Goign forwards, which subway lines will face the biggest crowding issues, and how can or will they be addressed?

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

The classic example of overcrowding on the NYC subway is the Lexington Avenue  and , especially on the segment between 59th Street and 125th Street.

However, I think it's more nuanced than that. A lot of people argue that Lexington Avenue line faces overcrowding issues because it's the only real trunk line to serve the east side of Manhattan. While this is true, another huge reason for overcrowding is because of how dependent the Bronx is on the Lexington Avenue Line; Lexington Avenue trains are the only trains that can service the Jerome Avenue and Pelham lines, and is clearly the favored service on White Plains Road.

Furthermore, the  and  generally seem to have it worse than the  because they have to share the express track and hence serve their respective Bronx branches on 4-minute headways at best. At least with the , all trains serve the Pelham branch and by the time it enters Manhattan, a significant chunk of people get off (perhaps to transfer to the ). Realistically, it's hard to run any more tph on the  due to several bottlenecks, and the  will always be limited by the city hall loop.

The MTA's main plan to address crowding on these routes is to build SAS; and the data has shown that SAS has already been effective at getting folks off the Lexington Avenue line; 86th Street on the  saw it's daily ridership fall from 65k to 46k from 2016-2017. The main concern I have with SAS is it's not as effective as it could be, especially with regards to the . A huge part of their overcrowding is because of the Bronx, but SAS does nothing to pull any of those riders off since it physically doesn't go to the Bronx.

Another line notorious for overcrowding issues is the  and to a lesser degree . The last few stops on both lines tend to be extremely high ridership thanks to bus feeders, but especially Jamacia Center and Parson-Archer on the . One thing that sucks about that branch though is how it can only turn about 12tph due to the way it was set up, meaning some rush-hour  have to go to 179th Street even though that line is less busy. One short term solution could be to send more busses to feed the last few stops on the  to balance crowding a bit. Long term, Jamacia Center needs to be rebuilt by moving the crossover switch closer to Jamacia Center, allowing for up to 20 tph on the . Rmbr, with CBTC, Queens Blvd could theoretically run 40tph, though practically, 34-36 is the best one could hope for with proper scheduling and service patterns.

Next line is the ; it's become more crowded in recent years due to growth in Williamsburg. The biggest problem for the  is terminal capacity; both Canarsie and 8th Av-14th St suck because they lack tail tracks, meaning at best you can run 20 tph on the . I would recommend the MTA look into adding tail tracks which would allow service to be increased to 30tph+, especially with new signaling.

The  has seemed to have gotten a lot better post-CBTC. At this point, the only way to reduce crowding on the  would be to build a whole new subway line. Really sucks the  wasn't built with a 4th track cause it probably wouldn't have been that much more expensive and would've doubled capacity.

The  coming down the Upper West Side is another tough one; the main reason the  can't run more tph is because the  needs as many tph as it can get, and so Rodgers Junction and 149th Street Grand Concourse both limit the  to about 10 tph at best. Both junctions need to be rebuilt, and you could bring to  up to 15 tph which should solve the overcrowding at 72nd/96th street.

Outside the  and , you can largely solve these overcrowding issues without building a whole new subway line. Looking at growth patterns, I don't think there are any subway lines that are at high risk of overcrowding.

Edited March 5, 2023 by ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ

[Via Garibaldi 8]

What's with all of this talk about overcrowding when ridership is still only about 60% of what it was pre-pandemic?

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

6 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

What's with all of this talk about overcrowding when ridership is still only about 60% of what it was pre-pandemic?

This is a fair point; right now outside of delays, crowding generally isn't that bad across the system.

However, based on the last census, NYC seems to have accelerating growth, and over the next decade I suspect subway ridership will slowly continue to tick back up to be what it was before. I actually feel like this might be an opportunity because as people see these trains that were fine for a few years slowly become more sardines, it might place more emphasis on trying to increase system capacity than there was before when it was just normalized.

2023 ridership stats will be especially telling imo cause this is probably the first year where COVID doesn't have a heavy loom over things; many places still had covid restrictions in place into 2022 and were continuing to keep folks working from home.

One thing I am frustrated by is MTA still hasn't posted any official 2022 ridership data; we know the final number systemwide is just over a billion, but I'm very curious to look at ridership trends by station. Does it usually take them this long to post these sorts of things?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 hour ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

This is a fair point; right now outside of delays, crowding generally isn't that bad across the system.

However, based on the last census, NYC seems to have accelerating growth, and over the next decade I suspect subway ridership will slowly continue to tick back up to be what it was before. I actually feel like this might be an opportunity because as people see these trains that were fine for a few years slowly become more sardines, it might place more emphasis on trying to increase system capacity than there was before when it was just normalized.

2023 ridership stats will be especially telling imo cause this is probably the first year where COVID doesn't have a heavy loom over things; many places still had covid restrictions in place into 2022 and were continuing to keep folks working from home.

One thing I am frustrated by is MTA still hasn't posted any official 2022 ridership data; we know the final number systemwide is just over a billion, but I'm very curious to look at ridership trends by station. Does it usually take them this long to post these sorts of things?

Yes, and part of it is they already know that ridership is still around 60% of what it was pre-COVID, so it isn't anything exciting to post per se.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

29 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yes, and part of it is they already know that ridership is still around 60% of what it was pre-COVID, so it isn't anything exciting to post per se.

Still, they release the data every year, and I imagine the return in ridership is not evenly distributed around the city.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

18 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Still, they release the data every year, and I imagine the return in ridership is not evenly distributed around the city.

Yes, but the last few years they've been releasing it later and that could be one of the reasons why.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yes, but the last few years they've been releasing it later and that could be one of the reasons why.

Lol yep, the wait last year frustrated me as well.

I think I’m most curious to see if there’s a notable divide in ridership rebound between wealthier neighborhoods generally associated with college Ed professionals compared to the rest of the city.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

10 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Lol yep, the wait last year frustrated me as well.

I think I’m most curious to see if there’s a notable divide in ridership rebound between wealthier neighborhoods generally associated with college Ed professionals compared to the rest of the city.

I can answer that. The answer is yes.  It's been reported in the media on a number of occasions that most of the rebound in subway ridership is coming from working class to poor neighborhoods.  The wealthier areas are where you have more people that work from home or they work a few days a week and come in later or leave earlier.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/6/23/23180669/working-class-stations-drive-ridership-recovery

Ridership patterns are also different too.  In my area, most of it is not covered by the subway, but as ridership has come back on the express bus lines I use, it has mainly been off-peak ridership that has increased because we are working from home, thus more leisure trips.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Via Garibaldi 8

[Mtatransit]

I would argue that the pandemic solved the  crowding problem. 
 

It’s still very crowded but not jamed packed 7 express you have at Queensboro Plaza

 

The QBL sucks and there is endless construction. Trains are crowded on weekend, sometime even more than weekdays outside of rush hour

If you were to ask me, the point of most risk of overcrowding will be in that part of Queens, where you have gentrification and lack of duplicative subway service. The IBX and the Rockaway Beach if they build it will further feed these lines,  adding to the pressure

 

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

16 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

I would argue that the pandemic solved the  crowding problem. 
 

It’s still very crowded but not jamed packed 7 express you have at Queensboro Plaza

 

The QBL sucks and there is endless construction. Trains are crowded on weekend, sometime even more than weekdays outside of rush hour

If you were to ask me, the point of most risk of overcrowding will be in that part of Queens, where you have gentrification and lack of duplicative subway service. The IBX and the Rockaway Beach if they build it will further feed these lines,  adding to the pressure

 

COVID has helped overcrowding issues just about everywhere, CBTC also seems to have done a lot to help the .

QBLVD is under heavy construction for CBTC, hopefully after that it's much better. At least Queen BLVD, you should always heavy 1 or 2 tunnels into the city even if one is undergoing construction. Still though, you are right that the lack of alternatives for QBLVD is problematic. I think the one thing that's good is that currently, the express trains ( and ) seem to have the worse crowding issues, but population growth suggests people are moving to places in and around Long Island City which would favor the  and  who have capacity to give. If SAS Phase III were ever to be completed in some form, you could also run another local service down 2nd Avenue via 63rd.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

22 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

COVID has helped overcrowding issues just about everywhere, CBTC also seems to have done a lot to help the .

QBLVD is under heavy construction for CBTC, hopefully after that it's much better. At least Queen BLVD, you should always heavy 1 or 2 tunnels into the city even if one is undergoing construction. Still though, you are right that the lack of alternatives for QBLVD is problematic. I think the one thing that's good is that currently, the express trains ( and ) seem to have the worse crowding issues, but population growth suggests people are moving to places in and around Long Island City which would favor the  and  who have capacity to give. If SAS Phase III were ever to be completed in some form, you could also run another local service down 2nd Avenue via 63rd.

There are two problems with this. One is there really isn't sufficient capacity to run three local services on QBL. 71st Ave already has trouble turning the  and , Throwing a Queens-SAS service into the mix will only make it worse. Two is the new local service would then be merging with the  express at 36th St. That area is already bad with the  and  merging there. It'll be much worse with a local service merging in/out with the . It would be best if said SAS service runs express alongside the  and then replaces the  to/from Jamaica Center, putting the  onto the local.

Perhaps something like this:

 - QBL local to/from 71st Ave via 53rd St Tunnel

 - unchanged

( V )  - QBL express to/from Jamaica Center via 63rd St and 2nd Ave

Edited March 8, 2023 by T to Dyre Avenue

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

2 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

There are two problems with this. One is there really isn't sufficient capacity to run three local services on QBL. 71st Ave already has trouble turning the  and , Throwing a Queens-SAS service into the mix will only make it worse. Two is the new local service would then be merging with the  express at 36th St. That area is already bad with the  and  merging there. It'll be much worse with a local service merging in/out with the . It would be best if said SAS service runs express alongside the  and then replaces the  to/from Jamaica Center, putting the  onto the local.

Perhaps something like this:

 - QBL local to/from 71st Ave via 53rd St Tunnel

 - unchanged

( V )  - QBL express to/from Jamaica Center via 63rd St and 2nd Ave

Def a fair point; I think your proposal works well except presumably the  and  would all share the 6th Av local track, hence meaning an overall reduction for QBLVD express service.

What sucks about Queens BLVD is the theoretically maximized service pattern would have all locals go via 53rd down 8th Av and all expresses go via 63rd down 6th Av, possible with a Broadway rush-hour supplement. However, in practice, that would be extremely unpopular due to the expresses missing key transfers like Court Square and generally just limiting options.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

2 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Def a fair point; I think your proposal works well except presumably the  and  would all share the 6th Av local track, hence meaning an overall reduction for QBLVD express service.

What sucks about Queens BLVD is the theoretically maximized service pattern would have all locals go via 53rd down 8th Av and all expresses go via 63rd down 6th Av, possible with a Broadway rush-hour supplement. However, in practice, that would be extremely unpopular due to the expresses missing key transfers like Court Square and generally just limiting options.

Not exactly…the V would run down 2nd Ave, not 6th, so only the  and  would share the 6th Ave local tracks. 

At one time not so long ago, I did suggest unsnarling QBL with an  service pattern (  express via 53rd;  local via 63rd) with the  on 6th alongside the  and . The ideas were so that there could be enough trains in South Brooklyn for a  local and a  express and the ability to run more  trains. But I quickly realized what a tight squeeze on 6th Ave that would be, that it wouldn’t yield any additional trains on QBL, and that it would make rerouting  and/or  trains virtually impossible. 

Yes, running all express service via the 63rd Street Tunnel means all QBL express riders would have to transfer to a local train to get to Court Square. But I really don’t see how that could be a dealbreaker. I mean, percentage wise, how many  riders transfer to the  there? And any  line riders who need to get there already have to transfer to the  (or the  or  at 74th St), and have had to do so since December 2001.

Edited March 9, 2023 by T to Dyre Avenue

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

35 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Not exactly…the V would run down 2nd Ave, not 6th, so only the  and  would share the 6th Ave local tracks. 

At one time not so long ago, I did suggest unsnarling QBL with an  service pattern (  express via 53rd;  local via 63rd) with the  on 6th alongside the  and . The ideas were so that there could be enough trains in South Brooklyn for a  local and a  express and the ability to run more  trains. But I quickly realized what a tight squeeze on 6th Ave that would be, that it wouldn’t yield any additional trains on QBL, and that it would make rerouting  and/or  trains virtually impossible. 

Yes, running all express service via the 63rd Street Tunnel means all QBL express riders would have to transfer to a local train to get to Court Square. But I really don’t see how that could be a dealbreaker. I mean, percentage wise, how many  riders transfer to the  there? And any  line riders who need to get there already have to transfer to the  (or the  or  at 74th St), and have had to do so since December 2001.

Oh sorry; I associate  with 6th Avenue too much; no wonder you made it blue lol. Then I agree your service pattern would be about as optimal as it can get; the exact tph breakdown would depend upon how popular SAS is.

Riders really seem to value one-seat rides, and this is a case where it would add like 10 minutes to a decent chunk of riders; to me I agree it shouldn't be a deal breaker, but riders are often resistant to any change that makes their commute "worse" or forces an additional transfer.

A decent chunk of people of people get on the  at Court Square, but how many of them come from the  specially is hard to quantify. I think there's data to show where people work by zip-code, but idk how to get that and COVID prolly messed up the data anyways.

[Mtatransit]

The main issue with rerouting the express to 63rd St is less about the  train transfers but more about the important and very well used  train transfer at Lex/53rd.

Transfers are not usually a bad thing. The problem is unreliable service. If you can consistently run QBlvd locals every 5 minutes, then the transfer penalty is minimal. If you have to transfer to something resembling  train reliability, no commuter would like that. Nobody wants to get off the  at Roosevelt Ave and wait 25 minutes for the

In reality, what is more likely to happen is both express will go via 53rd and one of the local will go via 63rd. 
 

On 3/8/2023 at 10:28 PM, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Oh sorry; I associate  with 6th Avenue too much; no wonder you made it blue lol. Then I agree your service pattern would be about as optimal as it can get; the exact tph breakdown would depend upon how popular SAS is.

Riders really seem to value one-seat rides, and this is a case where it would add like 10 minutes to a decent chunk of riders; to me I agree it shouldn't be a deal breaker, but riders are often resistant to any change that makes their commute "worse" or forces an additional transfer.

A decent chunk of people of people get on the  at Court Square, but how many of them come from the  specially is hard to quantify. I think there's data to show where people work by zip-code, but idk how to get that and COVID prolly messed up the data anyways.

Personally on weekends I don’t bother with the  . I always just take the  even though it’s local. Service is just more consistent

In the ideal world we would have another trunk line in that area but NYC forgot how to build anything that cost less than 20 billion dollars 50 years ago

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

21 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

The main issue with rerouting the express to 63rd St is less about the  train transfers but more about the important and very well used  train transfer at Lex/53rd.

Transfers are not usually a bad thing. The problem is unreliable service. If you can consistently run QBlvd locals every 5 minutes, then the transfer penalty is minimal. If you have to transfer to something resembling  train reliability, no commuter would like that. Nobody wants to get off the  at Roosevelt Ave and wait 25 minutes for the

In reality, what is more likely to happen is both express will go via 53rd and one of the local will go via 63rd. 
 

Personally on weekends I don’t bother with the  . I always just take the  even though it’s local. Service is just more consistent

In the ideal world we would have another trunk line in that area but NYC forgot how to build anything that cost less than 20 billion dollars 50 years ago

The issue with both expresses going via 53rd is that you're denying local commuters who get on between Jackson Heights and Queen Plaza access to the numerous transfers in downtown Long Island City area without backtracking and transferring to the express at Jackson Heights, which only puts more of a strain on the expresses.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 3/11/2023 at 12:53 AM, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

The issue with both expresses going via 53rd is that you're denying local commuters who get on between Jackson Heights and Queen Plaza access to the numerous transfers in downtown Long Island City area without backtracking and transferring to the express at Jackson Heights, which only puts more of a strain on the expresses.

That's only if both locals go to Manhattan via the 63rd St Tunnel. If only one of them goes that way, then riders at the inner QBL local stops would just have to wait for the other local train for Long Island City. 

On 3/10/2023 at 3:12 AM, Mtatransit said:

The main issue with rerouting the express to 63rd St is less about the  train transfers but more about the important and very well used  train transfer at Lex/53rd.

Transfers are not usually a bad thing. The problem is unreliable service. If you can consistently run QBlvd locals every 5 minutes, then the transfer penalty is minimal. If you have to transfer to something resembling  train reliability, no commuter would like that. Nobody wants to get off the  at Roosevelt Ave and wait 25 minutes for the

In reality, what is more likely to happen is both express will go via 53rd and one of the local will go via 63rd. 
 

 

I'd be fine with that too. Unfortunately, even that idea gets pooh-poohed by some formers here and on the NYC rail subreddit, even though it would clear up the madness at 36th St with the  and  and the madness one stop away at QP with trains on the local and express merging. There seemed to be a lot of discussion not long ago about the MTA actually considering moving the  to 63rd and running the  back in 53rd on weekdays while the  is running. 

I get it, it would mean running less-frequent, 8-car  trains on weekdays, which is, well, a service cut. However, is the current delay-prone service pattern with its many merges all that much better? I honestly don't think it is. And I rode the QBL line regularly for over three years, so I know how bad it can get.

Edited March 13, 2023 by T to Dyre Avenue

[bulk88]

Removing all seats from the 6/Westchester fleet would fix your 125/59/42nd capacity problem. At the height of PM rush hour, 1/3 or half of all seats on the 6 are empty, with people standing. High income privileged people simply refuse to SIT DOWN during rush hour. Taking out the seats on the R62 Westchester fleet like on the GS shuttle would fix dwell times.

[Theli11]

On 4/1/2023 at 5:36 PM, bulk88 said:

Removing all seats from the 6/Westchester fleet would fix your 125/59/42nd capacity problem. At the height of PM rush hour, 1/3 or half of all seats on the 6 are empty, with people standing. High income privileged people simply refuse to SIT DOWN during rush hour. Taking out the seats on the R62 Westchester fleet like on the GS shuttle would fix dwell times.

.....

[Trainmaster5]

1 hour ago, Theli11 said:

.....

I think that was an April Fool joke post from bulk88.

[CenSin]

On 3/6/2023 at 11:45 PM, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I can answer that. The answer is yes.  It's been reported in the media on a number of occasions that most of the rebound in subway ridership is coming from working class to poor neighborhoods.  The wealthier areas are where you have more people that work from home or they work a few days a week and come in later or leave earlier.

Just curious: who exactly constitute the working class?

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

4 hours ago, CenSin said:

Just curious: who exactly constitute the working class?

From what I’ve seen, subway ridership has rebounded the most in a lot of outer Queens (end of  especially). The stations that have faired the worst tend to be in midtown or in areas where a lot of people work in midtown (Williamsburg, Dumbo, Long Island City, ect).

A lot of ethnic white and Asian parts of South Brooklyn have also made solid recovery. Generally it seems Asian and Ethnic white communities have been doing the best in approaching pre-pandemic ridership, followed by Hispanic Communities, Black Communities, Liberal/Upper-Middle Class white Communities, and then midtown at the bottom.

Also Hispanic Communities in the Bronx seem to be doing slightly better than Hispanic Communities in Brooklyn, with the South Bronx doing the best, but considering how work has been going on on the  and it might not be a fair comparison.