Short-Term
East Shore (SIM1/SIM1C/SIM5/SIM6/SIM7/SIM9/SIM10)
SIM1 needs to be split into "New Dorp via Hylan Blvd" (old X3) and "Eltingville via Father Capodanno" (old X4) patterns. However, in doing so, we need to watch the span of service. The span of the old X3/X4 was relatively short, and we need the span for both to be similar to that of the SIM1 prior to the Winter 2019 (January 13th, 2019) pick changes.
Just for reference, the span of the SIM1 after the October 7th, 2018 changes was as follows:
From Eltingville Transit Center: 5:05am - 9:07am
From Chambers Street: 2:55pm - 8:30pm (the 2:40pm SIM1 was unnecessarily extended to CPS & 6th, overlapping with the SIM7 & SIM10, and should be cut back accordingly)
Now it should be considered that this would result in service adjustments being required to the SIM5 (most likely, service would end up being slightly reduced, while the amount of service on the two "splits" of the SIM1 would exceed the amount currently provided on the SIM1 (though service on the individual splits would be less than that on the current SIM1). This is because the southern split of the SIM1 (let's call it SIM12 for now, though SIM1X might also be a good designation) would provide additional Downtown-bound service on the "Eltingville via Father Capodanno" corridor that is currently only provided by the SIM5.
But in any case, I mention the span because that span is much longer than that of the X3/X4. This provides Father Capodanno Blvd with a longer span of express bus service. In the morning, the difference isn't that much, since the SIM5 had its span extended compared to that of the X8 (4:55am - 9am leaving the ETC, and 3pm - 7pm leaving Frankfort Street). However, in the afternoon, this span extension would provide later service from Downtown to the Father Capodanno Blvd corridor (if you think about it, the SIM6 runs late from Midtown, so it makes sense for the Downtown variant to also run late)
Overall, this should save money which can be reinvested in extending the spans of other routes both within and outside of the East Shore corridor, as well as providing more cushion for the "roll-on"/deadhead time to reach the terminals (especially for second trips)
SIM10 needs to be split into "New Dorp via Hylan Blvd" (old X9 Midtown portion) and "Eltingville via Father Capodanno" (old X7 Midtown portion) patterns. However, in doing so, we again need to watch the span of service. The span of the old X7/X9 was relatively short (not as short as the X3/4, but still not as long as it could be), and we need the span for both to be similar to (or longer than) that of the SIM10 prior to the Winter 2019 (January 13th, 2019) pick changes.
Just for reference, the span of the SIM10 after the October 7th, 2018 changes was as follows:
From Eltingville Transit Center: 4:10am - 9:10am
From CPS & 6th: 2:00pm - 7:56pm (the 2:40pm SIM1 was unnecessarily extended to CPS & 6th, overlapping with the SIM7 & SIM10, and should be cut back accordingly)
http://checkmatechamp1.blogspot.com/2019/07/extending-span-of-peak-variants.html
SIM7/9 need to follow the "Eltingville via Father Capodanno" and "New Dorp via Hylan" pattern (whichever pattern is assigned to whichever number is irrelevant, as long as adequate service levels exist on both to prevent overcrowding).
South Shore (SIM2/4C/22/23/24/25/26)
Bunching on the SIM2 in the morning needs to be monitored. When a bus gets delayed in the beginning of the route, it should run straight up Huguenot Avenue and make the next stop at Arthur Kill Road ("Checkpoint") and let the following bus cover Arden Avenue. Otherwise, you end up with a long gap at the northern end, followed by bunching. Especially since the SIM2 is the only Downtown route serving "Checkpoint", efforts should be made to provide consistent service there. (Also, for those on Arden Avenue who are in a hurry, if they know that they can consistently get a bus at "Checkpoint", they can take the SIM23 there in the event of a delay on the SIM2).
SIM2/4/8 need to have their spans extended (and the SIM4C span reduced accordingly) as per my blog post here: http://checkmatechamp1.blogspot.com/2019/07/extending-span-of-peak-variants.html
SIM22 needs to have more consistent service in East Midtown. If buses are constantly being deadheaded to West Midtown, then they should just start there and make it official and consistent, instead of random trips bypassing stops depending on whoever is the dispatcher that day.
SIM25 needs a span extension at the beginning of the PM rush hour. Can be done by moving the 3:10pm to depart at 3pm, and adding a 2:30pm, while combining the 2:30pm and 2:50pm SIM26 trips into a 2:40pm trip (out of 57th & Lexington)
Excess runtime on 42nd Street in the evenings (after 7pm). Runtime also needs to be looked at along 42nd Street itself now that the bus lane is in effect
North Shore (SIM3/3C/30/31/32/33/33C/34/35)
See other blog post: http://checkmatechamp1.blogspot.com/2019/07/extending-span-of-peak-variants.html
Also, SIM31 stops should be placed with SIM3/8 stops (instead of SIM10 stops) along 5th Avenue so that people in the Castleton Corners and New Springville areas can switch off as necessary.
West Shore (SIM4/4X/4C/8/8X)
SIM4/4X need to have their terminals swapped so that the SIM4 terminates at the SI Mall during the hours when the SIM4X operates (when the SIM4X does not operate, the SIM4 would operate to the South Shore).
SIM8/8X need to have their terminals swapped so that the SIM8 terminates at the SI Mall during the hours when the SIM8X operates (when the SIM8X does not operate, the SIM8 would operate to the South Shore). This would provide reasonably quick service for those along Woodrow Road (not as quick as the old X23, but that is the most that can realistically be done without tangling up the South Shore express network and forcing Arden Avenue residents to take an even longer ride up Richmond Avenue). Plus Woodrow Road has (and would have) a longer span of service with the SIM8/8X compared to the X23. Additionally, this complements the SIM23/24 by maintaining a reasonably quick route directly to 42nd Street, while the SIM23/24 cover 34th Street.
SIM2/4/8 need to have their spans extended according to my previous blog post: http://checkmatechamp1.blogspot.com/2019/07/extending-span-of-peak-variants.html
SIM4C has excess runtime between Arden Heights & Eltingville Transit Center on weekends.
On the SIM4C, there is no need for westbound buses to loop through Annadale Road. The X17C never did that (and in the medium/long-term, there should be a restructuring of South Shore express bus service so that the SIM4 runs down Annadale Road en-route to areas further on the South Shore).
Excess runtime after 7pm along 42nd Street
Medium Term
East Shore
The span of the SIM10 should be expanded so that buses run well into the off-peak periods. During the timeframes where the SIM1C currently operates every 15 minutes or better (4 buses per hour or more), service should be split so that the SIM1C covers areas south of 23rd Street and the SIM10 covers Midtown (I also have a proposal to reroute the SIM10 to Hudson Yards. See below). The frequency would be 2 buses per hour (or better) for the SIM10 and 3 buses per hour (or better) for the SIM1C (Since there is less runtime on each individual route, the savings should be reinvested into more trips for the overall corridor. Hence why I am proposing a minimum of a 1 bus per hour increase in service).
The SIM10/31 should also be routed to West Midtown instead of East Midtown, to serve Hudson Yards and also provide easier access to subway connections (the only real connection on the SIM31 is at 23rd & Park which is next to a local station on the #6 line and a short walk from another local station on the R/W, whereas coming across 34th Street gives you access to express stations). The routing should be West Street-10th Avenue-34th Street-Madison Avenue (6th Avenue for the SIM10) inbound, and 5th Avenue-34th Street-11th Avenue-West street heading outbound.
The SIM7/9/33 should be extended to 23rd Street & Broadway (with a stop at 23rd Street & 6th Avenue) to accommodate riders who previously took the SIM10/31 in that area. SIM10 riders can also use the SIM6/11, and SIM31 riders seeking 23rd Street service can either make their way to the SIM33, or take a local bus to the SIM3 (previously when it was the X31 serving the area, they would've had to do the same thing: Either take the X10 or make their way to the X42).
South Shore
The SIM4/4X need to be extended deeper into the South Shore (either Arden & Drumgoole, Annadale SIR station, Huguenot SIR station, Drumgoole & Maguire or Hylan & Huguenot). This would provide additional Downtown service from the South Shore and relieve pressure from the SIM2, which is currently the only Downtown route that penetrates the South Shore in any meaningful way.
A Downtown route needs to be created running along the SIM26. Likely it would do something similar as the SIM2 and detour a bit to cover more areas on the South Shore (the SIM2 was originally planned to run straight up Huguenot Avenue, but in March 2018 they changed the plan and had it run up Woodrow Road and Arden Avenue. Likewise, this new route, let's call it SIM27 for now, would run up Woodrow Road and Rossville Avenue like the old X22). It should run on a standard rush hour span (say, 5-9am and 3-7pm from the respective terminals), and start off on 15-20 minute headways to gauge demand (that's 3-4 buses per hour, so a few trips can be pulled from the SIM2, SIM25, and SIM26, since those riders would be getting a bus directly to/from their destinations and would no longer need to drive or transfer to/from those routes). However, the total number of trips should be increased (so the total number of trips on the SIM2/25/26/27 should be more than the number of trips currently on the SIM/25/26).
Long Term
Off-peak/reverse-peak service needs to be expanded to provide more coverage on the Staten Island side, even if it means giving up some coverage on the Manhattan side. A good time to take a second look at this is when the local bus network is restructured.
The service pattern I would look for would be something along the lines of the following:
SIM1C: Truncated to 23rd Street & Broadway. SIM10 runs off-peak via above routing (via 10th/11th Avenue-34th Street-5th/6th Avenue).
SIM2
SIM4 (extended deeper into the South Shore as discussed above)
SIM26 (off-peak routing stops at "Checkpoint" and also runs up South Avenue to Forest Avenue to provide some off-peak service for Mariners Harbor/Graniteville residents, as well as anyone who may have a reverse-peak commute to the Teleport. It wouldn't go inside the Teleport like the local buses, only stop along South Avenue)
SIM32 (with off-peak buses serving Narrows Road)
SIM34 (with alternate buses running to Port Richmond)
I was thinking of adding either the SIM5 or SIM6 (or a combination of both, that runs up the FDR Drive and Water Street, similar to the post-2010 X14), but I think a local bus that runs along the Giffords/Nelson/Hylan/Father Capodanno corridor would be a better use of resources.
Routes like the SIM8 & SIM31 could get a span extension into more of the off-peak period, without getting full off-peak service.
I would try to have all of those routes operate every 30 minutes or better where possible, and also have them run as late as possible (any neighborhood which currently has off-peak service should have a similar or better span to what they have now).
I would also propose a SIM4N, which would operate from Arden Heights to Downtown via Woodrow-Arden-Arthur Kill-Richmond-Victory-Gannon-Narrows (that would take over when the SIM2/4/32 don't operate).
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Saturday, September 21, 2019
Statistics and How to Interpret Them
Here's a few of my thoughts on the MTA's Bus Performance Dashboard
So one the statistics is "Service Delivered". It basically says "the percentage of trips that are actually provided, measured at the peak load point". That last part is bolded because it does not necessarily mean that any given stop will see that percentage of its trips filled. On an express bus, the peak load point is generally the last stop before the nonstop portion (between the outer borough and Manhattan). So technically, if a trip skips a whole bunch of stops and serves the last stop before the nonstop portion, that trip counts as filled. And most likely (given that bus operators don't put up "Next Bus Please" as often as they used to), if a bus is full to capacity and bypasses the last stop, that trip (most likely) counts as filled. So pretty much, if a given trip serves any passengers on that route and passes by the peak load point, it is counted as filled. (The one thing I would wonder is, if for example, a QM5 were diverted via Fresh Meadows to cover a QM1 trip, would both trips count as filled?)
Now we get to the measure of Excess Wait Time. So let's take a route with 15 minute headways, and a stop where the rate of passenger arrival is 1 passenger per minute. If buses actually arrive evenly spaced, and the passenger arrivals follow a uniform distribution, the average wait time will be 7.5 minutes (half the headway). You will have some passengers who barely make the bus, and some who barely miss the bus, and then a lot in between. However, let's say that the buses arrive at the stop at 8:00am, 8:24am, 8:32am, 8:58am, and 9:00am. So the math works as follows:
24 passengers experienced an average 12 minute wait.
8 passengers experienced an average 4 minute wait
26 passengers experienced an average 13 minute wait
2 passengers experienced an average 1 minute wait
So cumulative wait time is (24*12)+(8*4)+(26*13)+(2*1) = 660 passenger-minutes, divided by 60 passengers = 11 minutes of average wait time. So the excess wait time at this stop would be 11-7.5 = 3.5 minutes
Notice how uneven the spacing is. 11 minutes of average wait time is the equivalent to an evenly-spaced 22 minute headway. 22/15 (or 11/7.5) = 1.467, which means effectively, the average wait time was 1.467 times longer than it was scheduled to be. But yet, after all of this math, it only shows 3.5 minutes of excess wait time. So that ratio (actual wait time/expected wait time) is just as important as the raw excess wait time numbers, because it actually captures the classic experience of "I waited 20 minutes and then 3 buses showed up at once".
Even if a line was super-frequent (say, 2 minute headways), this ratio captures the "chaos" for lack of a better term. If the effective headway is 1.467 times the scheduled headway, that means that a typical passenger experiences 1.467 times the number of scheduled passengers on the vehicle (whether it is a bus or train), or at least in the waiting area (bus stop or train station platform). And then some of them may not be able to fit into the vehicle and have to wait for the next one, so a vehicle arrival doesn't necessarily mean that the wait time ends for every single passenger in the waiting area. But then of course, you need more math to quantify that....you need to account for vehicle capacity. On the local bus or subway, it is a reasonable assumption to make that people will pack themselves onto the vehicle if necessary (I'm not condoning scheduling the service that tightly, but generally speaking, that is the behavior of passengers on those vehicles, myself included). On the express bus, the MTA schedules trips in a manner to avoid standees, but at the same time the buses can physically hold standees, so which number should you use for the capacity? Should you only take the seated capacity and when you are making the calculations, you assume that the standees would've otherwise been people who would've waited for the next bus? Or do you just go by the passenger counters/MetroCard swipes? Maybe publish both numbers?)
The one thing that does bother me on express buses is that people who let buses pass with seats in order to be at the front of the line for the next bus to get a "better seat" (on a bus that may very well end up with standees). It used to happen on the SIM8 all the time. I would get on around 7am, and maybe 2-3 people would end up letting the bus go by (at say, Christopher Lane). Then the bus would pick up people at Lambert Street and South Avenue, and continue into Manhattan with about 5 seats left. Then en-route to Manhattan around 7:30-7:40am or so, I'm seeing posts of "3 buses came with no seats". I wonder how many of those buses would've had seats if people around the 7am timeframe weren't picky about which seats they took.
Finally, the one thing (that I think may be almost impossible to quantify with official metrics, but is worth mentioning) is how many people ended up switching to a "backup option" that resulted in the trip taking longer than scheduled, but still shorter than waiting for the next bus (whether it was due to a delay or just infrequent service). If an Aspen Knolls resident checks BusTime at the time a scheduled SIM22 is supposed to arrive, finds that it is 20 minutes away and decides to take an arriving SIM25 to Arthur Kill Road/Veterans Road West and then wait 10 minutes for the S74 (as opposed to waiting 20 minutes for the SIM22 outright), is there a way to quantify the extra 10 minutes that the bus rider spent?
So one the statistics is "Service Delivered". It basically says "the percentage of trips that are actually provided, measured at the peak load point". That last part is bolded because it does not necessarily mean that any given stop will see that percentage of its trips filled. On an express bus, the peak load point is generally the last stop before the nonstop portion (between the outer borough and Manhattan). So technically, if a trip skips a whole bunch of stops and serves the last stop before the nonstop portion, that trip counts as filled. And most likely (given that bus operators don't put up "Next Bus Please" as often as they used to), if a bus is full to capacity and bypasses the last stop, that trip (most likely) counts as filled. So pretty much, if a given trip serves any passengers on that route and passes by the peak load point, it is counted as filled. (The one thing I would wonder is, if for example, a QM5 were diverted via Fresh Meadows to cover a QM1 trip, would both trips count as filled?)
Now we get to the measure of Excess Wait Time. So let's take a route with 15 minute headways, and a stop where the rate of passenger arrival is 1 passenger per minute. If buses actually arrive evenly spaced, and the passenger arrivals follow a uniform distribution, the average wait time will be 7.5 minutes (half the headway). You will have some passengers who barely make the bus, and some who barely miss the bus, and then a lot in between. However, let's say that the buses arrive at the stop at 8:00am, 8:24am, 8:32am, 8:58am, and 9:00am. So the math works as follows:
24 passengers experienced an average 12 minute wait.
8 passengers experienced an average 4 minute wait
26 passengers experienced an average 13 minute wait
2 passengers experienced an average 1 minute wait
So cumulative wait time is (24*12)+(8*4)+(26*13)+(2*1) = 660 passenger-minutes, divided by 60 passengers = 11 minutes of average wait time. So the excess wait time at this stop would be 11-7.5 = 3.5 minutes
Notice how uneven the spacing is. 11 minutes of average wait time is the equivalent to an evenly-spaced 22 minute headway. 22/15 (or 11/7.5) = 1.467, which means effectively, the average wait time was 1.467 times longer than it was scheduled to be. But yet, after all of this math, it only shows 3.5 minutes of excess wait time. So that ratio (actual wait time/expected wait time) is just as important as the raw excess wait time numbers, because it actually captures the classic experience of "I waited 20 minutes and then 3 buses showed up at once".
Even if a line was super-frequent (say, 2 minute headways), this ratio captures the "chaos" for lack of a better term. If the effective headway is 1.467 times the scheduled headway, that means that a typical passenger experiences 1.467 times the number of scheduled passengers on the vehicle (whether it is a bus or train), or at least in the waiting area (bus stop or train station platform). And then some of them may not be able to fit into the vehicle and have to wait for the next one, so a vehicle arrival doesn't necessarily mean that the wait time ends for every single passenger in the waiting area. But then of course, you need more math to quantify that....you need to account for vehicle capacity. On the local bus or subway, it is a reasonable assumption to make that people will pack themselves onto the vehicle if necessary (I'm not condoning scheduling the service that tightly, but generally speaking, that is the behavior of passengers on those vehicles, myself included). On the express bus, the MTA schedules trips in a manner to avoid standees, but at the same time the buses can physically hold standees, so which number should you use for the capacity? Should you only take the seated capacity and when you are making the calculations, you assume that the standees would've otherwise been people who would've waited for the next bus? Or do you just go by the passenger counters/MetroCard swipes? Maybe publish both numbers?)
The one thing that does bother me on express buses is that people who let buses pass with seats in order to be at the front of the line for the next bus to get a "better seat" (on a bus that may very well end up with standees). It used to happen on the SIM8 all the time. I would get on around 7am, and maybe 2-3 people would end up letting the bus go by (at say, Christopher Lane). Then the bus would pick up people at Lambert Street and South Avenue, and continue into Manhattan with about 5 seats left. Then en-route to Manhattan around 7:30-7:40am or so, I'm seeing posts of "3 buses came with no seats". I wonder how many of those buses would've had seats if people around the 7am timeframe weren't picky about which seats they took.
Finally, the one thing (that I think may be almost impossible to quantify with official metrics, but is worth mentioning) is how many people ended up switching to a "backup option" that resulted in the trip taking longer than scheduled, but still shorter than waiting for the next bus (whether it was due to a delay or just infrequent service). If an Aspen Knolls resident checks BusTime at the time a scheduled SIM22 is supposed to arrive, finds that it is 20 minutes away and decides to take an arriving SIM25 to Arthur Kill Road/Veterans Road West and then wait 10 minutes for the S74 (as opposed to waiting 20 minutes for the SIM22 outright), is there a way to quantify the extra 10 minutes that the bus rider spent?
NYCT Track Safety Training
I figured I'd deviate a little from talking about buses to discuss one of the most fun experiences I've had in my life: The NYC Transit track safety course. Long story short, at my job we are involved with bridge inspection, so we need to learn the rules, regulations and operating procedures of all of the railroads where we need to enter on their property to inspect the bridge. There are many railroads in NYC (CSX, Long Island Railroad, Metro-North, Amtrak, NYC Transit, Staten Island Railroad, etc) and so each one has their own course on track safety. What makes NYC Transit unique is that their course involves a supervised walk on the track, to practice what you have learned.
The course starts at 7am at an old public school in Brooklyn (P.S. 248, right between the 25th Avenue station on the D line, and the Avenue U station on the N line). You fill out some paperwork (including a liability waiver...that hopefully never is actually needed...they shred it at the end of the day once everyone is back in the classroom). We watch a little introductory video on how the system works, and then the instructors (two veteran trackworkers) hand out a booklet with all of the main rules pertaining to track safety. They put up a Powerpoint where they discuss these rules (what types of locations are considered safe "clear up" locations where there is enough space to prevent you from being struck by a train, different arrangements for where the flagmen should be standing so that they can see approaching trains with enough time to warn the workers, and also so that the train can hopefully stop if necessary, how to work around the third rail, and with some stories of workers who made mistakes that unfortunately got them injured or killed. I heard they used to have much more graphic stories and pictures/videos (the most graphic one we saw was a guy whose hand got caught in a switch, but I heard they used to put out some really nasty stuff)
So then we go out for the field portion (I love how the instructors come to class all dressed with nice suits and ties, and then a few minutes later, they change into their safety gear, grab their lanterns, and lead us out to the training area). One of the things you learn quickly is that many people become complacent....the instructor literally had to remind some people to step back from the platform edge when the train was approaching
The course starts at 7am at an old public school in Brooklyn (P.S. 248, right between the 25th Avenue station on the D line, and the Avenue U station on the N line). You fill out some paperwork (including a liability waiver...that hopefully never is actually needed...they shred it at the end of the day once everyone is back in the classroom). We watch a little introductory video on how the system works, and then the instructors (two veteran trackworkers) hand out a booklet with all of the main rules pertaining to track safety. They put up a Powerpoint where they discuss these rules (what types of locations are considered safe "clear up" locations where there is enough space to prevent you from being struck by a train, different arrangements for where the flagmen should be standing so that they can see approaching trains with enough time to warn the workers, and also so that the train can hopefully stop if necessary, how to work around the third rail, and with some stories of workers who made mistakes that unfortunately got them injured or killed. I heard they used to have much more graphic stories and pictures/videos (the most graphic one we saw was a guy whose hand got caught in a switch, but I heard they used to put out some really nasty stuff)
So then we go out for the field portion (I love how the instructors come to class all dressed with nice suits and ties, and then a few minutes later, they change into their safety gear, grab their lanterns, and lead us out to the training area). One of the things you learn quickly is that many people become complacent....the instructor literally had to remind some people to step back from the platform edge when the train was approaching
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Extending the Span of Peak Variants
As mentioned previously, I believe off-peak service overall needs to be restructured to provide more coverage on the Staten Island end (even if a particular route may have its coverage reduced on the Manhattan end). Here are some simple ways to begin the process of extending the span of some of the peak routes into the off-peak time period.
SIM4C
The primary routes that make up the SIM4C are the SIM2 & SIM4 for Downtown, and the SIM8 for Midtown. The schedule should be changed as follows:
5am SIM4C trip out of Arden Heights converted into SIM4 trip out of Annadale. Additionally, SIM4C trips leaving Arden Heights between 8:35am and 9:20am (inclusive) replaced with SIM4 trips out of Annadale. Savings reinvested to add additional SIM2 trip departing Tottenville at 8:45am, with the 9am trip shifted to depart Tottenville at 9:05am. Academy Bus should be encouraged to add a 9:00am SIM23 out of Hylan Blvd & Barclay Avenue (or preferably Pollion Avenue if it ever gets extended that way) to both provide a Midtown route along Arden Avenue and come closer to matching the span of the old X24 (a 9am SIM24 out of Hylan & Luten would also be helpful, and would also help match the span of the old X24). Otherwise, Midtown-bound riders along Arden Avenue will either have to make a transfer Downtown, or make their way to the SIM8/22 (or if they take the SIM2 to Travis, they can catch the SIM25/26 over there).
On a side note, my stance on that SIM2/24 stop is that it should be at Hylan & Huguenot, which is more centrally located than Hylan & Luten (which is basically in the middle of Wolfe's Pond Park). Academy Bus saw an increase in their subsidy from the city, and they should be made to provide adequate service. They complain that the new network caused them to reduce their revenue miles, and they haven't thought of the simple ways of getting those revenue miles back in ways that benefit the passengers.
In the evening, the SIM2 should have its span extended to operate until 9:30pm out of Chambers Street (operating every 30 minutes after 7:30pm). A 1:30pm SIM8 trip should be added out of 57th Street & Lexington Avenue, and all of the SIM4C trips departing CPS & 6th Avenue between 1:30pm and 2:35pm, and between 6:55pm and 8:55pm should be converted to SIM4 trips out of Chambers Street at those respective arrival times (so for example, the 1:30pm SIM4C trip out of CPS & 6th should become a SIM4 trip out of Chambers Street at 2:11pm). The savings would be reinvested in adding SIM4C trips out of CPS & 6th leaving at 11am, 12pm, and 1pm respectively, to provide off-peak service every 30 minutes (obviously the gap from 10:20pm to 11am is a 40 minute gap, but you get the point...service would run better than hourly).
SIM33C
The primary routes that make up the SIM33C are the SIM31 for Midtown, SIM32 for Downtown, and SIM33 for Greenwich Village. The schedule should be changed as follows:
The Church Street corridor needs to take priority over the West Street corridor due to its central location and connections available. The old system accomplished this by having the first few trips of the morning run as X10 trips that bypassed Narrows Road, rather than X10B trips (so the X10B and X11 had a similar span). A similar setup should take place with the SIM32/33, and generally speaking it is more desirable to extend the span of the peak variants rather than the off-peak variants, because the peak variants offer more overall coverage (both on the Manhattan end and Staten Island end)
* Shift the 6:05am SIM32 trip to depart Travis at 6:00am, and add a 5:00am, 5:20am, and 5:40am departure out of Travis. Remove the 5:00am, 5:20am, and 5:40am SIM33 trips out of Mariners Harbor, and replace them with a 5:30am SIM33 trip (this will coordinate well with the SIM32 along Gannon & SIM34 in Mariners Harbor/Graniteville in that timeframe) The only disadvantage is that those areas have to wait 30 more minutes if they want direct service to Greenwich Village, but this would still add an extra bus per hour to the Gannon corridor (3 SIM32s and 1 SIM33 instead of 3 SIM33s) around the 6am timeframe.
* Shift the 8:35am SIM32 trip to depart Travis at 8:45am. Shift the 8:00am and 8:30am SIM31 trips to depart the Eltingville Transit Center at 8:05am and 8:35am respectively. This will reduce the peak/off-peak gap between the last SIM31/32 and the first SIM33C for Midtown service and Church Street service respectively.
* In the afternoon, shift the 3:40pm SIM31 trip to depart 57th Street & Lexington Avenue at 3:30pm, and add a 2:30pm and 3pm departure from 57th Street & Lexington Avenue. Eliminate the 2:20pm and 2:40pm SIM33C trips out of CPS & 6th, add a 3:20pm SIM32 trip out of Chambers Street & Church Street, and shift the 3:55pm SIM32 trip to depart Chambers Street at 3:50pm. Combine the 3pm and 3:20pm SIM33 trips out of Union Square into a 3:10pm trip. This will eliminate the overlap between the SIM33 & SIM33C in the early PM rush, while ensuring that the Downtown section of Broadway maintains service to Gannon Avenue.
* In the evening, remove the 6:50pm and 7:10pm SIM33C trips out of CPS & 6th, shift the 6:40pm SIM33 out of Union Square to depart at 6:45pm, shift the 7pm SIM33 out of Union Square to depart at 7:05pm, and add a 7:30pm SIM33 trip out of Union Square. Also shift the 7:05pm SIM32 out of Chambers Street to depart at 7:15pm, and add a 7:45pm SIM32 out of Chambers Street.
Additionally, one thing that was gained when the SIM4C covered Gannon Avenue is that it started early in the morning and allowed riders to reach Midtown before 6am. Perhaps one additional SIM33C trip should be added leaving Mariners Harbor at 4:30am to restore this service.
SIM3C
The primary routes that make up the SIM3C are the SIM3 and SIM34.
* In the morning, combine the 8:55am and 9:15am SIM3 trips out of Port Richmond into a 9:05am SIM3 trip, and add a 9:25am SIM3C trip out of Port Richmond. This will fill in the gap in Downtown service along Watchogue Road between the last SIM34 and the first SIM3C of the morning.
* In the afternoon, eliminate the 2:10pm, 2:25pm, 2:40pm, and 2:50pm SIM3C trips out of CPS & 6th, and replace them with 2:20pm and 2:50pm SIM3 trips out of CPS & 6th. This will eliminate the overlap between the SIM3C and SIM15/34/35 Downtown.
Another simple span extension can be had by shifting the last SIM26 to depart Tottenville at 9:10am instead of 9:05am (spacing it out a bit from the last SIM25 which leaves at 9am). Additionally, the whole Hylan Blvd corridor needs restructuring with regards to....well...everything but as it relates to this post, the SIM1C should be broken up into its respective peak variants for a much longer timeframe. That span reduction on the SIM10 back in January 2019 was a huge step backwards.
If you look closely, when I chose the departure times of the routes, I tried to coordinate the service so there was no more than a 30 minute gap between peak and off-peak or vice versa. In a few cases, the gap is slightly more, but one of the other big issues with off-peak service is the lack of coordination between the SIM3C & SIM33C (in their overlapping portions, they arrive around the same time instead of being offset). By rectifying this issue, it should also help close those gaps up.
SIM30
Finally, another route that needs a span extension is the SIM30. One of the main selling points of the new network is that the span of the routes would be extended as close as possible to 5-9am and 3-7pm (presumably referring to departure times from the terminals). The SIM30 falls about an hour short of that in both directions. One of the things that is overlooked is that this route is supposed to be the Midtown alternative for X12 & X14 riders (which had a longer span than the X30). Now, one of the things that I believe needs to be done is to split the route at Jewett Avenue, and have the eastern portion run via Brooklyn (basically, take the old X16 and send it to Midtown instead of Downtown), while the western portion continues to run through New Jersey.
The current inbound span at the Forest & Jewett stop is 5:32am - 8:24am. This can be extended to an even 5am-9am by adding a 5am and a 9am trip, adjusting the 5:32am and 8:24am trips to leave at 5:30am and 8:30am respectively, and then scheduling the proper amount of service to account for the fact that riders east of Jewett Avenue would likely be on the eastern split (let's call it SIM36 for now). That would probably lead to a slight decrease in frequency, but not too much of a decrease, as the vast majority of SIM30 ridership is west of Jewett Avenue. In the afternoon, a 3:20pm trip should be added out of CPS & 6th.
With the SIM36, I'd have it depart Jewett & Post between 5:25am and 8:25am. This would get SIM30 riders along the eastern portion of the route into Midtown around the same time they get there today (and also be fairly similar to the span of the old X14). In the afternoon, buses would depart CPS & 6th between 3:30pm and 6:30pm. The span can be extended if ridership grows (right now, it starts earlier than the SIM30, but also ends earlier, but it still ends around the time the X30 used to end). Frequency would be determined based on ridership (likely all existing SIM30 riders would take it, as it's faster than taking the SIM30 to Midtown, unless there is an accident along the I-278 corridor, and then you'd have some Midtown-bound SIM35 riders who would take it, plus riders taking it at Hylan and at Fingerboard because it came before a SIM10/11). The Manhattan routing can either be up West Street & 10th/11th Avenue to 42nd Street, or up the FDR Drive, 23rd Street, and 5th/Madison Avenue.
For the old X18 (let's call it SIM18 for now), I would have it run with a span similar to what it had in 2004 (6:15am - 9am out of Targee & DeKalb, and 4:25pm - 6:25pm out of Rector Street). I would reverse the outbound route on the Staten Island end (so instead of taking Narrows Road to Targee Street and making a clockwise loop through Park Hill/Rosebank, I would have it get off at School Road and make a counterclockwise loop, ending at Richmond Road & DeKalb Street). I would also have it run up Church/Broadway to/from Chambers Street (rather than do the Downtown Loop).
In its final years, the X18 only ran from 4:30pm-6pm, hence why I said I would use something similar to the 2004 span. Again, as ridership increases, hopefully the span can be increased. One thing to consider is that by running up Church/Broadway, it should be able to take a little bit of pressure off the SIM1 (which as I've said since the beginning, should be split to operate "New Dorp via Hylan" or "Eltingville via Father Capodanno"). So if the same passengers are accommodated by a short route that ends near the Verrazzano (and travels closer to their homes) as opposed a longer route down Hylan Blvd, that is a win-win for both the passengers and the MTA.
SIM4C
The primary routes that make up the SIM4C are the SIM2 & SIM4 for Downtown, and the SIM8 for Midtown. The schedule should be changed as follows:
5am SIM4C trip out of Arden Heights converted into SIM4 trip out of Annadale. Additionally, SIM4C trips leaving Arden Heights between 8:35am and 9:20am (inclusive) replaced with SIM4 trips out of Annadale. Savings reinvested to add additional SIM2 trip departing Tottenville at 8:45am, with the 9am trip shifted to depart Tottenville at 9:05am. Academy Bus should be encouraged to add a 9:00am SIM23 out of Hylan Blvd & Barclay Avenue (or preferably Pollion Avenue if it ever gets extended that way) to both provide a Midtown route along Arden Avenue and come closer to matching the span of the old X24 (a 9am SIM24 out of Hylan & Luten would also be helpful, and would also help match the span of the old X24). Otherwise, Midtown-bound riders along Arden Avenue will either have to make a transfer Downtown, or make their way to the SIM8/22 (or if they take the SIM2 to Travis, they can catch the SIM25/26 over there).
On a side note, my stance on that SIM2/24 stop is that it should be at Hylan & Huguenot, which is more centrally located than Hylan & Luten (which is basically in the middle of Wolfe's Pond Park). Academy Bus saw an increase in their subsidy from the city, and they should be made to provide adequate service. They complain that the new network caused them to reduce their revenue miles, and they haven't thought of the simple ways of getting those revenue miles back in ways that benefit the passengers.
In the evening, the SIM2 should have its span extended to operate until 9:30pm out of Chambers Street (operating every 30 minutes after 7:30pm). A 1:30pm SIM8 trip should be added out of 57th Street & Lexington Avenue, and all of the SIM4C trips departing CPS & 6th Avenue between 1:30pm and 2:35pm, and between 6:55pm and 8:55pm should be converted to SIM4 trips out of Chambers Street at those respective arrival times (so for example, the 1:30pm SIM4C trip out of CPS & 6th should become a SIM4 trip out of Chambers Street at 2:11pm). The savings would be reinvested in adding SIM4C trips out of CPS & 6th leaving at 11am, 12pm, and 1pm respectively, to provide off-peak service every 30 minutes (obviously the gap from 10:20pm to 11am is a 40 minute gap, but you get the point...service would run better than hourly).
SIM33C
The primary routes that make up the SIM33C are the SIM31 for Midtown, SIM32 for Downtown, and SIM33 for Greenwich Village. The schedule should be changed as follows:
The Church Street corridor needs to take priority over the West Street corridor due to its central location and connections available. The old system accomplished this by having the first few trips of the morning run as X10 trips that bypassed Narrows Road, rather than X10B trips (so the X10B and X11 had a similar span). A similar setup should take place with the SIM32/33, and generally speaking it is more desirable to extend the span of the peak variants rather than the off-peak variants, because the peak variants offer more overall coverage (both on the Manhattan end and Staten Island end)
* Shift the 6:05am SIM32 trip to depart Travis at 6:00am, and add a 5:00am, 5:20am, and 5:40am departure out of Travis. Remove the 5:00am, 5:20am, and 5:40am SIM33 trips out of Mariners Harbor, and replace them with a 5:30am SIM33 trip (this will coordinate well with the SIM32 along Gannon & SIM34 in Mariners Harbor/Graniteville in that timeframe) The only disadvantage is that those areas have to wait 30 more minutes if they want direct service to Greenwich Village, but this would still add an extra bus per hour to the Gannon corridor (3 SIM32s and 1 SIM33 instead of 3 SIM33s) around the 6am timeframe.
* Shift the 8:35am SIM32 trip to depart Travis at 8:45am. Shift the 8:00am and 8:30am SIM31 trips to depart the Eltingville Transit Center at 8:05am and 8:35am respectively. This will reduce the peak/off-peak gap between the last SIM31/32 and the first SIM33C for Midtown service and Church Street service respectively.
* In the afternoon, shift the 3:40pm SIM31 trip to depart 57th Street & Lexington Avenue at 3:30pm, and add a 2:30pm and 3pm departure from 57th Street & Lexington Avenue. Eliminate the 2:20pm and 2:40pm SIM33C trips out of CPS & 6th, add a 3:20pm SIM32 trip out of Chambers Street & Church Street, and shift the 3:55pm SIM32 trip to depart Chambers Street at 3:50pm. Combine the 3pm and 3:20pm SIM33 trips out of Union Square into a 3:10pm trip. This will eliminate the overlap between the SIM33 & SIM33C in the early PM rush, while ensuring that the Downtown section of Broadway maintains service to Gannon Avenue.
* In the evening, remove the 6:50pm and 7:10pm SIM33C trips out of CPS & 6th, shift the 6:40pm SIM33 out of Union Square to depart at 6:45pm, shift the 7pm SIM33 out of Union Square to depart at 7:05pm, and add a 7:30pm SIM33 trip out of Union Square. Also shift the 7:05pm SIM32 out of Chambers Street to depart at 7:15pm, and add a 7:45pm SIM32 out of Chambers Street.
Additionally, one thing that was gained when the SIM4C covered Gannon Avenue is that it started early in the morning and allowed riders to reach Midtown before 6am. Perhaps one additional SIM33C trip should be added leaving Mariners Harbor at 4:30am to restore this service.
SIM3C
The primary routes that make up the SIM3C are the SIM3 and SIM34.
* In the morning, combine the 8:55am and 9:15am SIM3 trips out of Port Richmond into a 9:05am SIM3 trip, and add a 9:25am SIM3C trip out of Port Richmond. This will fill in the gap in Downtown service along Watchogue Road between the last SIM34 and the first SIM3C of the morning.
* In the afternoon, eliminate the 2:10pm, 2:25pm, 2:40pm, and 2:50pm SIM3C trips out of CPS & 6th, and replace them with 2:20pm and 2:50pm SIM3 trips out of CPS & 6th. This will eliminate the overlap between the SIM3C and SIM15/34/35 Downtown.
Another simple span extension can be had by shifting the last SIM26 to depart Tottenville at 9:10am instead of 9:05am (spacing it out a bit from the last SIM25 which leaves at 9am). Additionally, the whole Hylan Blvd corridor needs restructuring with regards to....well...everything but as it relates to this post, the SIM1C should be broken up into its respective peak variants for a much longer timeframe. That span reduction on the SIM10 back in January 2019 was a huge step backwards.
If you look closely, when I chose the departure times of the routes, I tried to coordinate the service so there was no more than a 30 minute gap between peak and off-peak or vice versa. In a few cases, the gap is slightly more, but one of the other big issues with off-peak service is the lack of coordination between the SIM3C & SIM33C (in their overlapping portions, they arrive around the same time instead of being offset). By rectifying this issue, it should also help close those gaps up.
SIM30
Finally, another route that needs a span extension is the SIM30. One of the main selling points of the new network is that the span of the routes would be extended as close as possible to 5-9am and 3-7pm (presumably referring to departure times from the terminals). The SIM30 falls about an hour short of that in both directions. One of the things that is overlooked is that this route is supposed to be the Midtown alternative for X12 & X14 riders (which had a longer span than the X30). Now, one of the things that I believe needs to be done is to split the route at Jewett Avenue, and have the eastern portion run via Brooklyn (basically, take the old X16 and send it to Midtown instead of Downtown), while the western portion continues to run through New Jersey.
The current inbound span at the Forest & Jewett stop is 5:32am - 8:24am. This can be extended to an even 5am-9am by adding a 5am and a 9am trip, adjusting the 5:32am and 8:24am trips to leave at 5:30am and 8:30am respectively, and then scheduling the proper amount of service to account for the fact that riders east of Jewett Avenue would likely be on the eastern split (let's call it SIM36 for now). That would probably lead to a slight decrease in frequency, but not too much of a decrease, as the vast majority of SIM30 ridership is west of Jewett Avenue. In the afternoon, a 3:20pm trip should be added out of CPS & 6th.
With the SIM36, I'd have it depart Jewett & Post between 5:25am and 8:25am. This would get SIM30 riders along the eastern portion of the route into Midtown around the same time they get there today (and also be fairly similar to the span of the old X14). In the afternoon, buses would depart CPS & 6th between 3:30pm and 6:30pm. The span can be extended if ridership grows (right now, it starts earlier than the SIM30, but also ends earlier, but it still ends around the time the X30 used to end). Frequency would be determined based on ridership (likely all existing SIM30 riders would take it, as it's faster than taking the SIM30 to Midtown, unless there is an accident along the I-278 corridor, and then you'd have some Midtown-bound SIM35 riders who would take it, plus riders taking it at Hylan and at Fingerboard because it came before a SIM10/11). The Manhattan routing can either be up West Street & 10th/11th Avenue to 42nd Street, or up the FDR Drive, 23rd Street, and 5th/Madison Avenue.
For the old X18 (let's call it SIM18 for now), I would have it run with a span similar to what it had in 2004 (6:15am - 9am out of Targee & DeKalb, and 4:25pm - 6:25pm out of Rector Street). I would reverse the outbound route on the Staten Island end (so instead of taking Narrows Road to Targee Street and making a clockwise loop through Park Hill/Rosebank, I would have it get off at School Road and make a counterclockwise loop, ending at Richmond Road & DeKalb Street). I would also have it run up Church/Broadway to/from Chambers Street (rather than do the Downtown Loop).
In its final years, the X18 only ran from 4:30pm-6pm, hence why I said I would use something similar to the 2004 span. Again, as ridership increases, hopefully the span can be increased. One thing to consider is that by running up Church/Broadway, it should be able to take a little bit of pressure off the SIM1 (which as I've said since the beginning, should be split to operate "New Dorp via Hylan" or "Eltingville via Father Capodanno"). So if the same passengers are accommodated by a short route that ends near the Verrazzano (and travels closer to their homes) as opposed a longer route down Hylan Blvd, that is a win-win for both the passengers and the MTA.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Comments on April 28th Schedules
* They added some SIM1C service in the late AM rush which will alleviate some overcrowding, but why didn't they extend the span of the SIM10 back to 9:10am? Would've been more efficient (and the same applies to the PM rush)
* Still haven't fixed coordination issues between SIM3C & SIM33C for weekday inbound service.
* Still haven't addressed weekend inbound SIM4C runtime issues (excess runtime) between Huguenot/Woodrow & ETC.
* SIM6 starts from 56th & Lexington at 2pm instead of 2:35pm which is good, and it's even earlier than the X5 did (at 2:15pm)
* SIM4X/8X excess runtime issues seem to have been addressed (and they even addressed the PM runtime on the Manhattan side for the SIM4X which is good)
* Looks like they cut a couple of SIM8 buses in the AM rush (but it should be alright now that they added the Christopher Lane stop on the SIM8X).
* Their addressing the excess runtime in the evenings for the "via NJ" routes by shaving off one minute is honestly an insult to my repeated requests to have this addressed. You could shave off 6-8 minutes with no problem. The SIM8 only needs about 15-18 minutes from 57th & Lexington to 42nd & 8th on a typical weeknight, not 22 minutes. For that matter, there's also no need to add runtime to the early PM rush (those buses around 2pm)
* SIM4C should travel no further north than 23rd Street when the SIM8 operates. Same for the SIM1C vs. SIM10.
* Adjustments to the SIM25 runtimes between Tottenville and Woodrow Road (I still think they could shave off another 1-2 minutes but I guess it's a start).
* Redistribution of SIM30 trips to run a little more frequently in the early AM and a little less frequently in the late AM.
* Later SIM32 trip added at 7:05pm from Chambers.
* Still haven't fixed coordination issues between SIM3C & SIM33C for weekday inbound service.
* Still haven't addressed weekend inbound SIM4C runtime issues (excess runtime) between Huguenot/Woodrow & ETC.
* SIM6 starts from 56th & Lexington at 2pm instead of 2:35pm which is good, and it's even earlier than the X5 did (at 2:15pm)
* SIM4X/8X excess runtime issues seem to have been addressed (and they even addressed the PM runtime on the Manhattan side for the SIM4X which is good)
* Looks like they cut a couple of SIM8 buses in the AM rush (but it should be alright now that they added the Christopher Lane stop on the SIM8X).
* Their addressing the excess runtime in the evenings for the "via NJ" routes by shaving off one minute is honestly an insult to my repeated requests to have this addressed. You could shave off 6-8 minutes with no problem. The SIM8 only needs about 15-18 minutes from 57th & Lexington to 42nd & 8th on a typical weeknight, not 22 minutes. For that matter, there's also no need to add runtime to the early PM rush (those buses around 2pm)
* SIM4C should travel no further north than 23rd Street when the SIM8 operates. Same for the SIM1C vs. SIM10.
* Adjustments to the SIM25 runtimes between Tottenville and Woodrow Road (I still think they could shave off another 1-2 minutes but I guess it's a start).
* Redistribution of SIM30 trips to run a little more frequently in the early AM and a little less frequently in the late AM.
* Later SIM32 trip added at 7:05pm from Chambers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)