Transit

6sqft previously reported on the city's plans to provide alternatives to the L train during the 2019 shutdown for repairs in the Canarsie Tunnel under the East River and the reaction of community groups affected by the planned changes. A coalition of West Side neighborhood groups fearing disruptions from buses, bike lanes and other changes sued the agencies tasked with implementing the L train alternatives. Now the New York Daily News reports that according to court documents, 14th street will become a "busway" for 17 hours each day–among other strategies–to limit car traffic during the shutdown.
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June 25, 2018

New renderings and a 2022 deadline for Cuomo’s AirTrain to LaGuardia

Via Governor Cuomo's office Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday signed legislation that jumpstarts the construction of the AirTrain to LaGuardia Airport by letting the state use eminent domain to secure land for the project. Passed by the state legislature last week, the bill permits the state to acquire parcels of land already owned by the City or MTA between Willets Point and the airport, allowing the train to run along Grand Central Parkway. LGA is the only major airport on the East Coast without a rail connection, with 86 percent of travelers using cars to access it. "How can you not have a rail train to the city from a New York airport? I mean, it's just incomprehensible, right?" Cuomo said at the bill signing event. According to the governor's office, the train could bring passengers via the 7-train or LIRR trains between Midtown and the airport within 30 minutes.
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Next week, two Astoria subway stations will reopen and two will shutter

Photo by Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit via Flickr

June 25, 2018

Next week, two Astoria subway stations will reopen and two will shutter

On the heels of the 2 and 3 resuming weekend service between Brooklyn and Manhattan, the MTA has more good news: The 30th and 36th Avenue stations in Astoria will be reopening on Monday, July 2 after being shuttered for repairs the past eight months. But with this also comes some bad news--the closure of the Broadway and 39th Avenue stations on the same N, W line, which are projected to remain shuttered for seven months.
July 2 will be quite a day for Astoria straphangers

Transit

Weekend 2, 3 subway service between Brooklyn and Manhattan resumes Sunday

Photo by Susan Jane Golding / Flickr

June 22, 2018

Weekend 2, 3 subway service between Brooklyn and Manhattan resumes Sunday

The regular slew of service changes awaits straphangers this weekend, but one longtime inconvenience will be coming to an end this Sunday: weekend 2 and 3 service between Brooklyn and Manhattan will resume at last. For 4 and G train riders, though, the weekend will be a particularly inconvenient one.
Here's the full damage

Transit

3 Manhattan subway stations will shutter through the end of the year

Photo via Flickr

June 19, 2018

3 Manhattan subway stations will shutter through the end of the year

Adding to straphangers' woes this summer, the MTA will be shuttering three Manhattan subway stations for repairs in July. The 57th Street F, 28th Street 6, and 23rd Street F and M stations will close for six months of repairs as part of Governor Cuomo's Enhanced Station Initiative. Last month, the MTA closed the 72nd Street and 86th Street stations on the B, C line--neither station will reopen until late October.
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Transit

Subway service changes (relatively) minimal this weekend

Photo by Phil Roeder / Flickr

June 15, 2018

Subway service changes (relatively) minimal this weekend

Rejoice: Straphangers are being a granted a relief from the past two weeks' truly brutal service changes this weekend and upcoming week. That's not to say the subways won't be a mess, especially for those reliant on the 4 and 6 trains, but the track work's impact will have, by comparison, a far more manageable planned impact.
The bar is so, so low

Transit

The slow death of the MetroCard begins next spring

Photo via Phil Hollenback/Flickr

June 14, 2018

The slow death of the MetroCard begins next spring

By Michelle Sinclair Colman

It’s the end of an era but one that might not be too sentimental. As of May 2019, the MTA is launching its new fare payment method for the 4, 5, and 6 lines and all bus routes on Staten Island, reports amNY. No more steel bars karate chopping your abdomen when you realize your MetroCard is out of credit. Starting next spring, riders can use credit cards, mobile phones, smart watches, and mobile wallets to travel... but you'll still be able to swipe your old MetroCard until 2023.
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Approved $89B NYC budget includes discounted transit fares for low-income riders

Image by Ged Carroll on Flickr

June 12, 2018

Approved $89B NYC budget includes discounted transit fares for low-income riders

Mayor Bill de Blasio reached an agreement with City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on a new city budget, the New York Times reports. The $89.2 billion budget includes funding for discounted MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers. 6sqft reported last week on the deal struck between the mayor and the city council to provide about $100 million to fund the program. Johnson has been a tenacious and vocal supporter of the Fair Fares program, in which the city will subsidize the cost of providing half-price MetroCards to New Yorkers who fall below the federal poverty line, or a household income of $25,000 for a family of four. Nearly 800,000 New Yorkers could benefit from the discounted fares. The initial allocation in the budget will pay for six months of the program beginning in January, with further financing will be forthcoming in future budgets.
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Deal struck to fund discounted MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers

Image by Ged Carroll on Flickr Reduced-fare MetroCards may soon become a reality for low-income straphangers, as Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council have reached a deal Wednesday to provide roughly $100 million in funding to the program. The mayor's agreement with Speaker Corey Johnson, who has been one of the most vocal supporters of a Fair Fares program, means the city would fully subsidize the cost of providing half-price MetroCards to New Yorkers who fall below the federal poverty line, or a household income of $25,000 for a family of four. Nearly 800,000 New Yorkers could benefit from the discounted fares. Under the tentative deal, the city would allocate $106 million in its upcoming budget, which would pay for six months of the program beginning in January, according to the New York Times.
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Late night weekday subway changes once again rival the weekend in terms of disruption

Photo via Christina McCartey/Flickr

June 8, 2018

Late night weekday subway changes once again rival the weekend in terms of disruption

For the second week in the row, the incumbent late night weekday service changes are arguably worse than those on the weekend. The Q and S alone are the only lines without set service changes, and who knows what kind of signal delays might change even that small bit of reassurance.
In terms of service changes, the weekdays are beginning to meld with the weekends

Transit

June 7, 2018

Anti-bigotry ‘service’ posters hit NYC subway stations for Pride Month

The normally drab service posters found across the city's subway stations got a burst of color this month. Instead of detailing changes to late-night train service, these rainbow-adorned signs remind commuters that no "bigotry, hatred or prejudice" is allowed at any time, as Pride Month, a celebration of LGBTQ love, kicks off. Originally created by School of Visual Arts faculty member Thomas Shim and alumni Ezequiel Consoli and Jack Welles (Kyle Harrison was added to the core team this year), the posters will remain fastened to the station walls throughout the month of June.
More details here

June 7, 2018

Study: A former freight line on the Lower Montauk branch could help a Queens transportation desert

How do you connect the fastest-growing census tract in the U.S. to New York City’s public transportation hubs? Architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), whose New York City work includes the master plan for Hudson Yards, One Vanderbilt and Two Waterline Square, has released a "visioning study" that explores how the repurposing of the QNS, an 8.5 mile Lower Montauk Branch rail line, into a new transit line in Queens that could revitalize neighborhoods, provide affordable housing, create jobs and add transit service to the over nine square miles of New York City that contain three of the city’s largest and most successful Industrial Business Zones (Maspeth, Long Island City, and North Brooklyn) and two of Queens’ largest central business districts (Long Island City and Jamaica Center), adding to the long-term growth of those districts and creating thousands of potential new jobs.
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The West Side Cowboys and the railway cars that killed 436 people before 1906

West Side Cowboy on Death Avenue, via Kalmbach Publishing Co.

June 5, 2018

The West Side Cowboys and the railway cars that killed 436 people before 1906

By Rebecca Paul

The now-defunct elevated train lines of Manhattan are well known today thanks to their reincarnation as the High Line. But before this raised structure was put in place, the west side was home to a deadly train system appropriately referred to by locals as "The Butcher." The full-size railway line ran from 1846 to 1941 between 10th and 11th Avenues without barriers, fences or platforms, earning the route the nickname "Death Avenue" before it was taken out of operation for causing more than 430 fatalities--deaths that not even true western cowboys could stop.
The whole history right this way

Cynthia Nixon calls for congestion pricing and millionaires’ tax to fund subway repairs

Photo via Wikimedia

June 4, 2018

Cynthia Nixon calls for congestion pricing and millionaires’ tax to fund subway repairs

Actress and candidate for governor Cynthia Nixon released last week her plan to fix New York City's transit system and many of the ideas look pretty familiar. To pay for much-needed subway repairs, Nixon's plan calls for congestion pricing, a concept supported by her opponent Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and a millionaires' tax, an idea backed by Mayor Bill de Blasio (h/t NY Post). Her campaign also details imposing a polluter fee on fossil fuel companies to "generate billions of dollars to be used to fund New York’s transition to green energy." And while disparaging the MTA remains one of the focal points of her campaign, Nixon's plan to upgrade the subways is nearly identical to the Fast Forward plan released by NYC Transit Authority President Andy Byford last month. Jon Weinstein, a spokesperson for the MTA, said in a statement: "After three months of slamming the MTA in the press, Ms. Nixon released a plan to fix the subways and it was the MTA’s plan. Thanks."
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Delayed feasibility study for proposed BQX streetcar costing taxpayers at least $7M

Photo via Friends of the BQX

June 1, 2018

Delayed feasibility study for proposed BQX streetcar costing taxpayers at least $7M

The plan to bring a 16-mile light-rail trolley between Brooklyn and Queens has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars, even before the feasibility of the project has been determined. The study has cost the city $7 million in taxpayer money so far, according to the New York Post. And while the city's Economic Development Corporation promised to have the study completed last fall, this week the agency said they would not put a timeline on its release. Mayor Bill de Blasio first backed the Brooklyn Queens Connector (BQX) project in February 2016, but a series of delays and funding concerns have put the trolley on hold. The proposed streetcar was left out of the city's budget proposal last month, further delaying studies into the project's plausibility.
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Next week’s subway service changes to be nearly as extensive as this weekend’s

Photo by Rashaad Jorden via Flickr

June 1, 2018

Next week’s subway service changes to be nearly as extensive as this weekend’s

The weekend will be extending into the week in the worst way possible this Monday, with the kind of service changes usually reserved for Saturday and Sunday spilling into workdays. While the A and C trains win this week for most convoluted service changes, the 4 also deserves a nod, and the vast majority of lines have far more than average changes.
All the disruptions

Transit

Many Memorial Day weekend subway service changes will continue into the week

Photo by Hannah Frishberg

May 25, 2018

Many Memorial Day weekend subway service changes will continue into the week

This week was a big one for the MTA, with NYC Transit President Andy Byford releasing the Fast Forward plan, with 10 years worth of road map for necessary modernizations to be made to the subway system, as well as an announcement that subway service will possibly be increased during off-peak, weekday hours beginning in November along the A, D, E and F lines. Much more immediately, many of this weekend's subway service changes will extend into Monday and early Tuesday due to Memorial Day and the long weekend.
Read on for the service change specifics

Transit

MTA releases aggressive plan to modernize New York City’s subway within a decade

Photo via Dan Phiffer on Flickr

May 23, 2018

MTA releases aggressive plan to modernize New York City’s subway within a decade

Within 10 years, the subway system will feature a state-of-the-art signal system, become more accessible, have a new fare payment system and boast thousands of new subway cars and buses. These ambitious improvements are all part of a plan released Wednesday by New York City Transit Chief Andy Byford and the MTA, called "Fast Forward: The Plan to Modernize New York City Transit." And the plan does intend to move very quickly. Byford expects work previously estimated to take nearly 50 years to be completed within the next decade. The top-to-bottom modernization of the system will no doubt inconvenience commuters, with possible changes to bus stop locations, as well as station closures and service disruptions. "Fast Forward" breaks down into two five-year plans, with the first half estimated to cost $19 billion and the next five years to cost $18 billion according to the New York Times. However, a cost estimate of the plan has not yet been officially released by the MTA.
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Get ready for more debilitating than usual weekend subway service changes

Photo by Hannah Frishberg

May 18, 2018

Get ready for more debilitating than usual weekend subway service changes

The MTA has finally announced when normal weekend service will resume along the 2 and 3 lines, which have not been running between Brooklyn and Manhattan on Saturdays and Sundays for months: Sunday, June 24 at 12:01 a.m. Until then, though, it's tough luck if you need to get to the Park Place, Wall Street, Clark Street, and/or Hoyt Street stops on the weekend. In other news, the MTA has begun inexplicably including borough names in service change descriptions to offer unnecessary specificity even when the station, such as Howard Beach-JFK, only exists in one borough and is well-known.
All this weekend's madness

Transit

May 17, 2018

MTA documents reveal that 4,000 L train riders will be displaced during shutdown

The latest fear to raise its ugly head in what will admittedly be a major inconvenience–that is, the 15-month shutdown of the L line starting in April of 2019–is the very limited number of trains that will be able to pick up the slack heading across the Williamsburg bridge. The topic surfaced at last night's Town Hall meeting, when, according to the Village Voice, a concerned citizen by the name of Sunny Ng voiced his concerns about how many more trains could fit on the bridge.
Can of worms: Open!

May 16, 2018

The new voice of the MTA sounds like a New Yorker, but enunciates well

By Michelle Sinclair Colman

Photo via Richard Yeh / WNYC Queens native and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Rail Control Center announcer Velina Mitchell is the new official voice of the transit authority. The 25-year MTA “insider” was chosen when Sarah Meyer, the NYC Transit chief customer officer, first heard Mitchell read a public service announcement. Little did Mitchell know she was auditioning for a much bigger role. Meyer told the Daily News: "She sounded like a New Yorker, but she was also warm and she enunciated very well." The MTA is making an effort to improve communications with their riders by playing Mitchell’s announcements in stations as well as in four new train cars.
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N, Q, F, A and E all masquerading as one another and other weekend service changes

Photo by smallcurio/Flickr

May 11, 2018

N, Q, F, A and E all masquerading as one another and other weekend service changes