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mrnyc Feb 3, 2021 8:21 PM

electric school busses and more from mayoral candidate kathryn garcia:


https://www.amny.com/news/kathryn-ga...rking-permits/

mrnyc Feb 3, 2021 8:24 PM

all in for buttigeig with improved local transit hopes, including 2nd ave, ada access, congestion pricing and gateway:


https://www.amny.com/news/buttigieg-...dvocates-ears/

mrnyc Feb 9, 2021 3:18 PM

a little good news.

bedford-fulton reopens at nostrand A,C after 30yrs:


https://www.amny.com/news/brooklyns-...over-30-years/

mrnyc Feb 9, 2021 3:24 PM

this seems like a rather small minded wish list by foye. fund mta and second avenue, yes, but no more vision than that?

no tri-boro rx, etc.??

come on man, is not once in a lifetime is once in a lifetime?:

https://www.amny.com/new-york/op-ed-...ete-buttigieg/

Busy Bee Feb 9, 2021 4:04 PM

"Dream Small" should be the MTA's official motto.

The culture for half a century has not been on expansion but on just maintaining a system that was falling apart as the rest of the world was expanding and building new at a feverish pace. The priority for decades has not been to maintain and exceed past a "state of good repair" but just to reach one.

What the MTA needs most is for the federal government to understand that NYC is our nations alpha city and the face of the country for many around the world. It deserves a first class publuc transportation system which requires massive modernixation and expansion. A 10 year 100 billion grant for the MTA would do wonders and could deliver needed projects like the TriboroRX, Utica subway, Queens superexpress, JFK express to lower Manhattan, Red Hook 1 train, full SAS completion including one or two Bronx branches, Fordham Rd cross Bronx line, etc etc. And im not even talking about M-N or LIRR.

To make a long story short, the last third of the twentieth century was traumatic for NYC and I believe the MTA has been existing in a "state-of-decay" culture really since the Mayor Lindsey years which with the exception of ESA was the last time the agency "thought big" and made serious efforts to expand the system and increase service. I am hopeful this is slowly changing and the federal government needs to be a partner.

electricron Feb 9, 2021 7:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Busy Bee (Post 9185471)
"Dream Small" should be the MTA's official motto.

The culture for half a century has not been on expansion but on just maintaining a system that was falling apart as the rest of the world was expanding and building new at a feverish pace. The priority for decades has not been to maintain and exceed past a "state of good repair" but just to reach one.

What the MTA needs most is for the federal government to understand that NYC is our nations alpha city and the face of the country for many around the world. It deserves a first class publuc transportation system which requires massive modernixation and expansion. A 10 year 100 billion grant for the MTA would do wonders and could deliver needed projects like the TriboroRX, Utica subway, Queens superexpress, JFK express to lower Manhattan, Red Hook 1 train, full SAS completion including one or two Bronx branches, Fordham Rd cross Bronx line, etc etc. And im not even talking about M-N or LIRR.

Per https://longislandweekly.com/how-the...ation-funding/
The FTA annually provides $1.4 billion in capital grants to the MTA. This is accomplished under the FTA Transit Award Management System (known as “TrAMS”) used to award and manage federal grants. The MTA currently manages an active portfolio of federally funded capital improvement projects worth more than $12 billion.

Per https://www.transportation.gov/sites...-compliant.pdf
The Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) FY 2019 Budget requests $11.2 billion.
The FY 2019 Budget requests $9.9 billion for Transit Formula Grants

FYI, the FTA annual budget is around $11.2 Billion. So MTA already gets 12.5 % of it. It's really 14% of the $9.9 Billion allocated with FTA grants.

So how much of the USA population lives in MTA service's area?
Let's use Greater New York's CSA as reported by Wiki, around 21.6 million while being extremely generous and including northern New Jersey as far south as Princeton, which the MTA does not serve.
21.6/328 = 6.5%

Surprisingly, the MTA gets twice as much FTA funding than it's share of the USA population. What the MTA does with what it gets matters. But the idea it does not get its' fair share from Uncle Sam is wrong.

Looking at it from another point of view, transit ridership, we might find things completely different.
MTA total ridership was 2.658 billion in FY 2017 per Wiki
USA total transit ridership was 10.15 billion in FY 2017 per APTA
2.658/10.15 = 26%
So one could make the argument that the MTA gets half the funding it should based upon ridership.

I think the balance is just about right! Twice as much per population, but half as much per ridership.

But we have failed to include the FTA grants to NJT, of which most of its' services are within Greater New York.
Per https://www.app.com/story/opinion/co...es/5333964002/
NJT is a direct recipient of Federal Transit Administration funding. This averages close to $700 million annually to support NJT bus, commuter rail, light rail and para transit systems. NJT currently manages an active portfolio of ongoing capital projects and programs contained within $2.6 billion open federal grants. Wiki reports 268 million passengers in FY 2018. Those extra funding grants and ridership totals would add much to the discussion.

Some additional math:
1,400 million + 700 million = 2100 million or $2.1 Billion
2,658 million + 268 million = 2926 million or 2.9 billion passengers
2.1/9.9 = 29% of FTA's annual funding grants
2.9/ 10.15 = 28% of the USA ridership.
Now funding grants from the FTA basically matches MTA and NJT share of total USA transit ridership.

Someone somewhere will reach a different conclusion finding additional data.
How anyone could suggest the FTA give more grant money to just the MTA alone that is more than what the total the FTA gives out annually is beyond me? $9.9 billion annual in FTA grants is less than $100 billion over a 10 year span, or $10 billion annual for 10 years. Do you really believe the rest of the nation will sit idle with zero funding for 10 years?

I suppose keeping the same allocation scheme Congress has set up to spread the grants out somewhat fairly nationally with their funding formulas, to give MTA an additional $10 billion annual for 10 years, we would have to increase the FTA funding grant program 300%, so there would also be an additional $20 billion annual for the rest of the country. Do you see how quickly a $10 billion annual increase turned into a $30 billion annual increase?

Than we must discuss whether or not New York City is America's Alpha City, your term not mine.
Per Wiki, In 2015, the NYC CSA had a GDP of $1.83 trillion
In 2017 LA CSA had a GDP of $1.252 trillion
In 2019, Chicago CSA had a GDP of $707 billion

How Alpha is that when the next two CSA's sum to a equivalent value?

mrnyc Feb 13, 2021 4:52 AM

^ meh.

you lost the forest in the trees:

New York City is distinguished from other U.S. cities for its low personal automobile ownership and its significant use of public transportation, less than half even own cars. New York City has, by far, the highest rate of public transportation use of any American city, with 67.2% of workers commuting to work by this means in 2006. About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York City or its suburbs.

also trump and his gang soaked the payer states for salt tax money and gave it to his red meat welfare states that didnt do anything with it anyway except build roads at best, so its not like public transit is high on most places lists.

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/stor...ent-2019-06-19

mrnyc Feb 13, 2021 5:00 AM

ugh — C, F train service cuts:

https://www.amny.com/news/riders-all...-service-cuts/

electricron Feb 13, 2021 2:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrnyc (Post 9189895)
^ meh.

you lost the forest in the trees:

New York City is distinguished from other U.S. cities for its low personal automobile ownership and its significant use of public transportation, less than half even own cars. New York City has, by far, the highest rate of public transportation use of any American city, with 67.2% of workers commuting to work by this means in 2006. About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York City or its suburbs.

Within that forest of statistics, I included funding/ridership. You lost the tree within the huge forest.
Every single worker in one way or another throughout the country, uses sidewalks and streets to commute to work. Very few of us live in apartment buildings or homes with their own private train or bus station included. But many of use have carports and garages attached to our homes.

How the federal grant money is distributed throughout the USA is set by Congress via formulas over the decades. Ridership is amongst the statistics used by the FTA for distributing the funds. But ridership is not the only statistic used.

So what is used can be discovered at the APTA or FTA web site. Try this one specifically, as it is a presentation slide format and not too much text.

https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uplo...Lynch-John.pdf

This specific slide shows the difficulties of large transit systems, such as the MTA, to qualify for Capital Investments Grants:

Capital Investment Grants
• There are three types of eligible projects:
– New Starts projects are new fixed guideway projects or extensions to existing fixed guideway systems with a total estimated capital cost of $300 million or more, or that are seeking $100 million or more in CIG funding.
– Small Starts projects are new fixed guideway projects, extensions to existing fixed guideway systems, or corridor-based bus rapid transit projects with a total estimated capital cost of less than $300 million and that are seeking less than $100 million in CIG funding.
– Core Capacity improvement projects are substantial capital investments in existing fixed guideway corridors that are at capacity today, or will be within five years. The project must increase the capacity of the corridor by 10 percent. Core capacity improvement projects may not include elements designed to maintain a state of good repair.

MTA subway ridership is 1.698 billion per year, a 10% increase would be more 169 million more riders. Hence why the 2nd Avenue Subway is an entire new build guideway. It is difficult to imagine any upgrade to any preexisting NY subway corridor that would increase ridership on that corridor by 10%. But that task is much easier to achieve in smaller cities with fewer transit corridors, adding just one well placed station could increase capacity 10%, adding two most certainly would.

And that is just one specific grant program from the FTA, each program has its own funding formula.

k1052 Feb 13, 2021 3:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by electricron (Post 9190040)
It is difficult to imagine any upgrade to any preexisting NY subway corridor that would increase ridership on that corridor by 10%. But that task is much easier to achieve in smaller cities with fewer transit corridors, adding just one well placed station could increase capacity 10%, adding two most certainly would.

What? You can absolutely add more than 10% capacity to NYCT subway corridors with core capacity projects. CBTC, adding substations for more traction power, adding/lengthening platforms, reconfiguring switching layouts/merges, adding flyovers/unders, expanding yards/tail tracks, etc.

electricron Feb 14, 2021 6:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by k1052 (Post 9190080)
What? You can absolutely add more than 10% capacity to NYCT subway corridors with core capacity projects. CBTC, adding substations for more traction power, adding/lengthening platforms, reconfiguring switching layouts/merges, adding flyovers/unders, expanding yards/tail tracks, etc.

Adding and lengthening platforms could add 10% ridership by allowing longer trains. The A line has 45 stations, 24 of them underground, 15 of them elevated, and you would have to do all of them to make longer platforms and longer trains work. The A line only services 11% of the MTA's ridership.
Per Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(New...Subway_service)
The A provides the longest one-seat ride in the system—at 32.39 miles (52.13 km), between Inwood and Far Rockaway—and has a weekday ridership of 600,000. The subway weekday ridership is 5,580,845.
Some math = 600000/5580845 x 100 = 10.75%

That one line alone with 8 cars in each train, barely reaches the threshold 10%. Adding 1 or even 2 cars to each train by lengthening the platform it uses will not add 10% ridership to the entire system.

FYI, New York's subway has 36 lines with a total of 472 stations.

A math puzzle for fun.
If 8 cars was the nominal number of cars in a train, and we were adding one car length to a number of platforms, how many stations would have to be done to see a 10% increase in system ridership.
8 x 472 = 3776
9 x 472 = 4248
4248/3776 x 100 = 12.5% increase in capacity
That's 2.5% too much, so
0.975 x 472 = 460.2
So, by just adding 1 car to every train, to reach a 10% increase in capacity, MTA would have to lengthen platforms on average at 460 of their 472 stations.

But MTA's upgrade program does not include lengthening station platforms or train lengths. Per
Per Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno...bway#Expansion
The MTA would rather add subway line automation, proposed platform screen doors, the FASTRACK maintenance program, Others, such as train-arrival "countdown clocks", "Help Point" station intercoms, "On the Go! Travel Station" passenger kiosks, wireless and cellular network connections in stations, MetroCard fare payment alternatives, and digital ads, are meant to benefit individual passengers.

None of these projects underway will add 10% ridership to any line, or the system as a whole. The upgrades are aimed at making the passenger experience better.

k1052 Feb 14, 2021 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by electricron (Post 9190679)
Adding and lengthening platforms could add 10% ridership by allowing longer trains. The A line has 45 stations, 24 of them underground, 15 of them elevated, and you would have to do all of them to make longer platforms and longer trains work. The A line only services 11% of the MTA's ridership.
Per Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_(New...Subway_service)
The A provides the longest one-seat ride in the system—at 32.39 miles (52.13 km), between Inwood and Far Rockaway—and has a weekday ridership of 600,000. The subway weekday ridership is 5,580,845.
Some math = 600000/5580845 x 100 = 10.75%

That one line alone with 8 cars in each train, barely reaches the threshold 10%. Adding 1 or even 2 cars to each train by lengthening the platform it uses will not add 10% ridership to the entire system.

FYI, New York's subway has 36 lines with a total of 472 stations.

A math puzzle for fun.
If 8 cars was the nominal number of cars in a train, and we were adding one car length to a number of platforms, how many stations would have to be done to see a 10% increase in system ridership.
8 x 472 = 3776
9 x 472 = 4248
4248/3776 x 100 = 12.5% increase in capacity
That's 2.5% too much, so
0.975 x 472 = 460.2
So, by just adding 1 car to every train, to reach a 10% increase in capacity, MTA would have to lengthen platforms on average at 460 of their 472 stations.

But MTA's upgrade program does not include lengthening station platforms or train lengths. Per
Per Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno...bway#Expansion
The MTA would rather add subway line automation, proposed platform screen doors, the FASTRACK maintenance program, Others, such as train-arrival "countdown clocks", "Help Point" station intercoms, "On the Go! Travel Station" passenger kiosks, wireless and cellular network connections in stations, MetroCard fare payment alternatives, and digital ads, are meant to benefit individual passengers.

None of these projects underway will add 10% ridership to any line, or the system as a whole. The upgrades are aimed at making the passenger experience better.

This makes no sense at all. Core Capacity funding doesn't require that capacity must rise 10% on the entire system as a result of a project. The MTA got core capacity money for adding substations on the Canarsie line so they could go from 20 to 22 TPH. NYCT likely has billions (CBTC especially is $$$) in projects that could qualify if a big pot of money becomes available.

There are a few big station projects that alone could wring 10% more capacity out of existing infrastructure on a line, the 4-5-6 platforms at Union Square being at the very top of that list.

manchester united Feb 18, 2021 4:15 AM

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs...subway-service

But NYC needs a FULL 24/7 subway service!

mrnyc Feb 19, 2021 4:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by manchester united (Post 9193955)
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs...subway-service

But NYC needs a FULL 24/7 subway service!

i would say cutting the overnight covid pandemic cleaning schedule in half is a big step toward getting back to that!

btw there is still nobody on the trains and busses these days. its still a pretty odd experience.

mrnyc Feb 20, 2021 1:03 AM

e-scooter pilot program is coming in the bx — get ready for nyc to be all trashed up with these like venice beach lol:


https://nypost.com/2021/02/18/nycs-f...in-the-spring/

mrnyc Feb 20, 2021 1:27 AM

no doomsday service cuts after all:


Updated February 18th, 2021

MTA: No Service Cuts Through 2022

At a board meeting this morning, MTA Chairman Pat Boyd said that thanks to $8 billion federal aid and more than $3 billion in loans, the agency would not have to make the "doomsday" cuts they had been anticipating. Before securing the funding, the MTA's plans called for an almost 50% reduction in service and the termination of over 9,000 transit workers. Boyd stated that the funding will allow the MTA to operate without substantial cuts through the end of 2022, and even resume work on its massive modernization plan this year. Future cuts are still possible looking ahead as far as 2023, but those will largely be dependent on ridership over the next two years as the city recovers from the pandemic.

mrnyc Feb 22, 2021 1:25 PM

overnight subway closures heading towards an end:


OPINION

Lives back on track: The temporary closure of the subway should end, but tough-love tools to help the homeless must remain

By DAILY NEWS EDITORIAL BOARD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
FEB 22, 2021 AT 4:05 AM


The four-hour overnight closure of the subway, in place since May 4 due to coronavirus, has now been scaled back to two hours, from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. That’s great for late night and early morning riders, including odd-shift working stiffs who suffered a significant inconvenience. The two-hour shutdown era shouldn’t last long.

During it, deep cleaning of cars and stations will continue, as will the other silver lining of the new policy: delivering better options to homeless people who otherwise were bedding down in the subway. Neglecting folks with crying mental health and substance abuse problems on trains and platforms might have seemed humane, but it was the opposite.


more:
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/...zty-story.html

M II A II R II K Feb 25, 2021 12:17 AM

New York City Should Take Over Control of Subways From State, Andrew Yang Says

https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-ci...g-says-1571426

Quote:

....

- "I think it's difficult for New Yorkers to be able to hold their leaders accountable when, like right now, you look up and say 'Well, you know, this is an Albany responsibility,'" Yang told Newsweek in a recent interview. The Democratic mayoral candidate said it "would be a major step in the right direction" for New York City to take control of the Subway system going forward. — "We need to invest the proper resources that people will feel safe and secure on the subway. We have to make it so that the subway, itself, is reliable. And then we need to get New York back to a point where folks are visiting for business or tourism because those things will end up increasing ridership on the subway," Yang said.

- Yang is not the first person to call for bringing the public transportation system under the city's control, and the idea has previously faced pushback from Albany. — But New York Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly criticized the plan. "Why hasn't a mayor taken it over? There are about 10 billion reasons. That's the $10 billion the state gives to the MTA, primarily New York City Transit Authority between operating and capital," Cuomo said in a March 2019 interview with WAMC radio. — "If New York City took it over, they take it over. They don't get the $10 billion in state funding," he said. However, Cuomo noted that the city could simply cancel the lease it had with the state for decades, although then it would face the threat of the massive funding shortfall.

.....

Busy Bee Feb 25, 2021 12:34 AM

edit

mrnyc Mar 10, 2021 2:15 PM

ridership per the nytimes


https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021...cale&width=400


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