Do you believe the current subway service pattern is maximally optimized for ridership needs given current infrastructure?

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

I want to be clear right away this thread is not about de-interlining, but what works best for the system considering all factors like ridership, reliability, merges, yard access, customer wants, ect.

It seems like ever since the 2010 budget cuts, the MTA has basically settled on the existing service pattern for normal weekdays, and the only thing that really changed were because of SAS opening (bringing  back).

For the longest time until the early 2000s, it seems the MTA more regularly experimented with different services, but eventually went through and has basically gotten rid of near all the redundant services such as  and merged services that could be merged like  and  to make .

The only change I would make if I were head would be to get rid of  and instead make a  that runs express from Broadway Junction to Marcy Av. Skip-stop just causes too many issues with scheduling and constrains capacity.

I would also do research into swapping the  and  in South Brooklyn. The end portion of the  is extremely low ridership, and I tend to believe the 's long route contributes to certain delays which isn't helpful for the QBLVD segment.

I would support differentiating between Ozone and Rockaway  trains though, denoting Ozone trains with , but the effort required to change all the signage and the confusion might not be worth it.

While you *could* do things like extend the  to Brooklyn or  to Ozone, I don't think ridership demands it and the latter would just end up creating more problems.  You could also de-interline things further in places like South Brooklyn or CPW, but frankly none of these lines currently need high tphs so offering more flexibility for riders Trumps the ability to theoretically run more tph.

[CyclonicTrainLookout]

On 4/17/2023 at 10:00 PM, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

I want to be clear right away this thread is not about de-interlining, but what works best for the system considering all factors like ridership, reliability, merges, yard access, customer wants, ect.

It seems like ever since the 2010 budget cuts, the MTA has basically settled on the existing service pattern for normal weekdays, and the only thing that really changed were because of SAS opening (bringing  back).

For the longest time until the early 2000s, it seems the MTA more regularly experimented with different services, but eventually went through and has basically gotten rid of near all the redundant services such as  and merged services that could be merged like  and  to make .

The only change I would make if I were head would be to get rid of  and instead make a  that runs express from Broadway Junction to Marcy Av. Skip-stop just causes too many issues with scheduling and constrains capacity.

I would also do research into swapping the  and  in South Brooklyn. The end portion of the  is extremely low ridership, and I tend to believe the 's long route contributes to certain delays which isn't helpful for the QBLVD segment.

I would support differentiating between Ozone and Rockaway  trains though, denoting Ozone trains with , but the effort required to change all the signage and the confusion might not be worth it.

While you *could* do things like extend the  to Brooklyn or  to Ozone, I don't think ridership demands it and the latter would just end up creating more problems.  You could also de-interline things further in places like South Brooklyn or CPW, but frankly none of these lines currently need high tphs so offering more flexibility for riders Trumps the ability to theoretically run more tph.

Changing the Lefferts designation to  definitely isn't worth it. Other than the reasons you stated, it also is unnecessary considering vast amount of  passengers don't travel to Queens unless you live there or are traveling to the airport (which I doubt is that many as I'm inclined to think travelers would prefer the  or the LIRR to the airport)

As for the  skip-stop, based on my observations as a regular rider of it...leave it be. The Jamaica Line east of Broadway Junction during rush hours isn't heavily used enough where it needs max capacity if it doesn't operate at that level already. As I see it in my eyes, skip stop is most useful to split the crowd along the line as the train progresses. It works on the Jamaica Line largely due to the lack of subway connections the line has (the only subway connections it has outside of Manhattan are Jamaica with the , Broadway Junction with the , and Myrtle-Marcy with the ) plus the amount of stations in between those stops are plentiful enough for skip-stop to be effective. If it wasn't effective, the  had many chances in the past to remove it, including the 2010 cuts (which was actually considered) and more recently, last summer when skip-stop was suspended in its entirety when the  didn't go beyond 121st St. Again, what I said was purely based on my observations, statistics may or may not differ from my opinion.

Outside of skip-stop, and to answer your question, I do think gentrification in areas of Queens and Brooklyn will be the major takeaway of how service patterns will operate in the future. A few months ago, the MTA announced a schedule modification where among the changes, one was to increase weekend TPH on the  (albeit slightly) starting in June. Although the MTA attributed WFH to be the main cause, I personally think the gentrification along the three lines may have also played a role on it.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

2 hours ago, CyclonicTrainLookout said:

Changing the Lefferts designation to  definitely isn't worth it. Other than the reasons you stated, it also is unnecessary considering vast amount of  passengers don't travel to Queens unless you live there or are traveling to the airport (which I doubt is that many as I'm inclined to think travelers would prefer the  or the LIRR to the airport)

As for the  skip-stop, based on my observations as a regular rider of it...leave it be. The Jamaica Line east of Broadway Junction during rush hours isn't heavily used enough where it needs max capacity if it doesn't operate at that level already. As I see it in my eyes, skip stop is most useful to split the crowd along the line as the train progresses. It works on the Jamaica Line largely due to the lack of subway connections the line has (the only subway connections it has outside of Manhattan are Jamaica with the , Broadway Junction with the , and Myrtle-Marcy with the ) plus the amount of stations in between those stops are plentiful enough for skip-stop to be effective. If it wasn't effective, the  had many chances in the past to remove it, including the 2010 cuts (which was actually considered) and more recently, last summer when skip-stop was suspended in its entirety when the  didn't go beyond 121st St. Again, what I said was purely based on my observations, statistics may or may not differ from my opinion.

Outside of skip-stop, and to answer your question, I do think gentrification in areas of Queens and Brooklyn will be the major takeaway of how service patterns will operate in the future. A few months ago, the MTA announced a schedule modification where among the changes, one was to increase weekend TPH on the  (albeit slightly) starting in June. Although the MTA attributed WFH to be the main cause, I personally think the gentrification along the three lines may have also played a role on it.

All fair points.

The fastest growing parts of NYC are mostly along the east river on the Brooklyn/Queens side, which will likely place more of a burden on lines like  and the mush of trains in LIC and Downtown Brooklyn, most notably, the and .

[Mtatransit]

20 hours ago, CyclonicTrainLookout said:

A few months ago, the MTA announced a schedule modification where among the changes, one was to increase weekend TPH on the  (albeit slightly) starting in June. Although the MTA attributed WFH to be the main cause, I personally think the gentrification along the three lines may have also played a role on it.

I don't think it is happening now. The union blocked it

But more than that I think it was to hide the fact that they are cutting much more substantially service on Monday and Friday on other routes, routes that are much more heavily used than the lines mentioned above on weekends.