Bay Ridge area politicians call for split R train

[RR503]

7 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Well the  is such an afterthought, that I’m sure that those with other options won’t miss it that much if it were cut back. I personally do my best to not ride it. Sick of seeing those nasty cars from the 70s or whenver the hell they came out. Doors take FOREVER to close, then the hissing and long wait to take off. Everything is painfully slow about that line. One of the big things IMO that would improve service is NEW fleet. I felt the service ran better with the newer cars.

It being an afterthought doesn't mean it needs to remain that way...

Regardless, the 60k people that the  takes under the river each day probably disagree with your characterization, as do the Brooklyn IRT riders who would suffer even more crowding if this came to pass. 

[GreatOne2k]

If the  goes to Essex, wouldn't it be better to bring back the  as a Broadway service instead of having two different colored  trains? Another option is to make the  run on Queens Boulevard 7 days a week in place of the weekend  service.  If the  and  have problems both using Whitehall, another option is to re extend the  to replace the  in Queens on weekdays since QB needs 4 services.

 

 

[RR503]

4 minutes ago, GreatOne2k said:

If the  goes to Essex, wouldn't it be better to bring back the  as a Broadway service instead of having two different colored  trains? Another option is to make the  run on Queens Boulevard 7 days a week in place of the weekend  service.  If the  and  have problems both using Whitehall, another option is to re extend the  to replace the  in Queens on weekdays since QB needs 4 services.



I don't even understand why we're discussing cutting the  to Whitehall. This is an easy operational fix, and there are a slate of route changes I'd make before you spring for changing that end of things. If you want Nassau, extend the .

[T to Dyre Avenue]

34 minutes ago, RR503 said:

I use the  4 or so times a week. Trust me when I say I know how bad it is. But I think trying to fix that by cutting the line’s East River crossing is not just an acquiescence to operational incompetence, but is also a really dumb way of making the Brooklyn leg of the  shorter. 

As I’m sure you all are tired of hearing me say, any conversation about routing changes needs to start with one about operations — whether or not just getting that side of the house together fixes the targeted problem, which here seems to be reliability. In this case, the answer to that question is, to an extent, yes, and I think that it’s mitigations that speak to that sort of issue that need to be the focus here. I’ve spent months here detailing specific strategies that I think could be helpful, so I won’t go into detail, but things like dwell control, terminal operation, scheduling, maintenance related operations and speed management seem pertinent to the .

Some routing changes, though, address problems that transcend operation issues, and there are some operations issues that can’t be completely solved operationally. While this proposal’s stated raison d’être is operational, and I don’t think that it’s goal is unachievable operationally, I think there are absolutely route changes that could be made to the  and related lines that would benefit service delivery/frequency. Examples of this would be Broadway deinterlining, Queens deinterlining, a Nassau-Bay Ridge service, etc. These aren’t far fetched ideas that take some sort of wizard to conceive; a glance at a track map and a service diagram would present the above solutions to a 6th grader with an attention span long enough to absorb the necessary information. What is required is merely care and creativity—elements that seem to have been lacking here. 

But let’s entertain for a second the possibility that all of this is totally wrong, and the electeds are completely correct in their belief that a shorter  is the only way to make a better . Cutting the  at Court achieves that goal, yes, but so does running the  to Essex, a service pattern that would preserve Lower Manhattan connectivity. Could they not have gone for that pretty objectively better option? I’ll leave it to the forum to decide.

***

I’m leaving this as a postscript because I think that this isn’t an important argument in the scheme of things, but there’s no way in hell that Whitehall will be able to turn  and  service — which means one of them is getting cut to Canal, which means less service to Lower Manhattan, etc etc 

Perhaps they would be open to an  train starting/ending at Essex. Their exact request to cut the  at Court on the Brooklyn side and Whitehall on the Manhattan side might not necessarily be written in stone. An Essex  is also a much shorter route than the current . Cutting the ’s East River crossing outright would be dumb. I remember back in 2014 (after Montague reopened) Vincent Gentile being open to the idea of having a Nassau service operate to/from Bay Ridge.

[Deucey]

Brown  - meaning I'd have to walk to BG or Broad Street to get to Flatbush Av?

No thanks.

Plus, wasn't this already done, partially, as  until 2010?

I'm with @RR503 - just rationalize operations of the supervisors and watch service improve.

Or run  to 96th or Astoria, and  to 71st.

[Lawrence St]

21 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Brown  - meaning I'd have to walk to BG or Broad Street to get to Flatbush Av?

No thanks.

Plus, wasn't this already done, partially, as  until 2010?

I'm with @RR503 - just rationalize operations of the supervisors and watch service improve.

Or run  to 96th or Astoria, and  to 71st.

Running the to 96th St makes further merging a problem on Broadway.

[Deucey]

7 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Running the to 96th St makes further merging a problem on Broadway.

The same problem existed before when  went to Astoria. It's gonna exist when  go to 96th.

It'll exist if  goes to Astoria.

IOW, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[RR503]

11 minutes ago, Deucey said:

The same problem existed before when  went to Astoria. It's gonna exist when  go to 96th.

It'll exist if  goes to Astoria.

IOW, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Outside Dekalb, the big problem spots on Broadway are 34th St, where the  crosses, and the ends of the 11th St cut, where the  jogs from QB to 60th.

The first is an easy fix —  to 96, more  to Astoria — and also has the benefit of forcing more trains to run on 4th local (Whitehall can’t turn enough  to cover Astoria). 

The second one requires a larger restructuring of B division service patterns, but is still wholly feasible w/o adding merges. 

[Deucey]

4 minutes ago, RR503 said:

Outside Dekalb, the big problem spots on Broadway are 34th St, where the  crosses, and the ends of the 11th St cut, where the  jogs from QB to 60th.

The first is an easy fix —  to 96, more  to Astoria — and also has the benefit of forcing more trains to run on 4th local (Whitehall can’t turn enough  to cover Astoria). 

The second one requires a larger restructuring of B division service patterns, but is still wholly feasible w/o adding merges. 

Just makes me wonder what the system would look like if every line had one express and one local service and no interlining.

I guess that'd be the late night map, but still.

[Around the Horn]

2 hours ago, RR503 said:

But let’s entertain for a second the possibility that all of this is totally wrong, and the electeds are completely correct in their belief that a shorter  is the only way to make a better . Cutting the  at Court achieves that goal, yes, but so does running the  to Essex, a service pattern that would preserve Lower Manhattan connectivity. Could they not have gone for that pretty objectively better option? I’ll leave it to the forum to decide.

I will give credit where credit is due, Justin Brannon is at least listening to and conversing with people on Twitter who are (rightfully) complaining about losing direct Lower Manhattan service...

I would not be surprised if they revise their proposal based off the feedback they're getting from their constituents on this.

[RR503]

8 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Just makes me wonder what the system would look like if every line had one express and one local service and no interlining.

I guess that'd be the late night map, but still.

Not too hard to put together. You’d have something like:

(on the A div)

Jerome-Lex Exp-EPW exp-Utica

WPR/Dyre-7th exp-New Lots and Flatbush

Locals and same

(on the B div)

Inwood-CPW exp-6th exp-4th exp-West End and Sea Beach

Concourse-CPW local-8th local-WTC

179 and Parsons-QB exp-63rd-6th local-Rutgers-Culver (either all exp for full deinterlining or half half)

Forest Hills-QB local-53-8th exp-Fulton local/Fulton Exp

Astoria-60-Bway Local-Lower Manhattan-4th local

SAS-Bway Exp-Brighton 

Crosstown-Culver local 

Jamaica/Myrtle-Nassau (you could in theory send these trains to 4th local instead of Bway local)

 

Is this a service plan I’d advocate for? Hell no. Are there parts of it that are valuable, and is the discussion it begs on we must have? Hell yes.  

[Wallyhorse]

1 hour ago, RR503 said:

I use the  4 or so times a week. Trust me when I say I know how bad it is. But I think trying to fix that by cutting the line’s East River crossing is not just an acquiescence to operational incompetence, but is also a really dumb way of making the Brooklyn leg of the  shorter. 

As I’m sure you all are tired of hearing me say, any conversation about routing changes needs to start with one about operations — whether or not just getting that side of the house together fixes the targeted problem, which here seems to be reliability. In this case, the answer to that question is, to an extent, yes, and I think that it’s mitigations that speak to that sort of issue that need to be the focus here. I’ve spent months here detailing specific strategies that I think could be helpful, so I won’t go into detail, but things like dwell control, terminal operation, scheduling, maintenance related operations and speed management seem pertinent to the .

Some routing changes, though, address problems that transcend operation issues, and there are some operations issues that can’t be completely solved operationally. While this proposal’s stated raison d’être is operational, and I don’t think that it’s goal is unachievable operationally, I think there are absolutely route changes that could be made to the  and related lines that would benefit service delivery/frequency. Examples of this would be Broadway deinterlining, Queens deinterlining, a Nassau-Bay Ridge service, etc. These aren’t far fetched ideas that take some sort of wizard to conceive; a glance at a track map and a service diagram would present the above solutions to a 6th grader with an attention span long enough to absorb the necessary information. What is required is merely care and creativity—elements that seem to have been lacking here. 

But let’s entertain for a second the possibility that all of this is totally wrong, and the electeds are completely correct in their belief that a shorter  is the only way to make a better . Cutting the  at Court achieves that goal, yes, but so does running the  to Essex, a service pattern that would preserve Lower Manhattan connectivity. Could they not have gone for that pretty objectively better option? I’ll leave it to the forum to decide.

***

I’m leaving this as a postscript because I think that this isn’t an important argument in the scheme of things, but there’s no way in hell that Whitehall will be able to turn  and  service — which means one of them is getting cut to Canal, which means less service to Lower Manhattan, etc etc 

Then as I would do it:

and  remain unchanged EXCEPT for the and  all using the outer platform northbound at Essex,

A new "Brown " runs 24/7 between 95th and Essex and replaces the late night shuttle (as those going to Whitehall can switch to the or  at Court, Jay-Metrotech, etc. ).  This eliminates the need to rebuild the connection to the Manny B, though long term that might not be a bad idea to do it anyway because it could in a pinch be used by trains unable to access 6th Avenue and/or Broadway to go back. 

 when not running to 71st-Continental permanently goes to 96th Street-2nd Avenue at all other times.

This would likely be the best way to keep the pols happy and keep the  as is. 

[MysteriousBtrain]

You had me until you brought up the to second avenue. Cuomo and the hipsters may have won with the shutdown but who is actively going to look for a one seat ride from the east side to sixth avenue as much as a loss of an underwater tunnel with no replacement when lost?

Now that I think about it essex st won't be an active weekend terminal for the but late nights the extension is not warranted.

Edited February 21, 2019 by MysteriousBtrain

[biGC323232]

I'll simply have the  operate with the  the way the  does with the ...All times expect late night between Astoria-95st.....

[W4ST]

The MTA probably wouldn't do this because they haven't been investing in the  in general, but I think that a 57th Street Flip would improve the situation greatly. In the 57th Street Flip, the Second Avenue Subway tracks would be connected with the Broadway Local tracks, partially through tunnels that already exist. This would deinterline Broadway (reducing the amount of merges for the ) and increase service and flexibility on the .

The new service pattern would be:

 Broadway Express: Forest Hills to Coney Island via Sea Beach: 10 tph (could be increased to 15 tph if necessary)

 Broadway Express: Astoria to Coney Island via Brighton: 15 tph

 Broadway Local: 96th Street to Bay Ridge: 15 tph

 Broadway Local: Could go from 96 Street to Whitehall or from Whitehall to Bay Ridge or not exist, depending on what commuters want most.

This would give Bay Ridge riders a shorter line with no merges and a lot of flexibility due to Whitehall, and would allow more trains to run on all of these lines (except Sea Beach, but they could probably increase  service to 15 tph if necessary)

[T to Dyre Avenue]

12 hours ago, RR503 said:

But let’s entertain for a second the possibility that all of this is totally wrong, and the electeds are completely correct in their belief that a shorter  is the only way to make a better . Cutting the  at Court achieves that goal, yes, but so does running the  to Essex, a service pattern that would preserve Lower Manhattan connectivity. Could they not have gone for that pretty objectively better option? I’ll leave it to the forum to decide.

***

I’m leaving this as a postscript because I think that this isn’t an important argument in the scheme of things, but there’s no way in hell that Whitehall will be able to turn  and  service — which means one of them is getting cut to Canal, which means less service to Lower Manhattan, etc etc 

Right. They can’t turn both the  and  at Whitehall. Perhaps then, they’d go for something like this:

( K ) - Runs between 95th Street and Essex via 4th Ave local, Montague Tunnel and Nassau - 24/7. Possibly cut back to Chambers on weekends so as not to interfere with the weekend  turning at Essex.

 - Runs between 71st Avenue and Whitehall full time. No late night service...either use the  or transfer to the ( K ) at Canal. 

 -Runs between Ditmars-Astoria and 95th Street weekdays (same weekday hours as now). This way, we can retain through Whitehall service on weekdays and the Bay Ridge service has a much closer home base at Coney Island, rather than Jamaica Yard. 

So in essence, we’d have a Nassau train providing the full time service in Bay Ridge and a Whitehall service providing the supplemental service.

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by T to Dyre Avenue

[P3F]

Y'all are making this much more complicated than it needs to be. The simplest solution is to extend the or to 95th Street to provide additional service. I would advocate for the because extending it would mean that Williamsburg is a simple cross platform transfer away from all of the BMT Southern Division lines. Creating a stub line in this case would be simply wasteful.

I read at some point that 95th Street is restricted to turning 10 trains per hour. Since the is scheduled at that, any additional service would require some kind of change at the terminal, assuming the restriction is true. It could be false information for all I know, though.

[Wallyhorse]

10 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Right. They can’t turn both the  and  at Whitehall. Perhaps then, they’d go for something like this:

K - Runs between 95th Street and Essex via 4th Ave local, Montague Tunnel and Nassau - 24/7. Possibly cut back to Chambers on weekends so as not to interfere with the weekend  turning at Essex.

 - Runs between 71st Avenue and Whitehall full time. No late night service...either use the  or transfer to the K at Canal. 

 -Runs between Ditmars-Astoria and 95th Street weekdays (same weekday hours as now). This way, we can retain through Whitehall service on weekdays and the Bay Ridge service has a much closer home base at Coney Island, rather than Jamaica Yard. 

So in essence, we’d have a Nassau train providing the full time service in Bay Ridge and a Whitehall service providing the supplemental service.

Won't work.  You'd have the  basically be the pre-1987 that I have previously myself proposed return and lack of a yard is a no-go (which is one reason why in the past I even considered having the  come out of 95th with the  shifted to the West End to use one example since the has Concourse Yard).  

As I would do it:  

"Brown " OR : 24/7 between 95th Street and Essex with yard runs extended to Broadway Junction in both directions (these would be on the schedule).  This line replaces the late-night shuttle. 

: Runs as it does now on weekdays while when not running to 71st-Continental runs at all other times to 96th Street-2nd Avenue. 

 and are unchanged.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

18 minutes ago, Wallyhorse said:

Won't work.  You'd have the  basically be the pre-1987 that I have previously myself proposed return and lack of a yard is a no-go (which is one reason why in the past I even considered having the  come out of 95th with the  shifted to the West End to use one example since the has Concourse Yard).  

As I would do it:  

"Brown " OR : 24/7 between 95th Street and Essex with yard runs extended to Broadway Junction in both directions (these would be on the schedule).  This line replaces the late-night shuttle. 

: Runs as it does now on weekdays while when not running to 71st-Continental runs at all other times to 96th Street-2nd Avenue. 

 and are unchanged.

I disagree. Unlike the , the  is a part time line. And it does have a yard, Coney Island, and the current service’s end points are not anywhere near Coney Island. That’s why the first few morning and evening trains run in service via the  to 59th, then via the  to Whitehall. The  ran that way in 2004-10 too, so apparently it wasn’t an issue back then either. Having a yard at either end of the line is a much more pressing need for a full time service versus a part time one.

Oddly enough, the ’s last stop, Church Avenue, is not all that close to its home base, which like the  is Coney Island. It doesn’t seem to be an issue for the 24/7 .

Edited February 21, 2019 by T to Dyre Avenue

[S78 via Hylan]

3 hours ago, P3F said:

Y'all are making this much more complicated than it needs to be. The simplest solution is to extend the or to 95th Street to provide additional service. I would advocate for the because extending it would mean that Williamsburg is a simple cross platform transfer away from all of the BMT Southern Division lines. Creating a stub line in this case would be simply wasteful.

I read at some point that 95th Street is restricted to turning 10 trains per hour. Since the is scheduled at that, any additional service would require some kind of change at the terminal, assuming the restriction is true. It could be false information for all I know, though.

Extended the ? Absolutely not. I don’t need it delayed when I’m going home because of potential setbacks from increasing the route length. Simply fix 95 Street to allow more trains to turn, extend some rush hour  trips and call it a day.

[paulrivera]

Here's my idea:

Jamaica Center-95th Street all times. 6 minute headways for a longer span during rush hour and skip-stop service discontinued (all other headways unchanged). Myrtle-Marcy express would be unaffected. The J only merges with the  (even if it gets extended) and gets held up less often than the by far. Also, late night service would be cost neutral as you're practically merging the together with the late night  shuttle.

 Forest Hills-Whitehall Street 

.... man, this is a tough one. We need a new interlocking near Whitehall to keep it down there. I don't think having alternating trains terminate at Canal is feasible but the reality is there isn't enough room for both the and  to turn at Whitehall as is.

A free transfer would be made available between Cortlandt Street ( only) and Fulton Street (any line) to avoid overburdening Canal Street. The passageway at Fulton Center is too well used as is, so it would have to be a MetroCard/NFP transfer with 3 legged options available where necessary.

[CenSin]

1 hour ago, paulrivera said:

Here's my idea:

Jamaica Center-95th Street all times. 6 minute headways for a longer span during rush hour and skip-stop service discontinued (all other headways unchanged). Myrtle-Marcy express would be unaffected. The J only merges with the  (even if it gets extended) and gets held up less often than the by far. Also, late night service would be cost neutral as you're practically merging the together with the late night  shuttle.

 Forest Hills-Whitehall Street 

.... man, this is a tough one. We need a new interlocking near Whitehall to keep it down there. I don't think having alternating trains terminate at Canal is feasible but the reality is there isn't enough room for both the and  to turn at Whitehall as is.

A free transfer would be made available between Cortlandt Street ( only) and Fulton Street (any line) to avoid overburdening Canal Street. The passageway at Fulton Center is too well used as is, so it would have to be a MetroCard/NFP transfer with 3 legged options available where necessary.

•  Upper East Side to Coney Island
•  Upper East Side to Coney Island
•  Forest Hills to South Ferry
•  Astoria to Bay Ridge with short turns at Astoria Boulevard and 9 Avenue to handle peak demand
  • Trains coming from the yard or going to the yard will be extended via West End as a local to Bay Parkway.

Now you insulate the problems between the expresses and the locals. And the locals are both shortened.

Edited February 21, 2019 by CenSin

[Yankees4life]

No thanks

 

The 's problem is that the old brown died and the train has failed to replace it Brooklyn bound. There needs to be more s running in Brooklyn especially during rush hour every day and every week...

[NewFlyer 230]

This is interesting cause I was thinking about this recently. I have seen horrifying wait times up to 27 minutes in between  trains especially on the weekend and during the late evening when the  is not providing supplemental service. 

The  does suffer quite a bit from being all local and running through 3 boroughs. 

Thats why I was thinking that the  should run from Whitehall Street to Forest Hills 71st Ave while the  runs from Astoria to Bay Ridge. I know we still run into that lack of yard access but the  did that for years when it ran from Astoria to Bay Ridge but today the   switches trains with the  so I don’t think it would be as bad.

At night the  should run the current shuttle like the  does now while the  completely stops running after 11:30pm/12am.

Its either that or you switch the QBL but you still end up with an issue.

 stays the same

 runs from 71st to WTC local

 stays the same. 

 runs from Jamaica Center to Bay Ridge via Queens Blvd Express and 63rd street but then you have that weird track switch around 57th, unless the  is made completely local and the  is instead Express. However then the  will be slow and unreliable like the  is now.

It seems like no matter what is done, there will be some problem that will arise. 

Edited February 21, 2019 by NewFlyer 230

[MysteriousBtrain]

56 minutes ago, NewFlyer 230 said:

It seems like no matter what is done, there will be some problem that will arise. 

Spliting up the is no easy issue. I think you have to rewrite most of the BMT to make this split work. Something like this could kind of work for bay ridge residents but can cause trouble elsewhere:

K between Essex St and Bay Ridge at all times

between 2 Av and Coney Island via Sea beach and Broadway express

between Astoria and Coney Island via Broadway, Montague and Brighton local; extra service between Whitehall st and Astoria to replace

between Bay Ridge and Forest Hills weekdays, running express between 34 St and DeKalb Av with some trips to Second Av

Weekend provided to Forest Hills

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by MysteriousBtrain