New York City - Transit News

[Busy Bee]

Semi trailers are basically tin cans, well aluminum and sheet covered plywood but essentially a tin can. Aside from disruption at street level i dont think they pose any threat to the structure of the elevated. But yes, it pisses me off beyond belief that these truckers would attemp to bring these things into thecity and worse yet the first patrol car it passed wouldnt immediately pull it over.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Semi trailers are basically tin cans, well aluminum and sheet covered plywood but essentially a tin can. Aside from disruption at street level i dont think they pose any threat to the structure of the elevated. But yes, it pisses me off beyond belief that these truckers would attemp to bring these things into thecity and worse yet the first patrol car it passed wouldnt immediately pull it over.

this one looks to have been trying to creep under, but its nothing to be so cavalier about as at speed semi trucks can most certainly cause major damage to bridges and of course potentially the el tracks.

that nyc allows these long haul semi trucks in the city at all is bizarre as most major cities do not. plus they sit and idle unloading for long stretches of time when they do arrive. they need to transfer that merch to small trucks and vans out on the outer loop somewhere.

[mrnyc]

whats up with omny lately? delays:


2022-2023 NYC school year: Student MetroCards return; OMNY cards planned for next year

Published: Sep. 04, 2022, 9:00 a.m.
By Erik Bascome


During a January MTA Board committee meeting, acting fare payment systems director Amy Linden issued an update on OMNY, indicating that substantial completion of the project has been delayed by roughly 15 months, with associated costs increasing by over $100 million since a contract for the project was first awarded in November 2017.


more:
https://www.silive.com/education/202...next-year.html

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

whats up with omny lately? delays:


2022-2023 NYC school year: Student MetroCards return; OMNY cards planned for next year

Published: Sep. 04, 2022, 9:00 a.m.
By Erik Bascome


During a January MTA Board committee meeting, acting fare payment systems director Amy Linden issued an update on OMNY, indicating that substantial completion of the project has been delayed by roughly 15 months, with associated costs increasing by over $100 million since a contract for the project was first awarded in November 2017.


more:
https://www.silive.com/education/202...next-year.html

As usual, MTA incompetence. Don't expect anything to change as everyone from the federal to state and local level wants to shovel more money into the MTA with little to no accountability for their operating budget and project costs.

[DCReid]

https://www.businessinsider.com/phot...erminal-2022-2

[chris08876]

Posted this in the Newark Penn thread. Quick slide set from a public meeting;

[chris08876]

Gov. Kathy Hochul Announces Groundbreaking Of New Terminal For JFK International Airport

• Video Link

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced the groundbreaking of a new terminal at JFK International Airport.

[mrnyc]

the comeback in process:


NYC subways record highest daily ridership since start of pandemic
Clayton Guse, New York Daily News - Friday


NEW YORK — New York City subway ridership hit its highest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as the school year kicked off.



more:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ny...ic/ar-AA11FdcP

[dropdeaded209]

service is still beyond abysmal--let's call it a comeback when you don't have to wait 18 minutes for a train on a weekday morning.

[ardecila]

Newark Penn needs to dump that hideous pedestrian bridge and do a proper, pedestrian friendly apron.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by dropdeaded209

service is still beyond abysmal--let's call it a comeback when you don't have to wait 18 minutes for a train on a weekday morning.

not according to mta stats — have fun parsing these:

http://dashboard.mta.info/

[Busy Bee]

Does anyone here know who's behind those amazing "Welcome To An Experience" front view youtube videos? Is it an MTA employee or are they mounting a go-pro or something just clandestinely?

[dchan]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

not according to mta stats — have fun parsing these:

http://dashboard.mta.info/

But that only goes up to July 2022. The buses and subways were a breeze during the summer because ridership was way down. Even with the scheduled upgrades that slowed trains even during the weekday rushes (like the track replacement at Forest Hills E/F/M/R prior to Labor Day), it was a very enjoyable experience.

After Labor Day, I've already run into a few delays here and there. E & F trains usually run every 2-3 minutes going towards Jamaica during the late afternoon rush. We all waited 10+ minutes for the next E train last Friday around 4:50pm at Roosevelt Av, which is an eternity during the rush hr.

Anecdotally, my experience is this. When you add people (returning students and workers after the summer break) to the mix, subway service becomes a crapshoot. You never know when a person will become sick on a train, when a disturbed person decides to make a scene on the train, when some HS punks decide to go subway surfing on the roof, or when some lunatic decides to shove someone in front of a train. But you know something will happen because the math says it is highly likely, and we live in NYC instead of homogeneous Tokyo. That something always affects every other commuter.

And to that point, somehow we wonder why remote work remains such an attractive option.

[mrnyc]

^ can’t deny any of that!

add to it storm water disruptions —

and subway surfing only seems to be getting more popular again:

https://www.amny.com/news/new-yorks-...-gamble-lives/

ugh !

[Busy Bee]

^ I hate to say it (and think it) but it may be necessary to have several young kids decapitated, cut in half, fried on the third rail after having their legs cut off after falling off the roof... That sort of thing, in order to scare others away from surfing on the roof. The hanging off the back I find less disturbing but is barely less dangerous. Both actually have design solutions if the MTA would join the 21st century without kicking and screaming. Open gangway trains would mean kids wouldn't have access between the cars and the ability to climb up to the roof by standing on the pantograph gates because there would be no access at all to the train exterior with open gangways. Cab ends at either end of the train with a little effort could be designed without a platform to stand on, no dangling chains, footholds and grab bars that make riding the back so easy and tempting for young thrill seekers.

[jmecklenborg]

If they want to go viraler by tapping into the Boomer/X demo, they could play dress-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51TAG7ocrzU

[chris08876]

Dreamed-Of Sunnyside LIRR, Metro-North Station To Be Studied By MTA

SUNNYSIDE, QUEENS — A proposed commuter rail station in Sunnyside that has long been dreamed about by transit advocates will now undergo a more formal study by the MTA, the agency revealed last week.

The proposal to build a Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road station within sprawling Sunnyside Yard was included in the MTA's 20-year needs assessment — a list of two dozen projects that the MTA will study from now until October 2023.

At that point, the agency can pick a few of the projects to receive funding starting in 2025. They could then be built anytime between 2025 and 2044.

Sunnyside had in fact been promised a new LIRR station as far back as 2001, as part of the original proposal for East Side Access: the $11 billion project to extend the LIRR from Queens to Grand Central Terminal. When local officials in 2019 called on the state-run MTA to keep its promise and build the Sunnyside station, the MTA responded that it could not do so until East Side Access was done.

Now, that huge project — now known as Grand Central Madison — is nearly complete, with the new Midtown terminal scheduled to open in late 2022.

Hundreds of LIRR trains already pass through Sunnyside Yard each day, along with Amtrak trains.

A new transit station in Sunnyside would be a boon for the booming Long Island City area, transit experts have argued. It would also fit into the grand vision for a Sunnyside Yard megaproject — the city plan to eventually transform the 180-acre rail yard into a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood with thousands of affordable homes.

"Sunnyside Yard has the potential to become a transit hub that could be served not only by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) but also Metro-North Railroad and eventually New Jersey Transit and Amtrak, creating connections to and from every part of the Greater New York City region as well as the other major cities of the Northeast," reads a passage from the 2020 Sunnyside Yard Master Plan, released by the city's Economic Development Corporation.

In response to Patch inquiries about other projects included in the new 20-year assessment, the MTA would say only that each item was being "evaluated on a level playing field with the other projects listed and the results will help inform our planning efforts."

"While more than 80% of the MTA's Capital Program is dedicated to projects that maintain existing infrastructure in a state of good repair, expansion projects can help meet new mobility needs and address transportation inequities," MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said.

======================
https://patch.com/new-york/astoria-l...be-studied-mta

[Busy Bee]

Why do they need to study anything. They've known for how many decades they've wanted a station built at Sunnyside? And the future now more than ever makes it guaranteed to be necessary... Just build it already. This is what drives me nuts about the MTA. They'll recklessly, or at least appear to recklessly spend tens of millions on random things like the Times Square street stair but then timidly drag their feet for decades about critically needed system capacity/expansion projects.

And don't get me going about their excuse factory regarding the 75+% of th capital budget required for maintaining the existing system. That should make it even more necessary to get creative and do things like overhauling the incredibly well built and well performing R-62/A fleet instead of throwing them away and spending billions, billions that could be better spent in a multitude of ways, on a new [R-262] rolling stock procurement. They could easily get another 20+ years of service out of that car if they were better stewards of limited funds.

[k1052]

They'll come back in a few years and say it costs $4.5B with a 2050 anticipated completion for 2 trains an hour. Also all weekend LIRR service to Penn will need to be cut for the duration of the project.

[Crawford]

There's nothing to freaking study. It's the busiest rail corridor in the Western hemisphere, and there's basically no train stop between Manhattan and the burbs. Build it, already. Stop with the armies of overpaid consultants and 10-year studies. A toddler could ascertain that a stop is needed here.