Second Ave. Sagas

Video: A Subway Delay Story

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

At Monday’s MTA Board committee meetings, the folks who oversee New York City Transit enjoyed a screening of this 8-bit take on the MTA’s service woes. It’s a 110-second summary of how a single delay can echo throughout the system. I’m not sure it really tells us anything new, but it served as an entry into the MTA’s new attempts at improving service on congested lines. Essentially, the MTA is going to use shorter pre-recorded announcements to cut dwell times and employees situated in stations to answer questions. It’s an incremental improvement but without a massive investment in the signal system, that’s among the best the beleaguered agency can do. After my Q train stopped at four red signals between 7th Ave. and De Kalb this morning, I’ll take whatever improvements we can get.

On another note, I know many of you have been asking after me. After my vacation, I came down with a bad cold and have been catching up at work after my trip. I should be able to return to a semi-normal posting schedule over the next week. I’d love to offer up some views on my experiences riding the trains in Berlin and Stockholm. For better or worse, they stand in stark contrast to New York City’s subways. Thanks as always for sticking around.

Comments

33 responses to “Video: A Subway Delay Story”

  1. Michael

    Why are they spending money making videos?

    Reply
    1. George

      Video or no video, the 7 train extension to Hudson Yards won’t open until long after each of us dies. What a sad world we live in.

      Reply
      1. Benjamin Kabak

        I’m not planning on dying within the next 3-6 months! I think we’ll make it. Transit still “optimistic” about Q3 2015 and insisted that the Second Ave. Subway will open in December 2016.

        Reply
    2. Christopher

      Videos and diagrams are much more effective at explaining stories. We remember far more of what we see than what we read.

      Reply
      1. Chris C

        All I remember of that was the awful music!

        Reply
    3. –

      It’s the work of an intern at the MTA.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/36ijpg/a_subway_delay_story/cregujo

      Reply
  2. Michael

    Get well soon.
    Mike

    Reply
  3. Abba

    Get well soon and thanks for posting.

    Reply
  4. Brooklynite

    It’s as if MTA has some sort of very very narrow tunnel vision. Shortening announcements by a few seconds won’t help when the constraint on dwell times is people crowding onto the train. Having employees answer questions is great, but how does that help?

    What they need is a more radical approach. They need to crack down on dwell times. Have the conductors close the doors and whoever didn’t fit can wait. I’m repeating myself, but MTA really needs to move away from the philosophy that having trains from every line serve every other line is feasible. Junctions need to be massively untangled.

    Notice that I didn’t mention CBTC. The Russians run 40tph with block signalling (or at least did for many years). When we can’t even manage 30 without huge delays, I don’t think we should be pouring billions of dollars into a new signalling system. There are much more important issues to tackle.

    P.S. Get well soon Ben.

    Reply
    1. bigbellymon4

      Untangling junctions should be one of the top priorities the MTA should have. Everyone can’t have a one-seat ride and will need to transfer to another train a some point. The ridership of some lines is too high for some people to complain about the route of the line. Some junctions that can be untangled without building/removing rails and/or pouring more money into the system, a simple re-route to “isolate” track capacity to 1 or 2 lines only:
      DeKalb Avenue Junction
      1. N and Q run 4th ave and B and D run Brighton (everyone maintains the same terminals)
      2. B and D run 4th ave and N and Q run Brighton (either the N or Q terminates @ Brighton Beach)
      59St Columbus Circle
      1. B and D run CPW lcl and A and C run Exp (C would be Exp south of 59th to Canal)
      Queens Blvd. Line
      1. E and F run through 53rd, R and M run through 63rd (R runs via the future 2nd Ave Connection)
      2. R via 60th, F Exp and M Lcl via 63rd, E via 53rd (transfer @ 7th Ave for 6th ave services from the E)
      Canal Street IND
      1. C Runs Exp (streamlines service for Cranberry Tunnels)
      2. C terminates @ WTC with E (E trains avg. 12-15tph and C avg. 6-8tph based on their schedules on the MTA website. These are rush hour frequencies. WTC switches (most likely) can handle up to 30tph)
      Junctions such as Rogers Junction on the IRT and need some type of funding to clear up, which leaves us with multiple ideas of how to fix the complexity of the junction and if those funded ideas will make sense not only short-term, but in the long-term when subway ridership is higher. (Hopefully they do look long-term otherwise it is a problem that will cost even more in the future. Example: Newark Airtrain)

      Reply
      1. Brooklyn Cowbell Guy

        The problem with respites like that will cause people to have to switch more, causing more platform crowding

        Reply
        1. Brooklynite

          Platforms are generally wide enough to absorb a trainload of people, so selected people who choose to transfer shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, most of this de-interlining won’t be occurring in Midtown.

          Reply
          1. adirondacker12800

            What about all the people who already use the station? And it’s gonna be more than a trainload.

            Reply
            1. Brooklynite

              We’ve discussed this in other threads, but anyway. I believe there should be enough space on the platforms. The platforms at Franklin, for instance, are 10’7″ wide, which is more than enough for people transferring. And unless you’re implying that everyone on a train will get off, no, it won’t be MORE than a trainload.

              Reply
              1. adirondacker12800

                If you just screwed half the people on one train and half the people on another train half them on one train will get up and change trains and one half of them on the second train will get up to change trains. It gets worse on at stations with more than two lines. Today they get on the “correct” train out at the suburban stations or change trains out at an intermediate suburban station.

                Reply
      2. al

        IND CPW
        The C express doesn’t work as it grossly overloads the E train.

        Queens Blvd.
        You’d need a 2nd service (E local) through 53rd for this to work.

        Reply
        1. al

          They dropped the ball with NTT.

          1) No enclosed gangways that increase car end standing room, and thus passenger capacity.
          2) No plug doors that decrease car wall thickness, increase internal clear width, standing room and thus passenger capacity.
          3) greater number of doors, flip up/lock up seats, and local door control systems. That reduces dwell time, increases rush hr standing capacity and line capacity.

          Ben: I wonder if you got to ride the C20F rail cars (Green Line?) on the Stockholms Tunnelbana. They exhibit features 1 and 2.

          Reply
          1. TimK

            (There’s only one C20F car. The rest are C20. The C20F car was a prototype.)

            The C20 doors may increase space, but they are DOG-SLOW to operate. So there are tradeoffs. I realize this may be specific to the C20 door design.

            Reply
          2. sonicboy678

            1. What does that have to do with anything?
            2. Could you elaborate? Your description is unclear.
            3. You really can’t add more doors or practically have those folding benches in bulk. As for local door control systems, that’s just another can of worms for this subway system.

            Reply
      3. Brooklynite

        Here’s a proposal of mine almost fully de-interlining the system. There are some inefficiencies, like the presence of a Lex-Dyre service, but most of the system will run smoothly and quickly. Yes, this will require a few station rebuilds to be more efficient for passengers (Dekalb Avenue, Queens Plaza, Lex-63rd/60th) but it should be doable.

        http://i.imgur.com/MMHInMs.png

        Note about Rogers Junction: all that really needs to be added is two switches, one on each level. Here’s a track map illustrating how this would work.

        http://i.imgur.com/VhkNMtu.png

        Reply
        1. sonicboy678

          A few things:

          1. There are far too many branches utilizing the same designation. We already have more than enough of that as it is, which only adds to the general confusion of the existing system. This kicks that confusion into overdrive.

          2. One of the more obvious inefficiencies was not tackled at all; instead, you mentioned what it happened to be associated with (a Lex-Dyre Av service).

          3. That “2” service thing you’ve got going? We already have that kind of thing going on with the day R and general A. That is definitely not efficient, especially since the express “1” is the one cutting off at Euclid Avenue. At the very least, let the latter have Lefferts Boulevard to reduce confusion.

          4. You are grossly overestimating where the switches would be in relation to the platforms. Given the nature of the Eastern Parkway Line just east of the existing Nostrand Avenue station, it would not be the best choice to do what was done with Bleecker Street.

          Reply
          1. sonicboy678

            I take back what I said about the local/express 1/2 thing, but I now have a much better comment: You’re reopening old wounds not once, but twice. These are also the nastier wounds being reopened.

            Reply
  5. Alon Levy

    Get well soon.

    Re Stockholm, one thing you may not have noticed (unless you spent money on roaming charges) is that it has continuous cell coverage underground, so you can have phone conversations on the trains.

    I wrote about it on my blog after moving here, and there are a lot of good comments. Something I missed is just how centralized the system is. T-Centralen, where all lines intersect, has almost as much ridership as Times Square (link, p. 11); this is while systemwide ridership is maybe one fifth as high as in New York. The dropoff in ridership from T-Centralen is very steep.

    Reply
    1. TimK

      [Stockholm subway] systemwide ridership is maybe one fifth as high as in New York

      And Stockholm has about one tenth the population of New York:
      Stockholm municipality — about 800,000
      Stockholm metro area — about 2 million

      Reply
      1. Bolwerk

        Presumably Stockholm’s Metro fills some of the role played in New York by the MNRR and LIRR.

        Reply
        1. TimK

          No, indeed. That role is filled by the pendeltåg (commuter trains). It’s simply that Stockholm built its outer areas in coordination with the construction of the metro. The city is much more strongly transit-oriented than New York.

          Reply
        2. Alon Levy

          Nah, there are a lot of commuter lines in addition to the subway. The mainline Pendeltåg runs through Stockholm Central (=T-Centralen), but there are also a bunch of lines that terminate at key subway stations outside the CBD, like Roslagsbanan, which terminates at the KTH subway stop.

          Overall rail ridership in Stockholm County is about 200 per person per year, vs. 95 in the New York metro area.

          Reply
  6. Alan Minor

    Re-opening closed subway entrances will cut down on dwell times along the G, J and M lines.

    Reply
  7. BruceNY

    Did anyone catch this morning’s AM New York cover story “Light at the End of the Tunnel”? Dr. Horodniceanu, head of MTA construction says he’s “75% to 80% confident that Phase I will open by December, 2016”. This doesn’t instill a lot of confidence if you ask me.

    Reply
  8. Phantom

    A warm welcome back.

    Get better

    Reply
  9. Larry Littlefield

    If you go back to 1990, you had all this excess infrastructure left over from the city’s decline. Including subway capacity in off peak hours, because mass transit had lost the non-work trips and a larger share of the workforce was on an office schedule.

    So the city could add lots and lots of people without straining public services. That just meant more taxpayers and farepayeas to cover the same fixed costs.

    But in the past 15 years, we’ve added 500,000 people over the prior peak. Since Generation Greed has left this city, state and country in hock and public sector producer interests inflate the cost of everything, we aren’t going to build much even if we add another 500,000.

    Reply
    1. Nathanael

      Not until the youth start outvoting the fossils. (At that point the debts will become irrelevant. Debts don’t have to be paid, and debts which cannot be paid will not be paid.)

      I’ve been trying to run estimates on when the youth will outvote the fossils, but the demographic modelling is beyond my skills at the moment. It’s very locale-specific.

      Reply
      1. Bolwerk

        Assuming voting patterns in the USA are pretty set, the correct answer is probably never. Fossils get replaced by new fossils. Generation Y onward already outnumbers the boomers, but doesn’t vote at the same rate. People like Schitt Romney lock in that proverbial 47% for a reason.

        It’s only sovereign debts that “don’t matter,” and even they matter. They just don’t matter in the way the recession-causing right-wingers think. Sovereign debt can always be paid back, but it does affect the economy (for example, by impacting the value of currency on global markets).

        Regardless, MTA debt is not sovereign debt. It might be mete that we be bailed out by the sovereign pig super-state, but that doesn’t seem very politically feasible right now. Obama should have pushed for it in his first hundred days, but he’s more interested in pandering to Florida and Arizona than New York.

        Reply

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