New York City - Transit News

[mrnyc]

finally! thank the traffic gods — this would solve the second worst issue with nyc, which god knows why allows massive trucks and even highway semi trucks within city limits:


City to pilot local delivery ‘microhubs’ to curb truck congestion starting this summer

By Ben Brachfeld
Posted on April 6, 2023

more:
https://www.amny.com/transit/city-pilot-local-delivery-microhubs-truck-congestion-this-summer/

oh and imo the biggest issue in town is the inhumane lack of streetside benches and public restrooms.

[Busy Bee]

Finally indeed.

[k1052]

It would be nice if everything to fix run of the mill issues in NYC wasn't a "pilot" that lasted 2-3 years before a report is even coughed up let alone implemented at scale. I mean solutions exist elsewhere quite clearly but NY exceptionalism just mostly ignores them.

I'm not even sure that congestion pricing will ever actually see implementation or that it will work if it does because people are going to cheat like crazy and the city/state doesn't care to go after them.

[mrnyc]

interesting!



City debuts new AI sensors to track street usage

By Ben Brachfeld
Posted on April 12, 2023


New York’s Department of Transportation has kicked off a pilot program to measure street usage with state-of-the-art digital sensors, which could ultimately replace costly and laborious manual counting.


more:
https://www.amny.com/transit/city-debuts-ai-sensors-track-street-usage/


Data collected by a Viva sensor at Berry and North 6th streets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
NYC DOT

[Busy Bee]

Very interesting.

[mrnyc]

the new 20% larger kawasaki path train cars are finally arriving:



New trains hit PATH tracks with plans to boost commutes

By Stephen Nessen
and
Clayton Guse
Published Apr 13, 2023


…

Three of the cars made their debut at Hoboken Terminal, and are the first of 72 the Port Authority ordered for the system from Japan-based manufacturer Kawasaki.

By the end of 2024, officials said the new equipment will enable PATH to increase the length of nearly all the trains on the World Trade Center-Newark line from eight cars to nine.

…

All the new cars are scheduled to arrive by the end of 2023, at which point Port Authority officials said they plan to run PATH trains every three minutes during rush hour, down from current peak headways of five minutes.

…

The cars cost the Port Authority $172 million, and were originally scheduled to be delivered in the spring of 2021.


more:
https://gothamist.com/news/new-trains-hit-path-tracks-with-plans-to-boost-commutes

[Busy Bee]

PATH PA-5 Cars


Once you've seen it... You cannot un-see it.



___

[mrnyc]

good news blazed by:



4/20 saw 4 million NYC subway riders roll underground for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began: MTA

By Robert Pozarycki
Posted on April 21, 2023


The MTA blazed into the post-pandemic record books on 4/20 Thursday as the New York City subway system saw more than 4 million riders in a single day for the first time since March 12, 2020.

Approximately 4,002,961 paid rides were recorded in the subway turnstiles on April 20, 2023, the highest number in three years, the MTA and Governor Kathy Hochul announced Friday. It was also a record-setting day for the MTA’s OMNY contactless fare payment system, which set a single-day subway record of 1,699,914 taps, or 42.5% of all paid rides.


more:
https://www.amny.com/new-york/4-million-nyc-subway-riders-post-pandemic-mta/

[Busy Bee]

[Gantz]

What is the all time peak for NYC subway riders in a day?
I feel like it is usually a good indirect proxy for relative population change in the city (setting aside WFH).

[Busy Bee]

^Probably during WWII

[mrnyc]

^ close! --

it was just post second world war -- which makes sense with bringing the boys back home and all that:


During the late 1940s, the system recorded high ridership, and on December 23, 1946, the system-wide record of 8,872,249 fares was set.*

* note -- there were a million less residents of nyc back then as compared to today (that is, around 7.5M in 1940s vs 8.5M today).

[Busy Bee]

^ But more elevated lines were still operating with dozens more stations than currently exist today. NY is no doubt the only subway system on earth that's smaller today than it was 70 years ago.

As for ridership, lots of other factors at play here including postwar auto ownership and suburban development wasn't in full throttle yet which means older neighborhoods with better subway service were more dense thus more ridership. Most here will be familiar with the factors.

[mrnyc]

^ yes, lots of other factors, but still amazing how little ridership there is today, less than half of that peak 1940s ridership day, yet with there being officially a million more residents (and we know more people in town than that with undocumented, workday commuters, etc.).

it's an uber world i guess.

[mrnyc]

mta is making moves for second ave subway expansion:



MTA seeks to take over Harlem properties via eminent domain for Second Avenue Subway expansion

By Jose Martinez, THE CITY
Posted on April 21, 2023


This article was originally published on April 20 4:50pm EDT by THE CITY

The MTA is pushing ahead on plans to extend the Second Avenue Subway north through East Harlem by making a move to acquire properties in the path of the project, court papers show.

A petition filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday reveals that the agency intends to use the state’s Eminent Domain Procedure Law to acquire several properties that are needed for the next stretch of the Q line from East 96th to 125th streets.


more:
https://www.amny.com/news/mta-harlem-eminent-domain-second-avenue-subway/


New York state claimed eminent domain over several buildings and a lot on Second Avenue between 119th and 120th Streets as part of the Q train expansion into East Harlem, April 20, 2023. Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

[TowerDude]

They've gotta redo the existing Second Avenue Subway stations so that they can get express trains on the routes.

Cuomo cheaped out only two tracking those parts and it needs to be corrected.

[mrnyc]

ok nice, but good luck putting the you dont gotta pay genie back the bottle!



MTA to pilot 5 free NYC bus routes, with 1 on Staten Island, as part of state budget deal

Published: May. 01, 2023

…

In addition to using the pilot program to monitor ridership trends, Lieber said the agency must emphasize that only the selected routes are free, and riders must continue to pay on all other routes, with the agency losing millions each year from fare evasion on buses.

“What we don’t want to do is to have people to reinforce the idea that all the buses are free. We made the buses free during COVID because we were trying to protect the bus drivers in the early days. And we were having trouble getting people to pay again,” Lieber said.


more:
https://www.silive.com/news/2023/05/mta-...island-as-part-of-state-budget-deal.html

[BK1985]

Originally Posted by TowerDude

They've gotta redo the existing Second Avenue Subway stations so that they can get express trains on the routes.

Cuomo cheaped out only two tracking those parts and it needs to be corrected.

I don't think its necessary as there's no real purpose in having an express if the northern terminus is 125th, if it were to extend to the Bronx then I would agree for the need of adding an express line.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by TowerDude

They've gotta redo the existing Second Avenue Subway stations so that they can get express trains on the routes.

Cuomo cheaped out only two tracking those parts and it needs to be corrected.

Money would be better spent on TriboroRX (or whatever they are calling it now).

[TowerDude]

Originally Posted by BK1985

I don't think its necessary as there's no real purpose in having an express if the northern terminus is 125th, if it were to extend to the Bronx then I would agree for the need of adding an express line.

But the final form of the Second Avenue Subway extends all the way down to Lower Manhattan. So there needs to be express service on the north of Manhattan.