No Ravitch Plan...No Vote! (construction, live, trains)

[cjma79]

Originally Posted by Johninwestbury

IT IS THE SERVICE CUTS THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING! Have any of you actually been on the subway? Or city buses? They are PACKED. What are you expecting people to do...ride on the roof?

then write to your reps, that you want an increase in rates and not a decrease in services.

[SeventhFloor]

$100 bucks isnt bad at all compared to london's underground:

Adult Travelcard | Transport for London

i work in manhattan so i'll suck it up and pay. i have no other option to get to work, and the A train is pretty reliable.

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by Johninwestbury

IT IS THE SERVICE CUTS THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING! Have any of you actually been on the subway? Or city buses? They are PACKED. What are you expecting people to do...ride on the roof?

I, personally, have been on the subway a few times, yes (I also happen to work for MTA, which leads me to the following two comments):

1) MTA just put in a service expansion program this past July. It rates as unlikely that this will be cancelled just at present.

2) If you go back and look at the reporting, you'll see that every three years, rather like clockwork, MTA makes all kinds of gloom-and-doom prophecies. This is not coincidence. It has more to do with the fact that TWU's contracts expire every three years. The powers that be at MTA understand that the majority of the riding public is going to blame the union for any cuts/fare increases/etc., even though these things have been decided months ago--and do not involve the union at all. I don't doubt that, given the current economic situation, there will in fact be cuts. But I don't think you should plan on them being quite as drastic as they are portrayed.

[SeventhFloor]

Originally Posted by Fred314X

I, personally, have been on the subway a few times, yes (I also happen to work for MTA, which leads me to the following two comments):

1) MTA just put in a service expansion program this past July. It rates as unlikely that this will be cancelled just at present.

2) If you go back and look at the reporting, you'll see that every three years, rather like clockwork, MTA makes all kinds of gloom-and-doom prophecies. This is not coincidence. It has more to do with the fact that TWU's contracts expire every three years. The powers that be at MTA understand that the majority of the riding public is going to blame the union for any cuts/fare increases/etc., even though these things have been decided months ago--and do not involve the union at all. I don't doubt that, given the current economic situation, there will in fact be cuts. But I don't think you should plan on them being quite as drastic as they are portrayed.

How's the Second Avenue subway (the T train) coming along? Is everything on schedule? I haven't followed up on its progress in quite some time since they broke ground on 96th Street.

[Fred314X]

Allegedly, the Second Avenue line is supposed to open for service in 2015. Having broken ground, it looks (at long last) that this line originally proposed in 1950 will actually come to pass. We shall see.

The original proposal called for it to take over service from the #6 line in The Bronx, but that doesn't look as likely now. It'll probably run between 125 Street and the Financial District.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Fred -- what do you mean by it would take over the 6 train in the Bronx? How would that work -- isn't the 2nd Avenue line going to run the B division trains? Or was this not always the plan?

[UpstaterInBklyn]

2) If you go back and look at the reporting, you'll see that every three years, rather like clockwork, MTA makes all kinds of gloom-and-doom prophecies. This is not coincidence.

This is a tried-and-true PR technique that is used by public sector entities everywhere (school budgets, for example). Predict doom and gloom so that that the real fare/fee/tax increases are perceived as the public getting some kind of favor. It is reprehensible, not only because they keep doing it, but the media somehow falls for it every time.

Just a couple of days ago, Channel 4 reported these exact words "Express bus commuters will get a break". A 25% fare increase is "a break"?!

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by dixiecupdrinking

Fred -- what do you mean by it would take over the 6 train in the Bronx? How would that work -- isn't the 2nd Avenue line going to run the B division trains? Or was this not always the plan?

According to the plan, the platforms all along the Pelham line would be scaled back to accommodate the wider trains (for those who didn't know: IRT cars are narrower than their BMT/IND cousins). The #6 would either be rerouted in The Bronx along the 4 or 5 line tracks...or reconfigured to run only between 125 Street and Brooklyn Bridge.

Yes, this would've been a massive undertaking--but now, probably, academic since nobody is talking about the 2nd Avenue line extending up to The Bronx anymore. Still, anything could happen between now and the line going into service.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Ah, cool -- I think something similar happened once with the IRT/BMT near Queensboro Plaza or on the Astoria line?

Anyway, yeah, I'd be satisfied with just getting the 2nd Avenue line in any form at this point. Though I'd also be concerned that the Q might cease to be so reliable once it gets extended uptown.

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by dixiecupdrinking

Ah, cool -- I think something similar happened once with the IRT/BMT near Queensboro Plaza or on the Astoria line?

Originally, what we now call the #7 line wasn't purely IRT. In fact, neither was the Astoria line strictly BMT. They could interchange, and in fact there was service coming into Queens from Manhattan over the Queensboro Bridge going to both Flushing and Astoria.

In 1949, this arrangement was terminated when a decision was made to put the Flushing line in the IRT, and Astoria trains as purely BMT. (The switch facilitating a change in service is still there, but has been clamped down so that it cannot actually be used).

And as long as I'm going in that direction...it is possible to send J trains to Canarsie or L trains to Jamaica; there's a switch just below Broadway Junction that would allow such a crossover. It is still operational, but not used. So far as I know, it has not even been used for this purpose in an emergency. But it's there if needed.

Can you tell how fascinating I find the history and development of our transit system?