Over the past few years, I’ve fallen back on a cliched line to discuss current record transit ridership: If it seems crowded in the subways, it is. The MTA has seen crowds not approached since the days of elevated trains running through the city, and for 2015, the agency expects at least 55 weekdays where daily ridership tops 6 million. That’s 11 weeks out of the year of very crowded subway trains, and it’s beginning to show around the margins.
For the MTA, these ridership figures blow away previous years’ totals. In 2014, the MTA saw 29 weekdays where ridership topped 6 million, and in 2013 and for decades before that, there were none. Meanwhile, the 12-month rolling average ridership through the first half of the year was up by nearly 125,000 passengers per day over the previous year, and we are on the cusp of the busiest three months of the year for subway ridership. It’s crowded, and it’s only getting worse.
Meanwhile, I’ve had the opportunity recently to ride during off-peak and midday hours, and the service has been subpar. Due to the MTA’s own load guidelines, which they can adjust on a whim, train waits are long — longer than they were for any service when I was in Berlin, Stockholm or Paris (or even Boston and Chicago) this past spring and summer. Weeknight service isn’t any better. Even with a problem on the 4 train, Brooklyn-bound Lexington Ave. IRT trains were running at uneven headways with 15-20 minutes between some trains and two minutes between others. Service is infrequent enough to be annoying and unreliably uneven. The MTA needs to do better as ridership growth shows no signs of slowing.
And that brings me to Thursday and Friday in New York City. Pope Francis-mania hits New York City later today, and with it have come predictions of congestion disaster 2K15. Numerous midtown streets will be closed at various points in the day, and city officials have asked — but, for some mystical reason, not required — people to leave their cars at home. The MTA is rerouting bus routes up the wazoo, and Staten Island residents are being asked to take the ferry rather than driving. The note on subway service is less than comforting:
The MTA New York City Subway system carries up to 6 million people on an average weekday, and will be able to accommodate additional customers attending papal events. Subway managers will be prepared to adjust train operations as necessary based on conditions in stations near those events. Additional customer service personnel will be on duty in subway stations near papal events to assist customers as they enter and leave the system.
With everyone being asked to be mindful of travel, the subways are bound to be even more crowded, but the MTA is committing to shorter headways or more frequent service. The attitude here seems to be “Oh, we can handle it.” That’s all well and good, but ask that to someone jammed against a door of a packed Q train trying to get home from work tomorrow afternoon.
I’m concerned we’ve reached a point where subway service isn’t adequate for the crowds, but due to funding constraints and artificially inflated load guidelines that don’t require more service until trains are packed, the MTA can’t or won’t do much about it. Hopefully, this week’s events with the Pope prove me wrong, and everything moves underground as it’s supposed to. But if it seems crowded, well, that’s because it is.
74 comments
I’d imagine more service could be provided if OPTO was implemented. All those extra drivers during rush hour could be working midday instead.
I would understand the MTA say this if the WHOLE subway system had CBTC. Paris subway operator RATP can release a statement like this because they CAN change the amount of trains operating at ANY moment, at ANY time because of CBTC. (Well, it can apply to the L but seriously think about it)
The MTA can solve this problem very easily: add more service. But then the excuse comes that they don’t have any capacity for more service. RPA study for CBTC implementation (done in May of 2014) says that the 1,J,M,Z,L,C,B, and D are under capacity according to their PDF. These denote PEAK tph, which for some lines needs to be WEEKDAY tphs (6am to about 10 to 12mid) like the L. Also, another problem is the interlining problem. If some of the lines stayed on seperate tracks (ex. on CPW, A/C lcl and B/D exp), we can increase service to world-class levels. Another problem is the 2-person operation for all services other than the shuttles. That is unnecessary and waste of money. There are many ways that the MTA can increase their service to support their growth in ridership through simple projects that contain plenty of benefits (Rogers Junction, 149th Grand Concourse IRT among others).
Completely de-interlining the system is impossible – and beyond being impossible, it’s pretty unnecessary. The problems with service on any of the lines that interact with the subway under CPW, to counter your example, generally have little to nothing to do with CPW and everything to do with problem junctions elsewhere, such as at Canal Street for the 8 Av services.
It isn’t even like service could increase that much if you de-interlined CPW, one of the least complicated interlining jobs in the entire system. It’s a trivial math problem to have each of the four distinct services running an identical number of TPH and alternating service order: A-D-A-D-A-D-A-D on the express tracks, B-C-B-C-B-C on the local tracks, turns into B-D-B-D-B-D where 6 Av is split off and A-C-A-C-A-C remaining on 8 Av. You stand a good chance at actually managing 24 TPH/track on those services if problems elsewhere are dealt with – which, in this case, really means turning the C into an express service through midtown and allowing it to stay on the express tracks between just-south-of-50 and Brooklyn.
Why does everyone see Canal St for A/C/E a problem? A trains are just as, if not more frequent than E and letting a C move from lcl to exp or vice versa should be fairly simple. Keep in mind that there are only 7 C’s per hour and that’s during the rush so there isn’t much flipping of switches. De-interlining 4th ave in Brooklyn can help as if problems arise in one area affecting one line, that line is the only one affected (except for when exp run lcl or vice versa). De-interlining can help to reduce the problem of multiple areas having service reduced because of one mishap at the DeKalb switches (just as an example). It is possible to de-interline the system to about 95% with all stops fully served and some routes re-routed.
The interlocking at Canal St is poor. If a southbound C train is crossing the switch south of the station, for instance, a southbound A train cannot enter the station. I believe something similar plays out northbound. This causes delays.
That sounds (to this layman) like something that could be upgraded without a great deal of time/money/construction.
It could be. To do it efficiently, however, would require shutting down all of Canal Street station for a few days to outright replace the signalling. In order to do this:
— A/C trains from the south could be reversed north of Chambers;
— C/E trains from the north could be run via the F and reversed at Second Avenue;
— A trains from the north would have to be reversed at 34th St. / Penn Station.
That actually doesn’t sound so bad, now that I describe it. Spend a year designing a “game plan” for the new signalling, engineering everything, measuring, building the equipment, building the interconnection to the old equipment. Shut Canal St. and Spring St. down for a weekend, or a week if needed, and replace the track and signalling at the Canal St. interlocking.
Worth noting that the signalling is all obsolete and needs replacement anyway.
For a pure mathematician your suggested service pattern is ideal. However, that’s far from reality. Leaving aside the fact that the A operates with twice the frequency does (while the B and D are about equal), the moment someone so much as holds the doors for a minute, or even if the TO is scared of timers and falls a minute behind schedule, the entire ballet falls to pieces. Trains start stacking up and delaying each other.
There’s no reason for the A to be running at double frequency relative to every other service. There’s a good reason for it to be running at an even number of TPH (to avoid having an unfortunate number like 5.5 TPH on the branches at the very end of the line in Queens/the Rockaways), and there’s a good argument for running the C as an express service south of CPW (because installing a new switch to move trains over immediately following the southern edge of the upper level platform at 50 St means that Canal Street only ever has to switch anything in emergencies or during routine maintenance and also means that the E, which merges in south of 50, doesn’t interact with the C at all).
The argument you’re advancing for mass de-interlining is that “people can just walk across the platform” and that “the minute someone falls slightly off schedule the entire ballet falls apart” – but, quite frankly, that already happens on lines where there is no interlining and will continue to happen even if every service across as many track segments as possible are segregated. The best case that you can hope for there is not a dramatic increase in service potential (because the 24 TPH/track soft cap and 26~30(?) TPH/track hard cap on service along CPW is a product of its signaling and doesn’t change even if you do end interlining), but rather that failures become contained to singular lines.
Even then, Eighth Avenue riders would still continue to suffer for my decision to be nice to one guy at the expense of thousands of other people and put my ass in the way of the closing doors so that the guy busting his to make the train can rush through the jammed door instead of slamming awkwardly into the side of the train. Rather than suffering being held somewhere just north of the platform pending the clearance of traffic, they would suffer missing that cross-platform transfer and potentially waiting a number of minutes for the particular service they needed.
It doesn’t have to be that way, by the way. Even without advances in signaling, or de-interlining, or bringing the entire subway fleet into the 21st century – there’s plenty of give in the system to handle every day acts of hostile niceness like holding doors. Schedules can be padded and trains can be run at different speeds to account for anything and everything that might cause your 15 second subway stop to take 30 or even 45 seconds instead; and that can happen even under interlining and even with 90% of the line’s capacity in use. And, as others elsewhere in these comments have pointed out: vast portions of the system aren’t even close to 90% capacity utilization.
The math is simple and the solution practical and the system has been explicitly designed to operate this way. Railing against interlining is a distraction.
The A is essentially two services because of its branching in Queens. By equalizing the services, you’re either overserving the B, C, and D or shortchanging the line east of Rockaway Blvd. Probably both, as a matter of fact. Speaking of which, you see how we’re having this problem with balancing the frequencies of different lines that interweave with each other? Deinterlining would eliminate that.
Why are you advocating the installation of a switch south of 50th Street? Because the C and E interlining cause delays. What I’m saying is just an extension of that – the more self-contained services are, the more reliable and frequent they can be.
Of course, if for example some genius spends 60 seconds holding the doors on a northbound D at 42nd St, that will delay the train by 60 seconds (ignoring later effects due to more crowding, etc.) Here’s the thing though – if the service is self-contained, the dispatcher can concentrate on that train and its followers, issuing skips and delaying the train ahead as appropriate. If there’s massive interlining, though, that late D train will delay the A at the merge point, which will probably cause the A behind it to be late because the A runs in pairs for some reason, which will definitely delay the D behind THAT because it had time to catch up during the door holding, which will delay the B, and then the B will be late and get priority over the C, and so on and so on.
There are obviously many things that need to be improved in terms of efficiency of operations, and dwell time control is one of them. If CRs stopped reopening the doors when people hold them people would eventually learn that holding the doors is futile and stop doing so.
What should not be done is incessant padding of the schedule as you suggest. The system has been slowed down enough over the last few decades. The causes of delay need to be tackled and eliminated. “We are delayed due to train traffic ahead of us” is a cause of delay, so it should be eliminated where possible.
Here’s the gist: merge points magnify even the slightest delay. To prevent every little thing from getting out of hand, service levels are lowered. By eliminating merging we will isolate any potential problems to one line, allowing more service and increasing network reliability.
Actually, no, it’s the switch at Canal Street which causes delays and installing a new replacement switch somewhere else (somewhere else, for the sake of argument, could also mean “at Canal Street as a replacement for the old switch”); disconnecting the C from the E is of tangential benefit in allowing you to deal with the Queens Boulevard line services (an actually challenging math problem) separately from the CPW services, but that’s not strictly necessary.
To your larger point, of course some interlining causes more problems than benefits. Actually, Queens Boulevard is a good example of that: both halves of the M really want access to Midtown Manhattan, so they’re interlined largely because the only other place the Brooklyn half of the M can go is back into Brooklyn via Nassau. There’s no other reason to run M trains up Sixth Avenue and back out to Queens, and doing so requires a lot of unfortunate interactions with other services that could have been easily avoided if only the Second Avenue Subway had been built out.
Not all interlining is created equal. Some of it is beneficial, some of it is necessary, and some of it ought to be discontinued. But painting with a broad brush in saying that all interlining should be stopped is disingenuous, probably impossible with the way that the system’s constructed, liable to anger a great many people for marginal benefit, and – again – ultimately a distraction from the fact that service could be increased right now with excess track capacity that the MTA isn’t using and idling train sets that the MTA isn’t using because they don’t feel the need to run service more frequently.
I forgot to add this to the other comment, but no, there isn’t a reason for the A to run twice as frequently as every other service. Lefferts and the Rockaways are not large enough demand generators to justify full service, which is probably why the A serves both instead of only serving one of them and the other one being given either a shuttle or a separately-labeled Eighth Avenue Express service.
More generally, if there’s a demand for 24 express TPH through midtown/downtown along Eighth Avenue, switching the C over at 50 St instead solves that problem, and allows both the A and the C to run at 12 TPH. Lefferts and Rockaway would go from whatever amount of service they have now to 6 TPH each under such a scenario, but I’m fairly confident in asserting that they don’t need more than 6 TPH right now, or if they do, then the C should be extended to Lefferts.
The A and C cannot have the same frequency. The C serves the very lightly loaded Fulton local stations, while the A has two branches on the east, which requires a certain level of service just for decency. Your example, of 6tph to Lefferts and 6 to Far Rock, would decrease A service (compared to current) by 33%. The C, meanwhile, would increase service by 50% even though the Brooklyn end doesn’t even have the ridership to get ten-car trains.
In reality, the C should be extended to Lefferts, but as far as I know that’s politically infeasible, even though the express only saves a couple of minutes.
To your first point, here’s what I’ll say. Obviously some deinterlining brings a negative net benefit to customers. Here’s the thing though: there is a spectrum, on which capacity and one-seat rides are on opposite ends. The logical conclusion of giving everyone a one seat ride is called a highway, which we know has lower capacity than a rail line. IMO, as ridership continues to increase we will have to move along the spectrum, toward capacity, with one-seat rides being reduced as a tradeoff. (Note that there are obviously other things that can significantly improve capacity, CBTC in its current incarnation not being one of them. Interlining or lack thereof isn’t the whole story.)
Two issues here:
1. The off-peak scheduled headways are poor compared to other subway systems around the world because the MTA intentionally chooses loading guidelines that instruct them not to run anything more than the bare minimum. CBCT, OPTO, interlining are distractions here. They have nothing to do with this. There is no reason to believe that de-interlining the whole system, adding OPTO and CBCT would improve this. The reason midday and late night frequencies are so poor is that the MTA doesn’t think they should be running more trains. They think waiting 10 minutes for a train during the day and 20 minutes at night is fine. The only reason they ever run more frequent service during rush hours is basically that the trains and platforms would get more dangerously crowded than they already are. Otherwise, keep waiting. Following the MTA’s current policies, we should see worse headways on the 4/5/6 once the 2nd Ave subway opens if it diverts a significant number of Far UES’ers from the 4/5/6. That reduced ridership should mean longer off-peak waits. Progress, in the MTA’s eyes.
2. Headway adherence is poor compared to other subway systems around the world because the MTA doesn’t seem to have any incentive to adhere to those scheduled headways. Again, CBCT, OPTO, interlining are distractions here. They have nothing to do with this. The uptown 6 train frequently doesn’t leave Brooklyn Bridge on time, with no explanation as to why. How can you blame this on interlining or the lack of CBCT? Is somebody just asleep at the Rail Control Center? Nobody knows or cares. Most New Yorkers just grumble about it. “The MTA needs to do better”? It seems that they don’t! They do poorly and they get away with it.
sorry, noob question: what is de-interlining?
Having different services share tracks. The 4 and 5 interline in Manhattan, but diverge in Brooklyn and The Bronx.
Ugly examples: The E’s schedule has to be coordinated with the M and the C. Likewise the F has to be coordinated with the M and the E.
The M and the E share tracks? Along 53rd Street and in Queens?
So de-interlining would also change the C and the E somehow into one line from Canal St to 42nd St?
Yes, they share a single two-track tunnel and the approaches.
I don’t really know how it could be done in that case. The C and E already share between Canal and 42nd., but then the C shares with the (high peak frequency) A between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The negative effect that has is it limits how many Cs can be run in Brooklyn (~8 TPH at peak?).
Anyway, I don’t think anyone is against interlining, but perhaps it can be argued that NYC takes it a bit too far. It would definitely be expensive to change (fix?).
Regarding 8th Av, here’s how a full de interlining could work:
A and B trains operate as currently. C trains run express from Canal St to 145th St*. D trains run local from 145th to 59th**.
*A and C trains share tracks, with nothing but each other, from Hoyt St to 145 St.
**B and D trains share tracks, with nothing but each other, from Dekalb (a disaster that needs to deinterlined as well) to 145th or farther.
Regarding cost, that’s misleading. There are many interlining proposals that could be implemented today (CPW for instance). There are several more, including the critically necessary Rogers Junction deinterlining, which could be implemented in a week or two. (Installing just two switches would completely isolate 7th Av services from Lex trains.) There are some ideas that are more complex, though, you’re right. For instance, if Dekalb were de-interlined (N, Q to 4 Av and B, D to Brighton) I would argue that a cross-platform transfer would need to be built at Dekalb between the bypass and Brighton tracks. The R, which goes to a lower level both north and south of the station, would simply stay on this lower level and have a platform below the current one at Dekalb. The current one would be extended above the R tracks to reach the bypass.
tl;dr Some interlining projects would cost money, but many are quite cheap and easy.
You mean a year or two? Even that seems highly optimistic.
We’re talking a huge structural job, a huge track job, and a huge signal job – and we haven’t even addressed Flatbush terminal, which is too constrained to handle all West Side service.
A week was probably an exaggeration, but there’s no way two switches take a year of construction work. If the Japanese can convert an above-ground rail station into a tunnel portal rail station in FOUR HOURS, we can put in a measly switch or two in less than a year.
Assuming Flatbush were not modified, which it should be (and could be rather inexpensively), some 2/3 trains could just run to New Lots Yard to layup, just like 2/5s do now.
Two single crossovers, actually, with four switches, not two, and with structural columns presently in the way. It would take years of seriously disruptive work to rebuild the structural supports so that they’d make room for the crossovers without risking a cave-in, and only then could the track work and switch work and signal work begin (well, to be fair, some of the signal work could probably be done while the structural work is taking place). And all this on an active four-track railroad that is indispensable each and every rush hour.
Can’t wait to see what you propose doing “rather inexpensively” at Flatbush.
No, I think what we’re talking about here is if the C were to run on what is now the A express tracks through Midtown/Downtown, leaving only the E for local stops.
The idea of eliminating interlining in this context would be to have AC express in most of Manhattan and E being local. But don’t forget that between 53rd and Canal express and local serve every station except 50th, 23rd, and Spring.
So even the express is a semi-local here.
With the addition of the right amount of switches 50th could also be served by the AC without interfering with the E. E is on a lower level at 50th.
So everybody in the Bronx that has express service is screwed and everybody in Manhattan that has local service is screwed.
Off peak headways are an embarrassment. The fact that not every train is jam packed shouldn’t mean that passengers should be waiting 10 minutes in the middle of the day. And that’s on a good day; if we have sick customers, door holders, flagging*, or union workers living up to their reputation, that can double or more. Exhibit A: R train.
*The MTA’s flagging policy drives me nuts. It’s one justification for why weekend service is so poor – for instance, on Queens Blvd the (obscenely expensive and utterly unbeneficial) CBTC project frequently shuts down a track or two, requiring everything in one direction to be on the same track. Ridiculously, though, because trains have to crawl for extended distances past work zones, capacity drops to around 15tph. Thus, the E F and R each operate every 12 minutes on weekends. It’s pathetic. All they need to do is put up one of those temporary fences to isolate the work zone from active traffic… eureka! No more disruptions and delays from flagging!
A ten minute headway, an average five minute wait isn’t remotely close to being too long for people. This is just complaining for the sake of complaining.
What do you consider too long? A subway is an enormous investment, and it should be used to its maximum potential whenever possible. Having people standing around in rather disgusting stations is just an incentive for them to take cabs or bike.
ten minute headways means you’re often going to be waiting well more than 5 minutes. and that’s unacceptable.
Does the MTA even have the money to operate more trains during any time of the day? I have the feeling that the train load guidelines are function of the operating budget that the agency has, e.g. if the budget is higher they run more trains, when the budget is lower, they run fewer and adjust the guidelines. (I know the budget is never lower, it is always higher year after year, but if the cost to run a train increases faster than the budget, then it is lower in real terms.)
It should be the other way around, the load guidelines should determine the budget, but in reality the budget determines the load guidelines.
BTW are people willing to pay another quarter or two in higher fares for more off-peak service?
Those 2 quarters will immediately go for MTA debt service. You will not get a single more train out of them.
The MTA budget is a black hole. It will suck in whatever money it is given without actually generating any improvement. Conversely, if through superhuman effort it is possible to enact reform, much more can be done with the current financing.
For instance, why do the majority of construction workers stand around and do nothing? (It’s not just me or a million other people or the MTA photographer noticing, the IG has published a report on it.) Why do we still have two people on almost every train? (Especially egregious is the L, which has monitors for the T/O to see the platform.) Why does every single capital project run late, except when they actually need it? (Montague R branch*, 1/9 rehab post-9/11.) I can go on, but my point is, without a conscious effort MTA will continue its slide into an inept bureaucracy with zero accountability and a massively inflated budget.
*The Nassau connection to the Montague tube is still closed for repairs. Its twin connection to Whitehall Street has been open for a year now, but Nassau isn’t needed for regular service so I can only assume the contractors are milking it for all it’s got.
Because having them dive between the tracks when your train goes by would occasionally delay your trip when one of them gets caught in the wheels.
That excuse stopped working when people noticed that they also tend to stand around when there’s no train in the area.
Nonsense.
The loading guidelines are right here. They haven’t changed since 2010.
Subway and bus ridership are periodically checked, and adjustments up and down are made in the next round of schedule changes (twice per year on the subway, four times per year on the bus). For instance, this fall (I think that actually means December), subway service is being increased to the tune of $1.6 million annually, based on ridership checks.
I had occasion to ride the Q59 bus the other day. There were 3 buses at the terminal. Despite that, the scheduled Q59 arrived 4 minute late, 1 stop away from the terminal, the stop I was waiting at. It left the terminal 4 minutes late. It then took 1 hour and 15 to arrive at my destination when Google Maps said 55 minutes for the entire trip via transit. There was very little traffic. Something is dearly wrong at the MTA and it’s governing entities, The driver drove very slow, seemingly intentionally missing traffic lights.
Since the equivalent drive is about 25 minutes, anybody with a choice would obviously opt to drive.
DeBlasio’s Vision Zero 25 mph speed limit. I’ve had drivers stop at green lights and wait for them to turn red on 2 SBS and 1 Ltd route.
Waiting for a green to turn red is a schedule issue, not a De Blasio issue. The 25mph limit obviously doesn’t help anybody, but let’s be fair.
According to Google Maps (which gets its schedule information from the MTA), the trip was supposed to take 55 minutes. So the driver was scheduled to make the trip in approximately 55 minutes, and ended up taking 75 minutes. (Probably the 55 minutes assumed that the driver would drive at a reasonable speed, instead of excessively slowly).
How does a 25 mph speed limit require stopping at green lights? When you’re on a bus that’s stopping for green lights, you’re probably seeing the effects of excessive running time in the schedule.
(On a line with high variability of traffic congestion, it’s basically impossible to come up with a good schedule – any schedule will give too much time for low-congestion days but not enough for high-congestion days. This is a place where bus lanes can help a lot, by making running times more predictable.)
This is nothing new and I don’t know what pete is talking about with this having to do with 25 mph. They brake at green lights and have done it for years on Staten Island. Anecdotally, someone wrote a letter that was published in the NY Times complaining about it some years back. I used to think this was to not get ahead of schedule, and sometimes, however stupidly, it is. However it’s recently happened in cases where the bus was definitely and consistently behind schedule as well, which is pretty infuriating when the difference between making the SI Ferry and missing it is one minute. I agree that this is one of the factors driving riders off of the bus in New York in general in recent years; the system has absolutely no respect for riders’ time.
SBS buses have no intermediate timepoints by design, both in the public and employee time table. No timepoints is one of the things that separates SBS from LTD. The M60 stops at green lights at night and wont go above 20 mph even though it is a 1/4 mile between traffic lights on the GCP service road. Q44 does the same thing on Main street which has a concrete curb in the middle and long stretches between traffic lights. The M60 before Vision Zero peaked at 40-42 mph on the GCP service road, now bus drivers wont go above 23.
If bus drivers are going slow or stopping at green lights and it is not because of schedules or speed limits, then it must be some other reason – probably one we wouldn’t like – e.g. overtime or other work rule things that distort drivers motivations. Someone probably knows what these are.
Uh-oh. Union featherbedding.
Of course service is inadequate for the crowds now riding the subway. This has been the obvious result of decisions made years ago, and the general revitalization of the city. The subway is barely hanging together and no one is doing anything about it. I was sad to leave, but this and other factors drove me out. It’s not going to get any better anytime soon (or ever, probably, unless the city’s population drops.)
The only thing I noticed with regard to the Pope thing this morning was fewer cars on the street where I was bicycling. Perhaps the hysteria scared people off.
Yes, everywhere outside the immediate hot spots has been heavenly.
Dear MTA,
Here’s a good guideline for if you need to increase headways. If the train is packed on a Tuesday night at 11pm or a Sunday afternoon (and they very often are), you need to run more trains.
Thanks,
22r
MTA loading guidelines require that between 2 stations in the route at some point during trip, it must standing room only, if it doesnt reach standing room only, frequency will be reduced until it hits 20 mins per train (they can’t go any less per hour than that), or the standing room only between 2 stations in the route requirement is met. The most used station pair can be anywhere on the route, since the most used pair sets the standard for the rest of the line.
For fun, know that all MTA bus and train drivers are paid half rate salary for their “mid day” hours, since they are guaranteed 12 hours (morning and evening rush) a day of labor, but they can goto home during midday and they are still paid http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....e-1.445436
Allow me to clarify. Obviously, MTA service needs are higher during the rush hours. The scheduling works out such that they have some (not all) bus operators covering both AM and PM rush hours. Since bus drivers working 12 hours a day violates the rules, these operators have the middle of the day off. These breaks can be rather short, so I would argue that they should be paid something for the time that they would otherwise be idling around the depot. (Many operators live too far away to go home during a two or three hour break.) Perhaps they could do some administrative work? I’m sure TA has plenty of that.
The other rules the article mentions are, naturally, a bit ridiculous. Just union workers upholding their reputation I suppose!
The best jobs on the seniority pick give 6 or 7 hours break time, not 2-3. You arrive at 5 AM, return the bus at 845, then come back at 3 PM and do a school run at 3:30 at some HS, return the bus at 5 PM, and clock out again. With 6 hours break time, some bus drivers have a 2nd job, such as being a manager at the family restaurant or a part time waiter for lunch time rush. Express bus routes are also coveted high seniority routes since the driver can comfortably goto sleep for a while on the rear full width row of soft seats while parked at some remote layout spot.
Your first paragraph is dead wrong. Here are the guidelines.
Your second paragraph applies to some bus drivers, I think only express bus drivers. It has nothing to do with the subway. The subway and local bus systems are nowhere near as peaked as the express bus system, and there’s plenty of productive off-peak work for subway crews before or after the rush hour.
A single train or an average of trains over a longer time period?
What do you do if, due to construction work on Sunday afternoon and the associated flagging (which severely cuts into capacity), there’s no capacity to add more service?
Mid-day, weeknight and even weekend service is pathetic. There needs to be more of all of it. I had to wait 12 minutes for a number 1 train at 10 a.m. on a recent weekday and it wasn’t because service was backed up.
Weekend is the worst… no other globally-ranked city does completely far-reaching and random changes to its network on weekends (A running on the F line? Bleecker Street station closed? What?)… no other city in the world requires you to check their website for operational status and changes before travelling on weekends.
Um, that’s not even remotely true. London is far far worse than NY for weekend engineering work. At least in NY, most of the time the trains run through in some sense (even if they divert a bit or bypass the right track). In London you get widespread shuttle buses for huge stretches of line.
The fact that most of the central trunks have local and express service makes a very big difference here — if the express is out, no big deal, things are just a bit slower. If the local is out, you skip some stations and it’s a bigger pain because you have to backtrack, but it works. In London it’s all bustitution. (There’s also much less interlining over there…)
Yes, there are many systems in the eastern hemisphere that do not do weekend closures. I’m thinking Soviet and East Asian in particular. The Moscow metro website, for instance, simply does not have a page about trackwork changes. It has a tab called “service changes,” but that redirects to the escalator scheduled outage page.
However, the aforementioned systems all close down at night. Given MTA incompetence in any sort of maintenance or capital work (just read the IG report!), nightly closure of the network won’t reduce weekend work. So, we should keep the system open at night.
Of course that does not negate the general ineptitude of the maintenance crews, ranging from the obscene staffing requirements, which lead to people standing around doing nothing, to the overall lack of productivity that results when nobody is held accountable.
There’s also the unfortunate records of NYC Subway signal maintenance workers claiming to have done parts replacements, filing the paperwork, and then people going back and finding that the replacements were never done. That was the scandal a year or two ago.
Not nearly as bad as the LIRR train maintenance workers who just went off and had fun while on the clock, for the majority of the day (documented by video camera) — they’re still employed apparently.
The 1 train is scheduled a lot more frequently than that at 10 a.m. Whatever caused that gap in service, it wasn’t the schedule.
I’m not sure how this surprises anyone, they just don’t care.. The MTA even has to be shamed into line reviews by local politicians that eventually result in service increases. In the current atmosphere they are content to let the city strangle on its own congestion until it ponies up more dough. If the city does cough up the capital plan cash they should get to reset load guidelines that will force MTA to bump service up where is it physically possible (in large parts of the system).
Just a couple of points:
– I do not understand the insistence upon “de-interlining” the A,B,C and D trains that service Central Park West as if that would somehow increase transit service. The major west-side route that consistently serves the largest number of riders are the #1, #2 and #3 lines, where #1 trains generally only travel the local tracks, and #2 and #3 tend to only use the express tracks (midnight hour service excepted).
Even the very high ridership east-side #4, #5 and #6 lines tend to keep express trains on express tracks, and local trains on local tracks. I suppose that the fewer amounts of track switching options makes these lines that consistently carry huge numbers of riders – day in – day out, and night time also – are just not as interesting for the debates, storm and drag.
– The discussion of “de-interlining” the A,B,C and D trains seems like one of those “higher level” discussions that neglects to take into account the realities of the train services, the stations and the ridership that would be impacted.
– On a related note – since the TA rarely seems to “store trains” on layup tracks for hugely crowded events – there’s a question about how does the MTA actually respond to crowded events given its current practices? The majority of the trains tend to come and go – to and from their distant terminals. It is not like the TA will have a couple of trains just sitting at Second Avenue ready to stream up to Herald Square if the platforms suddenly became crowded. It is not like there are “plenty of places” in midtown to have trains “on stand-by” just in case.
– As usual, living on Staten Island with its ferries and Staten Island Railroad running generally every 30 minutes (15 or 20 minutes apart rush hours; or 60 minutes apart very early morning hours), most buses at 30 minutes apart (a few at 20 minutes apart), and I won’t mention the express buses.
Ferry service at 30 minutes apart WAS the midnight hour service level prior to the mid-1970’s fiscal crisis, but now that’s the usual regular level. Sometimes the grass is actually greener on the other lawn.
Basically if the boats, buses and SIR trains showed up at 12-minutes apart we’d be very happy. I mean it! We’d be VERY, VERY HAPPY!
Mike
Here’s the thing with interlining. If all trains ran perfectly to schedule and all equipment functioned 100% of the time, it wouldn’t be a problem. That obviously is not what happens, so interlining brings about a significant reduction in capacity to allow for extra delay recovery time. Imagine standing on the uptown 4/5/6 platform at GCT during the rush. Now “simulate” interlining. Pretend that every time a 5 and leave at the same time, one of them has to wait two minutes, and every time a 4 and (6) leave at the same time, only one of them can go. See the problem? If 4 and trains match every time and 5 and (6) trains do as well, there’s no problem. The moment one of those assumptions fails, delays begin to cascade and the service falls apart.
There is room on the Lexington tracks for more trains. For instance, the 2 occasionally runs via Lex because of issues on its regular route and I can’t say there are many delays when that occurs. The chokepoint is Rogers Junction in Brooklyn, where 2 3 and 5 trains all have to share a short segment of track. (Again, interlining!!)
The A/B/C/D are ideal in that transfers on both ends of CPW are cross-platform. If you’re telling me people can’t walk across a platform anymore, we’re in serious trouble. As ridership continues to increase, as a city we will have to decide that we are willing to cross the platform if we want to fit onto the train.
I don’t know everything about MTA event service, but I know for major concerts and the like they run additional service. Barclays Center concerts see extra B trains, among other services, and Yankees games have special trains that terminate at 2 Av or in Brooklyn.
Staten Island does not have the ridership to support very frequent service. If a heavy rail line were extended directly to SI, there would be enormous induced demand and it would be quite crowded. That would affect quality of life on SI significantly so as far as I know residents have resisted serious proposals for a direct subway line to Manhattan.
I do not understand your first paragraph. I believe some very important words are missing. Read this paragraph out loud word for word – there are words missing. (I often have to proof-read my responses before uploading them to the forums.)
I have been on the uptown platform at Grand Central – hundreds of plenty of times. The actual usual pattern is that #6 trains use the local track, and that #4 and #5 trains share the express track (except at midnight hours, as noted). Generally once the #4 and #5 trains are added on the same track just north of the 138th Street station, they remain in order on the express track until either the Bowling Green station, or the Rutgers Street junction in Brooklyn. The operations of the #4 and #5 trains ARE isolated from the #6 trains, now why would anyone WANT to change that?
Unless there is some problem on Lexington Avenue where they switch some trains off of their usual tracks, the local #6 trains, and the express #4 and #5 trains do not regularly interfere with each other. I agree it seems possible to some additional train service on Lexington Avenue, and that when there’s trouble that #2 trains are often sent to/from Brooklyn via the Lexington Avenue line.
In relation for the “interlining” and “de-interlining” of the A, B, C and D lines on Central Park West – I’m not convinced that the supposed “cure” will bring much benefit, will be worth the effort, or will not make some things worse for many of the riders. The urge to tinker with transit is a strong urge. The Central Park West segment of the A, B, C and D lines (and some other lines) present opportunities for tinkering.
One way to eliminate the “congestion” of A, C or E trains at the Canal Street station involves reverting to the old pattern where only A and E trains travel to/from Brooklyn, Queens and the Rockaways. The C-train would end at the World Trade Center. (The congestion point shrinks to just the express tracks south of the 59th Street-Columbus Circle station and just north of the 42nd Street station, affecting only A-trains.)
I once called the Lafayette Avenue station in Brooklyn my home station while working on 125th Street. I believe that any suggestion of making A and C trains all local in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens at all times would not go over very well. Such a scheme might be one of those fantastical tinkerings in the effort to eliminate merge points that might look good on paper – but not so good in actual practice.
Concerning Staten Island transit – in another message someone complained about a 12-minute wait for train service during the day, implying that waiting the 12-minutes was very bad. My point was simple. Imagine the situation where one regularly had to wait MUCH MORE than 12-minutes for service! In fact waiting long periods between vehicles has been the norm for decades!
I understand folks in the Rockaways have train service every 20 minutes all of the time – except for train delays or hurricanes. I understand that folks along the Rockaway Park segment also must transfer to/from a shuttle train. Plenty of folks regularly contend with long headways and long rides. The wish for more frequent service might be a fantasy, but it still is fun to think about.
Basically if the boats, buses and SIR trains showed up at 12-minutes apart we’d be very happy. I mean it! We’d be VERY, VERY HAPPY!
To build a direct tunnel between Staten Island and Manhattan would cost several billion dollars. That kind of idea has always been put off for the “not-for-see-able future” in plenty of transportation planning documents. The earliest document that I remember reading such a statement was in the 1968 Master Plan for NYC, which I read in high school some 40+ years ago. Since then several other reports have said the same – it is not some unknown fact. The unlikely direct tunnel has nothing to do with the “supposed” resistance to a direct subway line to Manhattan” attributed to Staten Island residents. Nobody has ever had a clue to where the several billion in funds would come from, since such money does not grow on trees!
Considering the moaning and groaning by transit fans about the costs of building transit projects, these same folks would never stop moaning and groaning about a tunnel project costing several billion dollars connecting Staten Island directly to Manhattan. Even from their death beds, the skeletons in their coffins and even their cremated remains would STILL be moaning and groaning about the cost of a tunnel direct from Manhattan to Staten Island!
Even after the 5th World War has reduced Manhattan to rumble, and has left Staten Island as the last remaining paradise called NYC, folks would still be complaining, moaning and groaning about the cost of direct connecting Staten Island and Manhattan.
Even after …
Mike
My first paragraph was a hypothetical example of what would happen if we introduced interlining on the Lex, even assuming a flying junction existed at 42nd. (There is one at 125th, FWIW). You said it best: “#4 and #5 trains ARE isolated from the #6 trains, now why would anyone WANT to change that?” That’s precisely the point. Operations are currently segregated, and even though people heading from Jerome/WPR to the Lex Local have to transfer, the current system is maintained because it isolates delays and increases frequencies.
Same thing with CPW. Imagine in a decade or two, CPW is fully deinterlined and frequencies are higher because of continuously increasing ridership. One could stand at 59th St and ask, “8th Av and 6th Av trains are isolated, now why would anyone want to change that?” Even though some people would be forced to transfer, isolating services from each other is inherently a more efficient service pattern. Yes, it inconveniences some passengers. Where is the tradeoff between giving everyone a one seat ride and making sure people fit onto the train in the first place? I would argue that we are quickly approaching the tipping point.
The 8th Avenue IND line could be completely de-interlined in several ways. However, sending all E trains via express would overload the 8th Av express tracks. In any event, obviously eliminating Brooklyn express service will not be popular. There will always be a balance between convenience and capacity.
And yes, there are areas of the city that do not (and will not, for the near future) support frequent service. That doesn’t mean that areas that DO should not have it.
And if MTA brought construction costs under control it could build a tunnel to SI for relatively little. But that’s a discussion for another time…
And yes, the software misread the 6-diamond sign and failed to show it. What I meant was,
Pretend that every time a 5 and diamond-6 leave at the same time, one of them has to wait two minutes, and every time a 4 and (6) leave at the same time, only one of them can go. See the problem? If 4 and diamond-6 trains match…
Compare to SEPTA, with their Pope reaction:
“We can’t handle crowds so we wont even try. Walk”
Incidentally, if youd like to see poor service standards, try the B line in Boston on a Saturday night (midnight or so). Crush loads that would make Mumbai transit riders hesitate. You have to rake a running start to throw yourself in, and then it take the door nine or ten attempts to push you in all the way.
SEPTA’s behavior was unbelievably bad. “Hmm. We’re expecting extra passengers. We’ll just close 90% of the train stations, that will help.” ?!?!?
Slightly off topic but does anyone have additional information on this section of LIRR track and is it worth re-activating ? http://www.timesledger.com/sto....._25_q.html
Well, I think I found it on Google Maps if that helps. Looks pretty useless, actually, given that it parallels the G. https://www.google.com/maps/place/49+Av%2F25+St/@40.7420295,-73.9443203,19z/data=!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x89c25ed655741e61:0xfa132bdca6ebb862!2sSkillman+Ave,+Long+Island+City,+NY!3b1!3m1!1s0x89c2592e5171d57b:0xfe55ce8f06a3b59a
It’s a short cutoff so it would be hard to turn into something useful. However, if the entire Lower Montauk line could be turned into something like London Overground, I think it would be quite successful.
Another anecdote about off rush hour service, this concerning Staten Island express buses.
Only 3 of the 21 express routes even run outside of rush hour, X1, the X10, and the X17. The 1 runs seemingly none stop. Wait two minutes, there’s another x1 bus. It runs as if it breeds. That bus services the eastern and southern shores of Staten Island, traveling primarily down Hylan Blvd.
The midday X10 runs about every 30 minutes. Today, being off from work, I was in Manhattan and go the very last seat on an X10 at about 3:20 at Exchange Place. Six other people who boarded after me at that stop had to stand, as did about three more who got on at State St., the last stop before going into the BBT/Carey Tunnel.
This is not unusual anymore. I’ve taken the X10 at about from around 3:00pm to 4:30pm into Manhattan and have found the buses all but packed. For $6.50, no one should ever have to stand. The solution to this of course is more service. Instead of 30 minute headways between rush hours, make it 20 minutes. It adds one bus an hour. The X11, which is just a downtown version of the route for rush hours could start a bit earlier than 4:00pm.
Finally, of the other 18 routes, it may be time to extend another of the routes to fill more than just rush hours.
I take the X10 as well, and I agree that the line has many issues. I’ve seen buses back-to-back when they should be spaced 30 minutes apart. The concensus among many of the drivers is that there’s too much running time at certain times (e.g. midday weekdays), and not enough during other times.
By any chance, if you want to contact me to try and get the MTA’s attention on this issue, my email is improvesibusservice at gmail dot com. I have a few people from the Mariners Harbor Civic Association who have the same exact concerns about X10 service.
This post is so full of errors and inaccuracies that I’m not sure where to begin.
The loading guidelines – last revised in 2010, following a round of public hearing and plenty of bad press (i.e., not adjustable “on a whim”) – can be found here. They address only the quantity of service, not the quality of service. That is, they are concerned with the average car of the average train, at the peak load point, over a period of time. Evenness of service is certainly an important thing, one in which the MTA is most obviously falling short, but it’s an issue of service quality rather than quantity.
if you encounter “uneven headways with 15-20 minutes between some trains and two minutes between others,” what you’re seeing is uneven service, not necessarily inadequate service. Sure, the first train behind a 20-minute gap will be severely overcrowded – but what about the train 2 minutes behind that one, or the train 2 minutes behind that one? If the trains, on average, are not overcrowded, then there isn’t a problem at all with quantity of service, despite the clear problem with quality of service. Furthermore, if the 20-minute gap was caused by an incident – a police investigation, a stuck door panel, whatever – the poor service can’t be attributed to inadequate schedules. Maybe (or maybe not) it can be attributed to poor incident management, maybe (or maybe not) inadequate communication to the public exacerbated the situation, but the most frequent scheduled service in the world won’t stop a 20 minute incident from lasting 20 minutes.
Yes, off-peak service in many other systems is more frequent than in ours. But most of those systems run much smaller trains than ours, so they need to run more frequent service. And in a system that has a lot of branching and express service, you may be falling into the trap of focusing on nomenclature rather than comparing likes to likes. For instance, the Lexington Avenue trunk has three separately numbered services, but many other systems would give the entire trunk a single name and distinguish the branches and express service with signage. Are you comparing a complete trunk line in one city to one-third or one-half of a trunk line in New York?
Will the trains be able to handle Pope-related events? That depends. If, during rush hours, a large surge of riders find their way onto a line that’s already carrying guideline or close-to-guideline loads, a few trains may be overcrowded. But the crowds will generally disperse to multiple lines and in two directions on each, and anybody who gets off before reaching the peak load point isn’t causing a problem. Off-peak, the risk is minimal, because the off-peak guidelines are so much more generous than the rush hour guidelines. The focus here needs to be on the quality of service, not the quantity – are incidents cleared up as best as they can, is the public kept well informed of service problems so that they can divert themselves elsewhere rather than all waiting around for that first severely overcrowded train? Because that’s where the real concern lies here – in the quality, not in the quantity.
I’m sorry, Ben, but this isn’t even close to your usual journalistic standards.