New York City - Transit News

[mrnyc]

can the G train loop around to rescue the L train during its shutdown?

mayor candidate says yes, mta says no


more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.3263892

https://www.6sqft.com/mta-dismisses-...rain-shutdown/

[mrnyc]

the new south ferry station reopens 5 yrs after sandy:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3282549

[ChargerCarl]

The MTA is a complete disaster and it's Cuomo's fault:

https://www.citylab.com/transportati...roblem/531942/

[canucklehead2]

The system is a mess and needs a crash-course overall ASAP as well as alternative eco-transit forms above ground... Aka streetcars, LRT, monorails...

I'd also suggest AC, platform doors and automated signalling and human drivers (eventually aka a phase out of drivers). All these concepts are pretty standard on most modern metro systems these days so why NYC doesn't is just sad...

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by canucklehead2

The system is a mess and needs a crash-course overall ASAP as well as alternative eco-transit forms above ground... Aka streetcars, LRT, monorails...

Or instead of wasting billions in expensive boondoggles of no use to anyone (BQX) just do a better job with your bus network?

[ChargerCarl]

Another great piece:

How Andrew Cuomo broke the New York Subway: http://theweek.com/articles/709088/h...ew-york-subway

[yankeesfan1000]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

Or instead of wasting billions in expensive boondoggles of no use to anyone (BQX) just do a better job with your bus network?

Has any money actually been spent on BQX? Regardless, the BQX highlights a broader issue in the city, that it takes an eternity to do absolutely anything. Regardless of the effect it would have, it is insane this idea has been thrown around since 2011, the mayor wants, and the real estate industry wants it to increase the value of their buildings along the proposed route, and they still can't figure out how to get it built.

To your comment about buses, they are a total disaster. If I remember correctly, ridership on MTA buses is down 17% in 17 years. According to the MTA it's because people are just taking the subway because subway service is so great, when in reality it's because buses get stuck in traffic, so why waste your time? If the MTA had any sense, they would be looking at ways to completely phase out buses and replace them with light rail with dedicated lanes and monorails.

And while the governor deserves a huge amount of blame for the current state of the MTA, a city with a population of 8.5 million people, and a budget for this fiscal year of $85.2 billion should not be as reliant on Albany to fund incredibly basic infrastructure investment. The mayor deserves blame here too.

[ChargerCarl]

Building light rail in NYC makes no sense to me. When bus routes are at capacity its time to build a subway.

The only reason people float light rail is because of the region's absurd cost disease.

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

Building light rail in NYC makes no sense to me. When bus routes are at capacity its time to build a subway...

Generally true with a very short list of exceptions, the most sensible being rapid LRT on Woodhaven Blvd and maybe some sort of cross-Bronx line or on Staten Island.

In my opinion BQX is a meandering streetcar project not a rapid LRT project, therefore different entirely.

[mrnyc]

bqx editorial:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/d...icle-1.3291616

[yankeesfan1000]

Someone kill me :

Why Did The MTA Send $5 Million To Upstate Ski Resorts?

Guess Which NY Governor Just Took $1 Billion Meant for MTA Subway Signals and Spent It Elsewhere?

[K 22]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Generally true with a very short list of exceptions, the most sensible being rapid LRT on Woodhaven Blvd and maybe some sort of cross-Bronx line or on Staten Island.

In my opinion BQX is a meandering streetcar project not a rapid LRT project, therefore different entirely.

I could go for underground LRT routes beneath the Fordham/Pelham corridor (Bx12) and the Tremont corridor (Bx40/42). They certainly cannot be running on street level, that's for sure.

[Nexis4Jersey]

Originally Posted by K 22

I could go for underground LRT routes beneath the Fordham/Pelham corridor (Bx12) and the Tremont corridor (Bx40/42). They certainly cannot be running on street level, that's for sure.

The Tremont corridor might aswell be the SAS extension into the Bronx...up to at least Fordham Station.

[mrsmartman]

• Video Link

[mrsmartman]

What the New York City Ferry Could Teach the Subway
In some ways, the boats hint at transit’s service-oriented future.

Originally Posted by CityLab

Deck seats were open on the New York City ferry’s third ride from Rockaway to Wall Street Friday morning, but a few passengers chose to lay on the floor.

“We thought we’d get a nap in,” said Irina J., a 28-year-old student who had caught the sunrise at Rockaway Beach. She and her friend spread blankets and pillows in a pocket of starboard floor space. They started a trend: Opposite the captain’s booth, another couple lay down as the vessel chugged across the bay.

“You won’t see that on the A-train,” observed Jermaine Corey, a 26-year-old Rockaway native on his way to work in Manhattan. Before ferry service launched in May, Corey sat through delays and breakdowns on that subway line, and occasionally splurged to sit through surface traffic on the MTA’s $6.50 Midtown express bus...

Read More: https://www.citylab.com/transportati...subway/532356/



Note the sunbathers at top right. (Laura Bliss/CityLab)

[chris08876]

Elon Musk claims he has approval to build high-speed train from NYC to DC

Elon Musk says he won “verbal” government approval to build the world’s longest tunnel for an ultra-high-speed train line to connect New York to Washington.

The train, known as a hyperloop, would make the 220 mile connection in 29 minutes, Musk said in a post on Twitter Thursday. He provided few details, and a spokesperson for his new digging enterprise, called the Boring Company, didn’t immediately respond to a request for more information.

Commuters looking for any excuse to ditch Amtrak shouldn’t get their hopes up just yet. It’s not clear what Musk is doing with these announcements on Twitter. Such an ambitious project would require billions of dollars in funding and extensive approvals from federal, state, and local authorities. The tunnel would be more than twice as long as the current record holder: the Gotthard Base Tunnel, a rail line that runs through the Swiss Alps. For some urban context: the recently opened stretch of subway in New York cost $4.5 billion for less than 2 miles of rails. It was first proposed in 1919 and opened to the public in January 2017. These things take time.

Even if the Boring Co. did receive some kind of approval to start digging a tunnel, it’s not clear how quickly the company will be able to move. Musk began digging in May on a small test tunnel using a second-hand boring machine, called Godot, which he acquired for his speculative new enterprise. Here’s how Musk described the Boring Co. at a Ted Talk in April: “This is basically interns and people doing it part time. We bought some second-hand machinery. It’s kind of puttering along, but it’s making good progress.”

======================
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...train-from-nyc

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Elon Musk claims he has approval to build high-speed train from NYC to DC

Such a statement is a blatant lie. It takes many years, if not a decade to get approval to build such a project. Also the hyperloop isn't even a real thing and people need to stop being delusional over this.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Such a statement is a blatant lie. It takes many years, if not a decade to get approval to build such a project. Also the hyperloop isn't even a real thing and people need to stop being delusional over this.

I don't know why you would ruin everyone's hope so harshly...
Can't you feel romantic sometimes?

I've never thought of Musk as any rival. Yet I guess he's been potentially threatening quite a lot of jobs in my country by the things he's been trying, or at least advertising. And he's been using a whole lot of money for that. But in fact, he's more inspiring than threatening.

I think of him as some sort of romantic engineer and entrepreneur. And that's the right way to go, for "impossible" is no French term. It's been so English... It's impossible, people... Yeah, right. That kind of speech has only been putting us all down to suffering as if we were stupid dogs.

No fucking way. I'll tell you, we're no dogs. We'd rather be dangerous big cats. We have claws and long silver teeth that we brush every day to eat stuff more easily.

Now if infrastructures are so madly expensive in your place, look for the guilty over there, just where you are. But blaming on Musk? He's just a wealthy multi-national trying to make it all easier. Why would you blame on him? He could be operating elsewhere, you know? If you no longer want him, fine, we'll take him here in Paris... mm? now you're thinking, right?

[Busy Bee]

There seems to be a language barrier here. No one is lambasting Musk as an idiot, fool, maniac or otherwise. The hyperloop in the simplest terms is impractical. It would be stratospherically expensive and disruptive. And the biggest reason of all is that it makes no economic sense. The technology and business concept would only be useful for an extremely minute demographic, of which could never possibly fund the cost of its' construction. What Musk should do is throw his enthusiastic support behind a robust high speed rail network in this country that has the ability to link regional economies by giving mobility to a massive amount of people instead of reinventing the wheel.

[mrsmartman]

• Video Link