Additional LIRR service for St. Patrick's Day

[Gotham Bus Co.]

Why does most of the additional LIRR service run to/from Penn when the parade route is so much closer to Grand Central?

[Far rockaway]

29 minutes ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

Why does most of the additional LIRR service run to/from Penn when the parade route is so much closer to Grand Central?

I know right. It doesn't make sense. I thought the extra trains would run to grand central. Maybe because GCM is too deep of a station. I don't know.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

10 minutes ago, Far rockaway said:

Maybe because GCM is too deep of a station.

Proximity should compensate for depth.

[Robert Spire]

Bureaucratic inertia? 

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

You do have a point when it comes to people who are going to and from the parade only. 

However, there will be a group of people who will head early and perhaps eat breakfast or do something else before heading to the parade. Many will also head out to other places in Manhattan after heading to the parade. They might go to a bar, a restaurant, or do some other activity.  In either one of those cases, it happens to the case most of those places tend to be closer to the west side than the east side. 

That is in large part you saw the overwhelming amount of service going to/from Penn Station. The first extra trains got into Manhattan around 9:30 AM, and the last few final trains departed Manhattan past 7 PM. The parade started at 11 AM, for reference. Perhaps they could have had some more of the extra service in the AM go to Grand Central, but it's not necessarily done arbitrarily. 

Edited March 17 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[B35 via Church]

Likely because Nassau/Suffolk patrons are more familiar with Penn than they are with GCT..... It'll take decades for GCT to reach the level of familiarity amongst LIRR riders that Penn currently has.... That parade could've been on 1st av. & I wouldn't doubt for a second that more of the extra service would've still been dedicated to running to/from Penn.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

8 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Likely because Nassau/Suffolk patrons are more familiar with Penn than they are with GCT..... It'll take decades for GCT to reach the level of familiarity amongst LIRR riders that Penn currently has.... That parade could've been on 1st av. & I wouldn't doubt for a second that more of the extra service would've still been dedicated to running to/from Penn.

They would get more familiar with it if more trains went there.  (I don't understand why some folks are loyal to Penn at all costs — even, or especially, when GC would be more convenient for them.)

[B35 via Church]

13 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

They would get more familiar with it if more trains went there.  (I don't understand why some folks are loyal to Penn at all costs — even, or especially, when GC would be more convenient for them.)

Logic would dictate that, but I still think it's more of a longevity thing than a higher frequency thing (as far as riders growing that much more accustomed to GCT service).

In any case, I find that unlike the typical urban commuter, the typical suburban commuter isn't nearly as transit savvy - so they're more apt to latching onto one particular commute/mode/station.....

[Gotham Bus Co.]

18 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Logic would dictate that, but I still think it's more of a longevity thing than a higher frequency thing (as far as riders growing that much more accustomed to GCT service).

In any case, I find that unlike the typical urban commuter, the typical suburban commuter isn't nearly as transit savvy - so they're more apt to latching onto one particular commute/mode/station.....

 

So catering to people's lack of information is more important than providing information. Got it.

[JAzumah]

25 minutes ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

So catering to people's lack of information is more important than providing information. Got it.

It is certainly cheaper. You have to go where the customer is comfortable going.

[B35 via Church]

15 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

So catering to people's lack of information is more important than providing information. Got it.

Yes, customer retention is more important than "providing information" (or whatever indirect way you want to convey running more of that extra service to GCT)...

All that shoving of service down people's throats when service to GCT was first implemented resulted in, was a rollback of a significant enough an amount of peak service to Penn & direct service to/from Atlantic Terminal anyway....

14 hours ago, JAzumah said:

It is certainly cheaper. You have to go where the customer is comfortable going.

Shouldn't be that hard of a concept to come to grips with..... If the LIRR riders themselves didn't cause enough of an uproar over more of that extra service to GCT over Penn, then I sure as hell aint losing sleep over it... Lol....

[Gotham Bus Co.]

1 minute ago, B35 via Church said:

All that shoving of service down people's throats when service to GCT was first implemented resulted in, was a rollback of a significant enough an amount of peak service to Penn & direct service to/from Atlantic Terminal anyway....

Peak service to Atlantic Terminal has nothing to do with supplemental service for the St. Patrick's Day parade.

[Lex]

10 hours ago, Gotham Bus Co. said:

Peak service to Atlantic Terminal has nothing to do with supplemental service for the St. Patrick's Day parade.

You know damn well Atlantic Terminal was brought up to stress a point related to that supplemental service.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

29 minutes ago, Lex said:

You know damn well Atlantic Terminal was brought up to stress a point related to that supplemental service.

 

Supplemental service for the parade has nothing to do with a terminal that's nowhere near the parade.

[B35 via Church]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

You know damn well Atlantic Terminal was brought up to stress a point related to that supplemental service.

I mean hey, none of his unwarranted snarkiness or deliberate obtuseness will nullify or change the simple fact that more Nassau & Suffolk LIRR riders at this juncture prefer Penn over GCT.... Regarding for this particular parade, he wants to argue proximity (which of course is the safe bet), but ignoring rider preference in that situation would've likely resorted to more of those riders having expressed more displeasure (to say the least) than the sheer lack of it from the actual act of the MTA having provided less of that extra service to GCT.... I'll make a quote-unquote safe bet of my own & say that all throwing (more of the) extra service GCT's way would've accomplished, is less utilized trains....

[40MntVrn]

17 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

 I'll make a quote-unquote safe bet of my own & say that all throwing (more of the) extra service GCT's way would've accomplished, is less utilized trains....

Bingo. Humans are creatures of habit and until you create enough value to change a specific habit (regardless of 'having more information'), most rationale goes right out the window. A guy I know stood to directly benefit from GCM. He avoided the new terminal for months after opening simply because he preferred Penn for inscrutable reasons. 

[Gotham Bus Co.]

On 3/21/2024 at 1:25 PM, 40MntVrn said:

 A guy I know stood to directly benefit from GCM. He avoided the new terminal for months after opening simply because he preferred Penn for inscrutable reasons. 

 

It's as if some people signed a contract of loyalty to Penn.