I appeared on NBC New York with Chuck Scarborough last night to discuss the line segment closure plan.
When word leaked out on Sunday night of a looming Transit plan to engage in partial line-segment shutdowns to speed up necessary track work, straphangers wondered if this would be the end of the 24/7 subway system as we know it. A day later and with an official MTA presentation on the books, we have a better sense of what this means for late-night weekday subway riders. It’s not great news for that relatively small group of riders, but it could mean fewer weekend headaches for the rest of us.
First, Transit addressed the rational behind the plan. Noting that 82 percent of the recent increase of subway service has occurred during off-peak and weekend hours, Transit now recognizes that it can no longer use those times to load up on disruptive work. It’s time, Transit officials said, to get creative.
“We are one of the few transit systems that operate around the clock, so it’s always a challenge to find time to do work on the tracks, especially with ridership up on weekends and overnight,” MTA New York City Transit President Tom Prendergast said. “Closing segments of lines so that we can get in and get the work done quickly benefits everyone. It’s safer for workers, less disruptive for riders and gets projects done more quickly for everyone.”
Just how much quicker the project get done will determine the future of this pilot, and it’s important to note that this project has two distinct components. The first involves partial line segment closures. These are set to occur for four nights in a row once per quarter on one Manhattan trunk line at a time from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. The following table lists the line, first-quarter shutdown dates, service area and number of impacted customers. The authority claims only a 10-15 minute increase in commute times, and it’s clear that, based on transit redundancies, those folks on the East Side in Midtown will have to walk the further for alternate subway service.
- 4, 5, 6: January 9-13, no service from 42nd St.-Grand Central to Atlantic Avenue, 38,500.
- 1, 2, 3: February 13-17, no service from 34th St. to Atlantic Avenue, 23,000.
- B, D, F, M: February 20-24. No service from 59th St. to West 4th Street, 35,000.
- A, C, E: March 12-16. No service from 59th St. to Jay St, 39,000.
I’m not yet sure how this will impact service on the E, F or 1 trains. The work here will involve track and signal repair as well as trackbad cleaning.
The second part of this plan is the one that should be drawing more headlines, but as it impacts fewer commuters and all in the Outer Boroughs, it hasn’t drawn as much scrutiny. For a few distinct capital projects, the MTA will engage in a continuous line shutdown over a series of days. By doing so, the authority will quickly complete capital projects and then have fewer weekend service changes.
The MTA has identified four projects that will impact riders and subway service. First, the authority is planning a nine-day shutdown of all Manhattan-bound F service from Parsons to Forest Hills. Second, the D train will run only local in both directions for nine days from Norwood to 145th St. Third, for 16 days, all D trains will terminate at Bay Parkway. Fourth, for 16 days, there will be no 2 service between 241st St. and Nereid Avenue.
Drilling down on the Forest Hills work, Transit says this nine-day shutdown will eight weekend and 20 weeknight shutdowns for a savings of $1.3 million — or 21 percent — for that project alone. Furthermore, Transit estimates that 90,000 customers would experience 150,000 hours of delay with a shutdown instead of 190,000 customers experiencing a combined 225,000 hours of delayed travel for weekend and off-peak work. Of course, knowing the MTA’s on-time rate when it comes to delivering projects, these projections should be taken with a grain of salt, but these are the numbers upon which the MTA is making its argument.
Ultimately, putting such a line shutdown program in place involves a balancing out. How can the TA provide enough service around the clock? What work schedule is least disruptive to the overall patterns of commuters? As the Authority says, “No time is a good time to do work.” If the line-segment shutdown plan — both for routine maintenance and capital projects — can improve our commuters in the long run, it is at least worth a shot.
28 comments
Ah, yeah, the $10-15 million savings from disrupting service after 10 pm (the savings from systemwide POP on the buses, coming from being able to provide the same frequency with fewer operating hours, would be about $45 million). Even Shanghai, whose metro closes at an ungodly early hour, operates until 10:30 every night. And for the most part major subway systems operate until 12 or 1. I’m okay with not running low-ridership buses after 1, but this is just ridiculous. Have they even looked into single-tracking at night?
Respectfully, Alon, I think you’re making too big a deal about the closures. We’re really talking about 4 nights for one week once every three months on a part of a trunk line very close to redundant services. The cost savings totals come from the four discrete capital projects I mentioned in the second half of the post. Scale those out and you’d get more than $10-$15 million in savings.
Even with single-tracking, something not as easy to do in NYC with four tracks as it is in DC, you still have to implement the safety precautions every time a train passes by.
With four tracks, there’s no reason to ever close anything, except local lines in one direction, which the MTA is already doing. With two tracks, there is – and this includes the upper Lexington Line, which is very non-redundant.
The reason I’m harping on the NIH problems in New York is that at least one city managed to make single-tracking work. It doesn’t cost the MTA much to send a few people over and study Copenhagen’s worker safety precautions and see what can be ported to New York. It could be that the answer is nothing (e.g. if Copenhagen uses twin bores); it could be that it’s everything.
Copenhagen’s system is brand new. Its switch layout and signal system were designed were designed to accommodate single tracking. It requires far less maintenance than a 100-year-old system does. And it doesn’t have a history of incidents, each of which potentially leads to a change in procedures to prevent recurrence.
Of somewhat greater relevance is the S-tog, of similar vintage to the IND.
Okay, so it boils down to installing switches at the correct locations and bidirectional signaling.
The rest of what you say is guesswork. New systems don’t have a history of incidents on their own infrastructure, but they incorporate decades of other people’s history. And it’s not at all clear that older, fully-depreciated infrastructure costs more to maintain. If you look at buildings, the opposite is true: brand new buildings are higher-maintenance, and so charge higher rents.
I’m going to go on a limb here and say the MTA hasn’t in fact looked into the track maintenance procedures in Copenhagen (or Berlin, which has 24-hour service on weekends). Please do; it costs very little by the standards of even a minor MTA project.
Erm, actually a big deal with single-tracking is track spacing. Most systems which do maintenance on one track while running at full speed on the other maintain generous track spacing. The older lines in NYC have tight track spacing, particularly the IRT lines.
Hey Ben do you have a link to the projects the MTA plans to implement this on. I see you mention the Forest Hills work but I don’t see it mentioned in the bullet points above in the article.
Whoops. Meant to link to it in the post. It’s available here as a PDF.
Thank you.
I dont really get how you can shut down only the Manhattan bound F. are work safety requirements still in place if trains are running in the other direction? How would trains turn around after arriving at 179th? and why just from forest hills to parsons? there are only two extra stops after parsons – just shut those down as well.
The operation of that specific shutdown sounds complex and unpleasant to deal with, but itll be interesting to see how this plan works out.
You’re right, it’s impossible to shut down the Manhattan-bound F without also shutting down the Queens-bound F. That line is also far too busy to actually shut down during rush hours.
Fortunately, a line shutdown isn’t what’s planned. As the presentation spells out, the Manhattan-bound local track will be closed. The F will still run, but on the express track, bypassing a few stations for a few days.
Has there been any mention of providing extra night service on lines that will service the overflow? For instance, running the R train over its entire route instead of just a shuttle in Bklyn. Running the Q as a local in Manhattan. Running the B all night, etc.
I have an idea for how to solve the problem with the lex ave closure:
-Operate the 42nd street shuttle overnight provide connections to the (3) and (N) trains.
-3 Trains can be extended to New Lots Ave overnight
-Buses that runs @ Lexington Ave line should be fare free provide connections to Canal Street/Brooklyn Bridge. Connection of (N) and (Q) trains
pls delete
I have an idea for how to solve the problem with the lex ave closure:
-Operate the 42nd street shuttle overnight provide connections to the (3) and (N) trains.
-3 Trains can be extended to New Lots Ave overnight
-Buses that runs @ Lexington Ave line should be fare free provide connections to Canal Street/Brooklyn Bridge. Connection of (N) and (Q) trains
Anybody agree with my suggestion?
I remember hearing that at one point the Grand Central Shuttle used to connect the 7th Ave/Broadway lines and the Lexington line. Can someone tell me if that track connection still exists, and if it can be used to reroute the 4 and 6 onto the 7th Ave/Broadway line between Bowling Green (South Ferry loop) and GCT?
The track connection still exists, in a way, but I do not believe it could be used in that capacity.
http://images.nycsubway.org/trackmap/pm_west_1.png
I hope this map can explain the situation.
The connections to the IRT Lex and IRT 7 Ave are separate, the 7 Ave-connected track isn’t connected to the other 2. Also, a platform covers that track on the west end. It wouldn’t work, sadly.
Next time you are asked about this subject, I suggest mentioning that if transit riders are expected to suffer long term weekday closures to cut costs, road work should be shifted back to weekdays too for the same reason.
This is so dramatic. It’s not only about cutting costs; it’s also about improving riders’ weekend commutes. It’s about finishing projects faster and for less money. Somehow, transit riders are going to be inconvenienced one way or another, and if this works as Transit hopes, it will actually inconvenience fewer people.
All of that equally applies to roadworks.
Specifically, it apply to those who use the subway or ride bikes to work, but sometimes use automobiles on weekends to drive out of town. They have targeted roadwork to the very times that I am using the roads.
Anyway, I had suggested line shut downs when I was in NYCT capital budget. Better to shut down lines to do normal replacement cheaper, than to stop normal replacement and have the line shut down later due to deterioration.
It’s definitely worth a try. Especially if planned and advertised far enough in advance, there will be folks who will make adjustments and arrange for alternatives, thus impacting fewer people. Proper execution is key.
If the planned shutdowns don’t save enough money or time, then scrap it and go back to the old ways. *shrug*
They should tie these shut-downs to goals (promises?) not to perform work that impacts night/weekend service for a certain amount of time. It’d be nice to have the trade-off literally spelled out in plain terms, otherwise it just looks like more and more service changes to the casual rider.
For instance: Shut down the A for 4 days and promise that it’ll run express every weekend with no disruptions for the rest of the year? I’d pay $50 for that! We’re all sick of trains crawling through the tunnels and doubling our commutes.
Give us enough notice and we could even plan to go on vacation for those 4 days. Come back and the stations are cleaned up, trains running on-time? Perfect!
Our System cannot be compared to others because the combination of having local/express service, age, and 24 hour service makes ours unlike any other in the world.
Excellent interview .
Great to see you getting well deserved attention and fame !!!
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