InsideTransit

Finally!! The transportation authority here in NYC (MTA) has finally decided to realize that it’s a damn pain in the butt to try to haul luggage on a bus bound for the airport. Today they announced a pilot program to test luggage racks on the bus routes that serve both LGA and JFK airports (i.e. M60, B15, Q3, Q10, Q33, Q48 and Q72).  One bus running on the M60 to LGA has the rack installed.

“We believe that the racks will be a great amenity, making things more comfortable for our customers and even helping our bus operators speed their trips. We are going to have our managers out monitoring these buses, asking our customers and bus operators if they are seeing an improvement,” said Joseph Smith, Senior Vice President in the Department of Buses. “If the results are positive, we will expand the installation of the racks to other buses on these routes.”

The issues I see with the luggage rack location are:

• security – placing the racks right next to the rear door allows a criminal to easily exit with your bag
• you must drag the bag from the front of the bus to the rear – my guess is many passengers will just continue standing towards the front with their bag

In any case, good for the MTA for testing out a feature that many other cities already offer on their airport-bound buses. I’d rather see larger and wider buses running on the airport routes rather than the low-floor tiny buses.

Here’s something from the NYC subway wayback machine courtesy Subchat. Many years ago, there was a special “train to the plane” that operated in NYC. It made only a few stops in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn then ended at the Howard Beach subway stop. From there passengers boarded a shuttle bus which took them to JFK airport. The train ran every 20 minutes and there was an additional fare of $3.50-4.00 which was collected on board.

If you are traveling to/from the NYC airports and want to try using transit (you should!), check out our NYC airport guide. I find that using the subway and the LIRR is much faster and way cheaper than taking a taxi from JFK airport.

Here’s a video with 2 commercials from the Train to the Plane – both look like they were created by the people who made the Brady Bunch tv show.
Read the rest of this entry »

There’s nothing cooler than transit data in a visual form. If you are like me, you will love the site I have for you today. It was created by Sha and takes NYC subway ridership data from 2006 and displays it on a map. You can check out each station and see how many people began their travels at that station. The thicker the line, the more people paid their fare at that station. You can also see the data as dots instead of lines.

As one might imagine, Times Square leads the pack. Other interesting notes:

• 17 million people started at the Main Street station in Flushing
• Beach 105st in the Rockaways only had 80,000 people use the station
• 17 million people also used the 86th street Lexington IRT station

We need more visualizations and frankly more transit data usage to both understand more about how the system works and to help passengers more effectively utilize the system.

It would be interesting to overlay 2008 data as I am sure many of the stations in Long Island City and parts of Brooklyn will probably feature much thicker lines. Imagine a global transit usage directory!

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the MTA going after application developers who use transit schedule data in their apps. It’s still a shock to me that any public agency would have an issue with outsiders trying to help them help their customers (many times for free). I wonder what Bloomberg thinks of this with all of his ads about how he is going to fix the MTA.

David Turner and Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock have put together a meetup for tomorrow evening (Tuesday) to discuss how the MTA and the developer community can best collaborate. You can find all of the details here about the event including a variety of comments about whether Google gets current data for their Maps and Transit products.

I won’t be able to make the event due to scheduling concerns and am very hopeful the group can come out with some good learnings and next steps. If the MTA wants to fix the MTA, talking to the “Internet” could be the first step.

Earlier this week, bricks and tiles fell from the ceiling of the 181th street subway station in NYC. Work has been ongoing 24 hours a day to get the line open again and I am hearing that the line should be open on Monday.  The MTA has been posting photos from the work site at 181st – I’ve posted a few of them below.

This is a perfect example of why the MTA should have a blog – to humanize the conversation of events like this ceiling collapse. Posting images on Twitter is meaningless for the majority of transit riders who would be interested in viewing the work progress. Give me a call MTA – let’s talk. Instead of a blog, we get silly television commercials telling us how Bloomberg wants to fix the MTA – how come now he wants to do it – why not any of the other years? Oh yea, it’s an election year

Here a work crane is on the tracks on the right and a meeting is being held on the right platform:

Here is a photo showing bricks from the ceiling being removed – probably to be saved:

Earlier this week, riders of the L subway line in NYC got an eyeful when 19 year-old Jocelyn Saldana stripped down naked and started riding the pole. The NY Post has a story about the event which took riders by surprise – they probably thought the heat got to them and they were hallucinating. I can tell you this, I’d rather see a naked woman on my subway rides home than listen to the (mostly) horrible music that so-called musicians try to play. Even more I’d just prefer a quiet train with good air conditioning.

From the Post, “…That free show in mid-June — as well as similar ones from Times Square to Chinatown — were the creation of photographer Zach Hyman, 22, whose portraits are never under-exposed. The photographer and his volunteer models don’t spend much time on location. The model quickly disrobes and Hyman gives himself only 30 seconds to fire off 10 shots with his Hasselblad 500 film camera.”

Apparently Hyman carries a lot of bail money should cops find him while he is shooting the nudes.

And here you thought the Metrocard was just for paying your fare. Below is a photo from the “shoot” but I’ve blurred the bits – if you want to see the full image (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) – Swiss site Blick has it for you.

It looks like it might be a couple of days before the #1 train is back to its full route.  From the MTA, “At approximately 10:30 p.m. Sunday, a section of the brick architectural façade fell 35 feet to the track bed below. A downtown 1 train was in the station, but did not sustain any major damage…A contractor has been called in to remove any remaining loose brick and make temporary repairs, but those repairs may take several days to complete. 1 service will not resume until it is safe to operate trains through the area.”

My suggestion is to stay away and use other subway lines is possible – of course the only real suggestion is to take the A line and if you are in the Bronx, just stay home

Here are the official recommendations from the MTA:

• 1 train service will operate in both directions between South Ferry and 168th St
• Free Shuttle buses will operate between 168th St and Dyckman St (the M3 bus is also listed as a free option)
• 1 train service will operate in both directions between Van Cortlandt Park – 242nd St and Dyckman St

There are some impacts to wheelchair-based service – so call the MTA for the latest info at 1-800-834-1173.

They also let us know that the 181st Street station is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. This is certainly exciting news for those passengers who need to get home! Please be patient and make sure to drink lots of water as it’s going to be hot and humid.

As a railfan, I am often asked which subway gets you to the new Yankee Stadium fastest. Well it’s clear from the video below that it’s the 4 train. The video below which I found on Subchat shows a race between the B, D and 4 trains from midtown Manhattan to Yankee Stadium. As one of my friends pointed out, the D is not blue in real life. Of course the trains are longer than one car, they don’t share the same tracks and the B is a local so it should never win a race. It’s sponsored by Subway (the sandwich place) and if you ignore all the transit mistakes, it’s a whole hoot of fun!

I love checking out other transit blogs.  Whether they are about the technical side of transport or from the perspective of a commuter, it’s always interesting to see other views about the transit systems we all ride. Today I have a very cool blog from the perspective of the commuter. I wish more people shared regular thoughts about their daily commute.

Musings of an Irate Commuter is authored by Sheryl Yvette. She has a variety of posts from fare hikes to bus driver reviews, and a really groovy spreadsheet that helps you decide which Metrocard is best for your commuting situation.

Her latest post is worth a look even if you aren’t into transit. Each day for the last month Sheryl took photos of a newspaper bin which has been used as a trashcan. It wasn’t emptied for over a month and it’s interesting to look at how some commuting pigs use the bin as their own waste deposit. Apparently there is no half-life for McDonalds french fry wrappers. Here’s one photo from the collection:

LoHud.com is reporting that a car fell onto the Metro-North tracks in New Rochelle outside NYC this afternoon.  The car fell 15 feet to the tracks. Luckily the woman driving the car missed the catenary wires which carry the electric to power the trains.

From LoHud, “The accident was reported about 1:45 p.m. Police are investigating whether a collision on Bridge Street above the station resulted in the car’s barreling through a fence. The female driver was alert with no obvious injuries, police said.”

There are conflicting reports as to if the track where the car landed is a main track or not. The MTA website isn’t reporting any delays on the New Haven line so it’s safe to assume all should be well for the evening rush hour.