New post! Go inside East Side Access, 18 months before the new terminal opens. A gallery, thoughts and more: sas.nyc/3z61WwE
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Second Ave. Sagas
@2AvSagas
Subways, transit, NYC. The official account of what mayoral sources once called an obscure transportation blog. Tweets by . DMs open. DM for Signal.
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It’s time to run the B train on weekends IMO.
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Much easier to just make the experience of waiting at a train station hostile to everyone rather than figure out a way to respond to the mere potential of a homeless New Yorker using a seat. And for the most part, New Yorkers just sigh and accept it.
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This is not a “fight” between the MTA and the communities we proudly serve, this is an opportunity for us to directly engage with each other and to reimagine decades-old bus routes that have not evolved with the community. 2/
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This is an extremely unfortunate characterization of the network redesign process. This is a customer/stakeholder driven process which has to start with a draft plan. It is just that, a draft. Nothing contained in it is permanent! 1/
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Here’s How Bay Ridge Council Member Outraged Over Cuts to Bus Services in Southern Brooklyn is Fighting Back dlvr.it/ShTpNG
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Didn't hear a ton on transit side (besides Open Streets and development), but a big check mark for the Mayor's commitment to creating a new Director of Public Realm in New York.
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One undercurrent to listen to in the mayor's speech today is how much actual policy will be applied to the New New York report, written w/the governor (who will be there). Rezoning Midtown is a piece of that, but what about a public realm director? Or any transit improvements?
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Hamilton Ave in Red Hook, Brooklyn, before-and-after the construction of the BQE. Designed by Robert Moses, the highway cut Red Hook in half along its central thoroughfares, Hamilton & Hicks, requiring the demolition of dozens of blocks and the forcible displacement of thousands.
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Color me impressed with the subtle usage of art and light for wayfinding in Grand Central Madison. Here's my collection of photos from opening day:
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This new LIRR terminal at Grand Central is deep
Just shy of 4 minutes from track to nearest street exit
Here’s a time lapse of that walk
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112 years without an expansion of the LIRR. That’s wild when you think about it.
112 years ago was 1911.
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All aboard! @GovKathyHochul taking the inaugural LIRR passenger train to Grand Central Madison — first expansion of the LIRR in 112 years
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Gotta pay a lot not just to build but also to maintain giant spaces. It very much feels like Grand Central.
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The East Side Access-nee-Grand Central Madison complex is massive. The hallways leading to the main concourse which leads to the escalator are football-sized.
(If you’re wondering how this became $11b, design choices like these played a role)
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Newsday // March 9, 1997 declares "Light at the End of the Tunnel" for East Side Access.
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I often think about the 2009 decision to close station booths and cut personnel. It “saved” the MTA about $52M/year but it was clear then that empty stations would cause other problems. Seems like that’s been borne out for a while now.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face.
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What I would really like to see enforcement-wise is a very high profile week or two of cops in Midtown ticketing everyone dressed in business clothes strolling through the emergency gates at 5:30 pm. You’d stop a lot of casual fare evasion very quickly that way.
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To drive this point home today, subway riders are facing a budge crisis in part because East Side Access blew its budget.
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Replying to @2AvSagas
Pay your fare, but the cause of the MTA's budget crisis is that nearly 20% of the operating budget goes to debt service, from decades of not being able to build capital projects at any reasonable cost.
Without the debt service, there's a budget SURPLUS, even at 70% ridership.
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If anything, the MTA and NYPD are probably spending more than they’re recouping at this point.
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We need the fare evasion task force report which is being held up by a fight between DAs and the MTA. We need better designed fare control, a Fair Fares expansion and smart enforcement.
Pay your fare. But don’t fall for the claim it’s a cause of the MTA’s budget crisis.
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I keep wading into this for reasons that elude me (stubbornness?), but this is true only if you believe fare enforcement costs nothing and pays for itself. It doesn’t. Every transit agency tolerates some fare evasion because it costs more than $1 to recapture $1 at some point.
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20 percent of the MTA's budget deficit is attributable to fare evasion (nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-mt), a cost which will eventually be borne by taxpayers and riders who experience worse service due to budget constraint. Hope that helps you understand who the harmed party is.
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I won’t be riding to Grand Central today. I’m not excited about it. It’s a wasteful project, the poster child of extreme bureaucratic waste & inter-agency chaos. It led to the gutting of direct service to Brooklyn and doesn’t even increase LI service.
Maybe this weekend.
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I’ve been writing about this day for 15 years.
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Missing the opening of East Side Access since I’m on paternity leave until early March but on the bright side, I get to hang out with my daughter and her smiles all day.
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hi! today is my last day at the new york post.
i'm extremely excited to start feb. 6 as the DEPUTY EDITOR of STREETSBLOG 🍾🎊
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While there are things cooking, MTA seriously has no interest in maintaining a roster of tunneling workers when that can be used for all kinds of proposed projects, they just want to bid that out to new contractors every time and pay top-top-top dollar
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Until (if?) the MTA breaks ground on phase 2 of the Second Ave Subway, there are no MTA megaprojects under construction for the first time in a few decades. That is not great.
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A PDF with the official timetable was added to the website 2 hours ago. new.mta.info/document/104541
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Here is the schedule with KG/FH/WDD stops. I will get to weekends next.
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Thank you for standing firm against congestion pricing, I don’t know what we would do without New Jerseyans keeping New York City special
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Replying to
On a per rider basis that's a 48% reduction in the rate. (1/582,000 vs. 1/306,000)
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Here was last week's cumulative totals. I try to keep this threaded on a weekly basis.
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Though the first two weeks of the year, the subway cop surge continues to show major dividends. Major felonies continue to decline, even more so when you factor in a big bump in subway ridership.
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With another week's data reported, the subway ridership increase and major felony decrease I noted last week has continued.
Data is from the NYPD and MTA.
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12 minutes to walk for your transfer. almost funny
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Was it really worth digging a whole new sub-basement to avoid taking tracks from Metro-North?
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I forgot that Penn Access has technically broken ground so that’s ongoing. The IBX is still in planning stages. Still a paltry number of megaprojects (1) ongoing.
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Replying to @2AvSagas
Yea, I guess Penn Access wouldn't fit that bill and the X-train is ~2-plus years away from construction (at warp speed)
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Here's what we know about the 1st day of LIRR service to Grand Central Madison.
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Until (if?) the MTA breaks ground on phase 2 of the Second Ave Subway, there are no MTA megaprojects under construction for the first time in a few decades. That is not great.
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Planning for East Side Access began in the 1950s and the current work began in 2007. It’s insanely over budge and long delayed but can be transformative for Long Island.
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Per the release: “The first train is scheduled to originate at Jamaica at 10:45 a.m. and run express to Grand Central Madison where it is scheduled to arrive at 11:07 a.m. For at least three weeks, LIRR will operate limited shuttle service between Jamaica and Grand Central.”
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