The Train of Many Colors will celebrate both Games 4 and 5 of the World Series this weekend.
Nearly two weeks ago, I took a look at some light rail initiatives out of Queens. While I’m skeptical of Council Member Elizabeth Crowley’s plan for light rail, I find it encouraging that people are talking about it. The good folks over at LTV Squad took both arguments further as Ray Cevoli wrote two thoroughly excellent posts on the topic. He took apart Crowley’s proposal and then put forward one of his own. I’d recommend you read them both to see how Queens could use preexisting ROWs to improve transit and interconnectedness in a borough screaming out for both.
Additionally, with the Mets forcing the issue tonight, the MTA’s Train of Many Colors will depart from 34th St.-Hudson Yards at 6:30 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. The train will make express stops along the 7 to Citi Field. It’s a fun chance for a photo op. Here are the rest of the service advisories. You’re probably better off walking than waiting for the Franklin Ave. Shuttle this weekend.
From 11:30 p.m. Friday, October 30 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, 1 trains are suspended in both directions between 14 St and South Ferry. Take the 45ACR trains and free shuttle buses instead. Free shuttle buses provide alternate service between Chambers St and South Ferry.
From 11:30 p.m. Friday, October 30 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, 2 trains run local in both directions between Chambers St and 34 St-Penn Station.
From 6:30 a.m. to 12 Midnight Saturday, October 31 and Sunday, November 1, 3 trains run local in both directions between Chambers St and 34 St-Penn Station.
From 11:45 p.m. Friday, October 30 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall bound 6 trains run express from Parkchester to 3 Av-138 St.
From 11:45 p.m. Saturday, October 31 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, A trains are rerouted via the F line in both directions between W 4 St-Wash Sq and Jay St-MetroTech.
From 12:01 a.m. Sunday, November 1 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, A trains run local in both directions between W 4 St-Wash Sq and 59 St-Columbus Circle.
From 11:45 p.m. Saturday, October 31 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, Brooklyn-bound A trains run express from 168 St to 125 St.
From 11:45 p.m. Friday, October 30 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, Lefferts Blvd-bound A trains skip 104 St.
From 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Sunday, November 1, C trains are rerouted via the F line in both directions between Jay St-MetroTech and W 4 St-Wash Sq.
From 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Sunday, November 1, Brooklyn-bound C trains run express from 168 St to 125 St.
From 5:30 a.m. to 12 Midnight, Sunday, November 1, E trains run local in both directions in Queens.
From 11:30 p.m. Saturday, October 31 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, F trains are suspended in both directions between Coney Island-Stillwell Av and Kings Hwy. Free shuttle buses operate between Kings Hwy and Coney Island-Stillwell Av, stopping at Avenue U, Avenue X, Neptune Av, and West 8 St. Transfer between F trains and free shuttle buses at Kings Hwy. Consider using the DNQ between Coney Island-Stillwell Av and Downtown Brooklyn or Manhattan.
From 12:01 a.m. Sunday, November 1 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, F trains run local in both directions in Queens.
From 11:30 p.m. Friday, October 30 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, L trains are suspended in both directions between Canarsie-Rockaway Pkwy and Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs. Take free express and local shuttle buses and AC or J trains.
- Free local shuttle buses provide alternate service between Rockaway Pkwy and Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs, stopping at East 105 St, New Lots Av, Livonia Av, Sutter Av, Atlantic Av, Broadway Junction, Bushwick Av, Wilson Av, and Halsey St.
- Free express shuttle buses serve Rockaway Pkwy, Broadway Junction, and Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs only.
- Transfer between free shuttle buses and L trains at Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs. To/from Manhattan, consider the AC or J via transfers between trains and shuttle buses at Broadway Junction.
Rockaway Park
From 11:45 p.m. Friday, October 30 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, the Rockaway Park Shuttle is suspended. Free shuttle buses provide alternate service between Rockaway Park and Beach 67 St A station, stopping at Beach 105 St, Beach 98 St, and Beach 90 St. Transfer between free shuttle buses and A trains at Beach 67 St.
Franlkin Ave.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, October 31 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, November 2, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle will run every 24 minutes.
17 comments
Has anyone here been to Pittsburgh? One of the neat things is that they have not only dedicated busways (some were for rail ROW) but they also share some of the ROW with LRT. I was wondering if some of these old LIRR ROW could handle both at some sections? Just my .02
Pittsburgh’s LRV system is policy wise “buses with steel tires”. In downtown CBD it is a subway. The moment you leave CBD it becomes commuter rail-ish. Many grade separations happened in the last 30 years to the system, so it starts to look like the LA Metro, but unlike LA Metro Pittsburgh’s T uses mostly low platforms (high platforms are only at very high traffic stations, CBD, Station Square across the river).
PIT PA has insane fare policies. The PA T, uses the same fare structure as PA’s city buses (same fareboxes). Some stations have offboard fare collection during special hours of the day. A person sits in a booth, with a scheidt bachmann bus farebox under a small roof, screwed to the concrete walkway. Usually these booths are closed, so then you have to pay the driver before you get off. When you have to pay the driver, instead of all 3 high level doors on the LRV opening, only 1 high level door closest to the driver opens. For low platform stations, the LRV car has 1 low level door with a staircase next to the 1st high level door, both are next to the driver like it is a bus.
In the tunnel through the mountain, the LRVs share the road with busway buses. Outside of this tunnel, buses go down their interstate style 2 lane busway, and LRVs go on their lots-of-flyovers-for-grade-separation routes. There is no sharing of ROW outside that tunnel through the mountain.
Buses and LRVs have different braking curves, mixing them is rare around the globe.
I will also point out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Seattle_Transit_Tunnel
The moment the government spends money to build the ROW, either it is concrete pavement, or it is rails, not both. Once the ROW is built, its vehicle type is locked in forever.
Yes, I have ridden it only once but I was looking at it from an opportunity to use a right of way that was mixed used with rail only operating at night and busses using sections of the existing ROW by day so strets would not get gummed up with a BRT its whole route.
*streets
Actually they do share a significant viaduct of length before the mountain tunnel which would be about the same distance I was proposing.
Although many runners and support staff get to the marathon start via private bus, it seems uncharacteristic of the TA to do G.O. work at South Ferry this weekend. Am I just overestimating the demand for ferry service marathon morning?
It’s *extremely* characteristic of the MTA. I’ve run the NYC Marathon three times, and it seems they always pull this nonsense marathon weekend. As for the demand for ferry service, the SI Ferry runs a rush hour schedule all of marathon morning, and those ferries are pretty packed.
From what I remember Old South Ferry is a very small, congested station and the access stairs are steep and due to the curved platform only the front 5 cars of the train can be accessed.
So they may have decided that it is better for crowd control and safety to shut the station when they know it is going to be exceptionally busy like on marathon day.
And if they have shut the station then they may as well use the time to do works on the line.
That’s a valid point that I didn’t consider. That station would be a disaster for crowd control. And it looked like they had one heck of a crowd lined up waiting just to get into the ferry terminal building yesterday as it was.
That’s a good point that I also had not considered.
In any case, the bus got us to the ferry terminal just in time to have the DOT personnel allow one runner in and not the other five seconds behind. Though, that’s certainly not Transit’s fault.
I had the same thought about the marathon traffic, and it sounds like it caused a few runners some problems getting to the ferry. But NYRR makes everyone get to SI so early that it works out in the wash.
My wave did not leave until 11 AM, and the corral didn’t open until 10:40, so there was plenty of time for later runners to get to the start. Many, many buses were still shuttling runners from St. George to Fort Wadsworth at 10:30.
The buses from Manhattan have to arrive before they shut the bridge (why they don’t just travel via New Jersey, I don’t know), so later (slower) runners spend many hours waiting for the start.
Those articles are great. It’s nice to see that Cevoli didn’t rule out the possibility of such a line (although I question how easy it would be to rebuild the LIRR Rockaway Branch considering most of the ROW belongs to different city entities).
I’m surprised to read that the Lower Montauk is dark territory. Does anyone know when the signalling system was removed from the subdivision?
I believe the signalling was removed from the Lower Montauk only in the last couple of years, following the LIRR’s decision to turn it over to NY&A, so it’s very recent.
It’s a little sad (from a geeky railfan point of view) because the Lower Montauk was the last location on the LIRR to have position-light signals with Pennsy-style “G plates” affixed. These were little placards with the letter ‘G’ (to indicate a gradient) that allowed freight trains over a certain tonnage to ignore stop-and-proceed indications (Rule 291) and avoid stalling out on the hill — the last vestige of a vanished era.
I’m all behind running this sort of rail service although Cevoli’s assertion that it would reduce traffic on the Van Wyck is wrong and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how transportation demand works.
You know how they always say “you can’t build your way out of congestion”? This applies to building rail parallel to highways just as much as it does to widening highways. The Van Wyck is congested south of the Kew Gardens interchange because it is a major choke point in the highway network, and even if 100% of JFK patrons went there via transit, this would remain the case. There is so much latent demand in the city that moving the airport passengers to a train would quite quickly result in their former space on the highway getting gobbled up by other people driving to southern Queens for other reasons.
Lest we forget, AirTrain did jack to improve traffic on the Van Wyck – it merely made getting to JFK via transit considerably easier.
Now, that still has the benefit of increasing people’s mobility by increasing the overall transportation capacity available, and that IS a substantial benefit worth pursuing. But saying it will reduce congestion is totally disingenuous.
Haha. It probably isn’t disingenuous because they really believe it.
It’s a good thing too, because that’s the crowd that hates transit except for its ability to (they think) move others out of their way.
Did any of you see this? http://ltvsquad.com/2015/10/28.....sit-needs/
Okay Mets, it was a good season…next year.