need to start having investigations done as to why in the hell we can't get the trains that are scheduled.  I'd like answers because if you're telling me that service is "Good", the schedule clearly says a train should be coming every 3 minutes or so and it's the heart of rush hour and yet I can only get one train every 10 minutes or so, clearly service is not good.  I'm going to start writing some elected officials along the (6) line to try to force the (MTA) to explain what in the hell is going on. If there's a car shortage, I want them to say so and stop BS-ing like everything is normal. What's annoying is how tight lipped they are about the issue that has been quite noticeable and I suspect it is going on on other lines, so why is their maintenance so horrendous that they can't meet service?

A couple of times I was on the (F) to Jamaica where we were crawling and being held in stations, while the MTA site said "Good Service". No, 20 mins to get from 21st Queensbridge to Roosevelt Ave is not "Good Service".

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6 hours ago, VIP said:

The (7) is The shortest line of the IRT. Why is 506 cars necessary? The (6) needs 450-500 cars. And the “odd ball” R142A’s that is left over and OOS at westchester needs to be placed back onto (6) service. I see no sense in keeping a perfectly good NTT set in storage for no justifiable reason. Also How would the R188 order cause a car shortage when there’s 8 additional full R188 factory sets?? With this swap, the (6) should have gotten a surplus of R62A’s and as far as sending their R142A’s to the (4) was pointless. The (4) didn’t need extra cars or spares. The (MTA) wanted to uniform the IRT yards and shitted on the (6) ... the (Q) to 96th Street didn’t take much ridership off the Lexington Avenue Line... most people are trying to get to 103-125 Streets.

They couldn't possibly think that having the (4)(5) roaring through every 2-3 minutes with one (6) train maybe every 5-6 minutes on a good day was going to be good. I mean all of those people are transferring to the (6)! Not all of them obviously, but a big chunk of them and that just causes pure hell.

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3 hours ago, N6 Limited said:

A couple of times I was on the (F) to Jamaica where we were crawling and being held in stations, while the MTA site said "Good Service". No, 20 mins to get from 21st Queensbridge to Roosevelt Ave is not "Good Service".

The (F) is another line that has a serious problem. I don't understand all of the bunching. You can see 5-6 (F) trains running Northbound at once, some trains as empty as can be and then nothing. Very inefficient use of service. I've seen this during the week and on weekends too.

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2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

The (F) is another line that has a serious problem. I don't understand all of the bunching. You can see 5-6 (F) trains running Northbound at once, some trains as empty as can be and then nothing. Very inefficient use of service. I've seen this during the week and on weekends too.

 

MAybe the fact that it has the M, E, and the G to deal with which causes merging delays. Ive seen culber have atleast 5 trains back to back northbound on the Culver line during the rush. 

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Just now, Jdog14 said:

 

MAybe the fact that it has the M, E, and the G to deal with which causes merging delays. Ive seen culber have atleast 5 trains back to back northbound on the Culver line during the rush. 

Yes and that's a problem.  You're providing that many trains back-to-back-to-back but they aren't being used to their capacity, so there's a cycle of packed trains, empty trains and then nothing.

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2 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

The (F) is another line that has a serious problem. I don't understand all of the bunching. You can see 5-6 (F) trains running Northbound at once, some trains as empty as can be and then nothing. Very inefficient use of service. I've seen this during the week and on weekends too.

2 minutes ago, Jdog14 said:

MAybe the fact that it has the M, E, and the G to deal with which causes merging delays. Ive seen culber have atleast 5 trains back to back northbound on the Culver line during the rush. 

Just now, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yes and that's a problem.  You're providing that many trains back-to-back-to-back but they aren't being used to their capacity, so there's a cycle of packed trains, empty trains and then nothing.

When I used to stop off in Jamaica to pick some things up after work, I would walk up Hillside to catch the (F).... I would either take it all the way to Church (kind of miss those naps, to be honest), to 21st-QB (for the B32 to WBP for the B46), or take it to 47th-50th for the (B) to Church (this was before the (Q) connection to the (F) at 63rd/Lex was completed)....

At 47th-50th, I would stand there & watch all those f*****' F's & M's arrive before a D or a B.... One time I counted 6 OTHER F's (meaning, 6 more came after the one I got off of) & 3 M's before a D pulled up..... 2 straight D's pulled up after that barrage of locals - and within that twenty-something min. span, I just said, the hell with this & commenced walking over to 5th for the express bus.... yes, 11 whole trains pulled up before I left the station.... If a B arrived seconds after that 2nd D left, I didn't care.... I was irate...

^^ That's an extreme situation, yes,, but on average, within a 15 min wait, I'd say that some combination of about 5 or 6 locals (F/M's) and at least one D would pull up before a B would..... It wasn't too common where I waited for anything less than 5 mins (incl. an instantaneous connection) for the B after coming off of an F at that station..... Crowds pile up ridiculously quick at that station during the PM rush, SB..... Yes, more than the infamous 42nd st & more than 34th st stations (6th av platform, not the broadway line platform, which is a separate shitshow in & of itself) too..... I would say that most of the times I'd ride the (F) to Church, it would be due to not wanting to be bothered with the express bus, or exactly what I just described above w/ the waits for the B... Other times, like I mentioned earlier, I simply didn't feel like getting up (regardless if a B was at the platform right then & there) I would get a nice nap in.....

One thing I never bothered doing, was getting off the (F) at 34th for the (Q).... If I'm going to lose a seat, it may as well be for about 25 footsteps or so across a platform to catch a train, compared to meandering along the river & through the woods to catch a train that stops at the same exact station (Church av, in this case)..... Seriously, I never liked the connection b/w the 6th av line & the B'way line at Herald Sq.... Even though TSQ is much more extensive, man, I can fly down that corridor from the 8th av line to the steps/escalator that leads up to the B'way line (even in a crowd).... The ability to be able to see over most people gives you some advantages as you're walking, believe me....

But the gist of what I'm getting at with all this, is that, yeah overcrowding isn't at the root of the delays.... Overcrowding in this aspect is a symptom of bunching & delays.... What's causing the delays though? This is never really made public... Instead, riders get pacified (which is another thing.... just because trains are in motion doesn't necessarily mean service is good).... This like someone kicking you in the nuts & then telling you "At least you're still alive"...... That tends to piss people off more than the delays themselves.....

There shouldn't be all this "HAVING to plan ahead"... You should be able to take "your" train to your destination & have that be the end of it....

 

 

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7 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

When I used to stop off in Jamaica to pick some things up after work, I would walk up Hillside to catch the (F).... I would either take it all the way to Church (kind of miss those naps, to be honest), to 21st-QB (for the B32 to WBP for the B46), or take it to 47th-50th for the (B) to Church (this was before the (Q) connection to the (F) at 63rd/Lex was completed)....

At 47th-50th, I would stand there & watch all those f*****' F's & M's arrive before a D or a B.... One time I counted 6 OTHER F's (meaning, 6 more came after the one I got off of) & 3 M's before a D pulled up..... 2 straight D's pulled up after that barrage of locals - and within that twenty-something min. span, I just said, the hell with this & commenced walking over to 5th for the express bus.... yes, 11 whole trains pulled up before I left the station.... If a B arrived seconds after that 2nd D left, I didn't care.... I was irate...

^^ That's an extreme situation, yes,, but on average, within a 15 min wait, I'd say that some combination of about 5 or 6 locals (F/M's) and at least one D would pull up before a B would..... It wasn't too common where I waited for anything less than 5 mins (incl. an instantaneous connection) for the B after coming off of an F at that station..... Crowds pile up ridiculously quick at that station during the PM rush, SB..... Yes, more than the infamous 42nd st & more than 34th st stations (6th av platform, not the broadway line platform, which is a separate shitshow in & of itself) too..... I would say that most of the times I'd ride the (F) to Church, it would be due to not wanting to be bothered with the express bus, or exactly what I just described above w/ the waits for the B... Other times, like I mentioned earlier, I simply didn't feel like getting up (regardless if a B was at the platform right then & there) I would get a nice nap in.....

One thing I never bothered doing, was getting off the (F) at 34th for the (Q).... If I'm going to lose a seat, it may as well be for about 25 footsteps or so across a platform to catch a train, compared to meandering along the river & through the woods to catch a train that stops at the same exact station (Church av, in this case)..... Seriously, I never liked the connection b/w the 6th av line & the B'way line at Herald Sq.... Even though TSQ is much more extensive, man, I can fly down that corridor from the 8th av line to the steps/escalator that leads up to the B'way line (even in a crowd).... The ability to be able to see over most people gives you some advantages as you're walking, believe me....

But the gist of what I'm getting at with all this, is that, yeah overcrowding isn't at the root of the delays.... Overcrowding in this aspect is a symptom of bunching & delays.... What's causing the delays though? This is never really made public... Instead, riders get pacified (which is another thing.... just because trains are in motion doesn't necessarily mean service is good).... This like someone kicking you in the nuts & then telling you "At least you're still alive"...... That tends to piss people off more than the delays themselves.....

There shouldn't be all this "HAVING to plan ahead"... You should be able to take "your" train to your destination & have that be the end of it....

 

 

Yeah and that's what is becoming extremely annoying.  There was a man on the news yesterday that said it used to take him 30 - 35 minutes. That same commute is now over an hour because of delays, waits and overcrowding.  I've had times where I've been so irate that I've just taken an express train and then backtracked from 86th and Lex down to 79th and York, which is a PITA.  Regarding the (F), believe it or not, it's fairly common to see what you described above, and I've seen it so many times at 47-50th street and elsewhere that I've lost count.  For the life of me, I can't understand how they can't run more express trains.  You're running 5-6 (F) trains and then let's say 3 (M) trains in a span of 10 - 15 minutes (and yes it's that frequent because the (F) and (M) run just like that), and meanwhile you're lucky to get one (D) train and maybe a (B) right behind it and then nothing.  There is something very wrong with that, and the crowding that is now taking place on the 6th Avenue line is insane.  I have meetings uptown now and one is during the week. I am dreading how I'm going to get up there. I may opt for Metro-North up to 125th and then get a subway from there.  That is actually a good set up because just about every line on the west side is just packed to no end and you crawl all the way uptown.

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37 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yes and that's a problem.  You're providing that many trains back-to-back-to-back but they aren't being used to their capacity, so there's a cycle of packed trains, empty trains and then nothing.

You'll love it if its going in our direction....:D...

 

3 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yeah and that's what is becoming extremely annoying.  There was a man on the news yesterday that said it used to take him 30 - 35 minutes. That same commute is now over an hour because of delays, waits and overcrowding.  I've had times where I've been so irate that I've just taken an express train and then backtracked from 86th and Lex down to 79th and York, which is a PITA.  Regarding the (F), believe it or not, it's fairly common to see what you described above, and I've seen it so many times at 47-50th street and elsewhere that I've lost count.  For the life of me, I can't understand how they can't run more express trains.  You're running 5-6 (F) trains and then let's say 3 (M) trains in a span of 10 - 15 minutes (and yes it's that frequent because the (F) and (M) run just like that), and meanwhile you're lucky to get one (D) train and maybe a (B) right behind it and then nothing.  There is something very wrong with that, and the crowding that is now taking place on the 6th Avenue line is insane.  I have meetings uptown now and one is during the week. I am dreading how I'm going to get up there. I may opt for Metro-North up to 125th and then get a subway from there.  That is actually a good set up because just about every line on the west side is just packed to no end and you crawl all the way uptown.

I Know what you mean....Just the other day on valentine's day im waiting for an (M) at 34st and i kid you not 4 (F) trains 1st came then 2 (M)'s followed that...I found that strange but i didnt think nothing of it cause it was the heart of rush hour...And i also agree that these manhattan trunk lines 6av 8av and bway are becoming insanely crowded even on wkends to the point where service that dont run on wkends gonna have to start running wkends.....

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3 minutes ago, biGC323232 said:

You'll love it if its going in our direction....:D...

 

I Know what you mean....Just the other day on valentine's day im waiting for an (M) at 34st and i kid you not 4 (F) trains 1st came then 2 (M)'s followed that...I found that strange but i didnt think nothing of it cause it was the heart of rush hour...And i also agree that these manhattan trunk lines 6av 8av and bway are becoming insanely crowded even on wkends to the point where service that dont run on wkends gonna have to start running wkends.....

I can actually take the 6th Avenue line, but I haven't in some time during the week because of the crowding and long waits.  Waiting for the (B) used to work because everyone clamored for the (D), but then people started taking the (B) more because the (D) has become insanely crowded, so now there's no escaping to anything. With the way that the (D) crawls "express" and how long you wait for one, taking the (B) local isn't that big of a deal.  

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18 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yeah and that's what is becoming extremely annoying.  There was a man on the news yesterday that said it used to take him 30 - 35 minutes. That same commute is now over an hour because of delays, waits and overcrowding.  I've had times where I've been so irate that I've just taken an express train and then backtracked from 86th and Lex down to 79th and York, which is a PITA.  Regarding the (F), believe it or not, it's fairly common to see what you described above, and I've seen it so many times at 47-50th street and elsewhere that I've lost count.  For the life of me, I can't understand how they can't run more express trains.  You're running 5-6 (F) trains and then let's say 3 (M) trains in a span of 10 - 15 minutes (and yes it's that frequent because the (F) and (M) run just like that), and meanwhile you're lucky to get one (D) train and maybe a (B) right behind it and then nothing.  There is something very wrong with that, and the crowding that is now taking place on the 6th Avenue line is insane.  I have meetings uptown now and one is during the week. I am dreading how I'm going to get up there. I may opt for Metro-North up to 125th and then get a subway from there.  That is actually a good set up because just about every line on the west side is just packed to no end and you crawl all the way uptown.

 The Dekalb interlocking, and the fact that the D has to merge with the A is what screws up the headways. At best the most you may get is every 6 minutes. 

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3 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

They're going to have to address the issue sooner rather than later. 

Basically all the Broadway service and the 6th ave express service has the frequency restricted partially cause of that one interlocking (and broadway also has the 59th tube to deal with) 

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