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Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Javid posted:

The city here is like that. The highway was first, in wagon trail form, and the city grew around it somewhat. Now there's no going back without punching a new highway through the mountains on either side.

Yeah, Seattle is trying to solve their urban freeway problems by building some sort of giant machine tomb under the city.

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Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

ME LOVE
MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD

Baronjutter posted:

The main problem though with a lot of urban design and traffic engineering is through traffic. The city centre should be a destination, the end of a trip, other trips should not pass through. If you do this well enough you can nearly eliminate private motoring from the city centre. Downtown land is precious, it's hosed up to waste it on huge interchanges or freeways. A lot of ring systems were obviously built to help traffic bypass the city centre, but a highway will always act a bit like a city wall or moat, they create good sides and bad sides, just like railways did (wrong side of the tracks).

So what's your suggestion for those through trips? If going through the city won't work, and a bypass won't work, what will?

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
Depressed grade freeways through the middle with extensive use of air rights for buildings. :twisted:

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Cichlidae posted:

So what's your suggestion for those through trips? If going through the city won't work, and a bypass won't work, what will?

Just keep ritualistically burying TBM's, the biggest of motorized vehicles, until the smaller vehicles like cars and trucks get spooked and avoid the area.

poo poo like that is really hard to fix, real life isn't skylines where you can just demo your core and change your land use around at no cost (or even refunds). The best answer is to not build your city like that in the first place but I don't have a time machine. Freeway removal is trendy right now but obviously doesn't work in every single situation, sometimes there isn't another route, sometimes the traffic is just way too heavy to disperse into the street grid. It requires actual long-term vision to fix those things. Identify the sources and destinations of that through traffic and stop development of those sort of sources/destinations in those areas, that will at least make the problem not get worse, and absolutely don't expand your through capacity. Identify the best routes most suited to transit and do your best to get as much of that through traffic onto it. Then just slowly over the decades, over the generations enact transport and land-use policies that either eliminate those trips all together by moving the workplaces somewhere more central or moving the people closer to their workplaces, and getting as many of the remaining cars switching to transit of some sort. Finally then when your through traffic is under control you can look at demolishing the urban freeway and integrating the remaining traffic into the street grid. But this is very long term planning that requires both carrots and sticks. Sometimes you have to sort of force people out of their cars. Have a congestion charge, set up tolls, have that fund the construction of the transit, and make sure the transit is competitive with driving (by both making the transit really fast and comfortable, and allowing the freeway to become slow and uncomfortable).

Koesj
Aug 3, 2003
Commutes are pretty price inelastic, and charges and tolls tend to be very regressive. More pressure on the poor I guess.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
Congestion charges tend to be more gimmicky than productive. You really can't just plop one into say Phoenix and expect people to magically find an alternative when you didn't bother to build one and have it going for years already.

Also urban freeways are absolutely necessary because major urban areas are inevitably located somewhere where another mode of transport terminates and transitions to road transport onward, and significant deliveries are needed. It just doesn't make sense to try to cover that with gross rear end surface arterials.

Tolls should generally be restricted to things that really have restricted capacity, like major water crossings. And hell, the only reason it's fair that the major bridges and tunnels into NYC are $14 cash is because a) there's an EZ Pass discount and b) tons of trips work very well over transit instead, due to robust and century old transit development.

Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Apr 23, 2015

Groda
Mar 17, 2005

Hair Elf

Is this Hven?

vanity slug
Jul 20, 2010

Cichlidae posted:

So what's your suggestion for those through trips? If going through the city won't work, and a bypass won't work, what will?

Koesj
Aug 3, 2003
Holy poo poo, Houston! (11MB PDF warning)

They're planning on tearing down parts of I-45 next to downtown and massively expanding everything else :stare:

http://www.ih45northandmore.com/

Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

ME LOVE
MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD

Baronjutter posted:

Just keep ritualistically burying TBM's, the biggest of motorized vehicles, until the smaller vehicles like cars and trucks get spooked and avoid the area.

poo poo like that is really hard to fix, real life isn't skylines where you can just demo your core and change your land use around at no cost (or even refunds). The best answer is to not build your city like that in the first place but I don't have a time machine. Freeway removal is trendy right now but obviously doesn't work in every single situation, sometimes there isn't another route, sometimes the traffic is just way too heavy to disperse into the street grid. It requires actual long-term vision to fix those things. Identify the sources and destinations of that through traffic and stop development of those sort of sources/destinations in those areas, that will at least make the problem not get worse, and absolutely don't expand your through capacity. Identify the best routes most suited to transit and do your best to get as much of that through traffic onto it. Then just slowly over the decades, over the generations enact transport and land-use policies that either eliminate those trips all together by moving the workplaces somewhere more central or moving the people closer to their workplaces, and getting as many of the remaining cars switching to transit of some sort. Finally then when your through traffic is under control you can look at demolishing the urban freeway and integrating the remaining traffic into the street grid. But this is very long term planning that requires both carrots and sticks. Sometimes you have to sort of force people out of their cars. Have a congestion charge, set up tolls, have that fund the construction of the transit, and make sure the transit is competitive with driving (by both making the transit really fast and comfortable, and allowing the freeway to become slow and uncomfortable).

You're assuming that the through traffic is mostly commuters, though. There is a tremendous amount of truck traffic across the nation (80% of our goods by value take trucks, whether TL or LTL). Economic growth implies moving more goods, and you can't do that without increasing through capacity. You'd basically be moving back to the early-1900s model where it takes weeks to cross the country. Not to mention you're always going to have a rural population, unless your farms are run by robots, and you're always going to have to move food from point A to point B. There aren't enough railroad tracks in the world to serve all that goods movement without trucks to extend their range.

It's easy to imagine that all vehicular traffic is commuters, just like some people assume that all cyclists are spandex-clad douchebags. The truth is that you NEED to build capacity for through traffic. I know you hate anything high-capacity, whether it's in a city, a suburb, or a rural area, but there's no way around it. That through movement is absolutely critical to the economy.

Edit: that's not even mentioning that most cities are built around goods-moving hubs, whether they're a river, a seaport, even an airport... The purpose of a city isn't just to give pizza-tossers and insurance agents a place to do their thing.

Cichlidae fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 23, 2015

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
I'm pretty sure the reason he doesn't get through traffic being a concern is that he lives on an island where the main city is the very tip of a peninsula, so there's basically no through traffic possible. It's a rather rare condition for a major North American city to be in, most others are at least along a general coastline so that things will radiate out and pass through.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I'm only talking about the core of cities, freeways should bypass that poo poo. If you're driving a huge distance you shouldn't ever have to go through a major city's downtown. Like I said before, the core of a city should be an end-point destination, not something you drive through to get somewhere else. This is of course really hard in places like Seattle where you can't just build a bypass because the whole city is on like a big strip of land with water on 2 sides and one of the busiest routes in the country going straight through. But in Seattle's case they could over time target the commuters taking the Alaska Way Viaduct to the point where they can remove it, while shifting traffic that doesn't have anything to do with seattle onto the 405. The I-5 is a poo poo show but at least it's sunken already and can and has been built over.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Baronjutter posted:

I'm only talking about the core of cities, freeways should bypass that poo poo.

Absolutely not though, it'd simply work terribly. Practically no cities literally have a freeway through the core, it's usually just a bit to the side because otherwise right of way costs get ludicrous, but otherwise the core is rather directly served.

You ideally have both a beltway that can handle some through traffic, and one or more that pierce through because beltways are never fool proof and you need to get stuff in and out.

Minenfeld!
Aug 21, 2012



Cities still require trucks and other traffic to drive through them. I agree with you that freeways shouldn't bisect cities like they have since the 50s, but cities are still going to require large amounts of traffic going through them and access is important.

Speaking of freeways bisecting cities, there's a really neat project online that shows the before and afters of freeway construction during the urban renewal era here.

@Cichlidae I found this. Was an urban boulevard ever really considered for I84 through Hartford? And is that drawing they have there with the re-aligned railway and at-grade 84 a serious consideration? Or is this just CNU's ruminations on the matter?

Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

ME LOVE
MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD

Minenfeld! posted:

Cities still require trucks and other traffic to drive through them. I agree with you that freeways shouldn't bisect cities like they have since the 50s, but cities are still going to require large amounts of traffic going through them and access is important.

Speaking of freeways bisecting cities, there's a really neat project online that shows the before and afters of freeway construction during the urban renewal era here.

@Cichlidae I found this. Was an urban boulevard ever really considered for I84 through Hartford? And is that drawing they have there with the re-aligned railway and at-grade 84 a serious consideration? Or is this just CNU's ruminations on the matter?

It was briefly considered, but even the urban planners saw right from the start that a) there are no bypasses or ring roads, so there's nowhere for the through traffic to go, b) the at-grade roads are already at capacity, c) a boulevard to handle even half of I-84's traffic would have a 15-lane cross-section at intersections, and d) it would still need to be a viaduct because of the rail crossings. It got screened out at a very early stage and is no longer under consideration.

EDIT: Just got back from the bicycle conference, and it was cool. I learned a lot. For example, do you know how much it's going to cost to build a 37-mile bike trail in 100% state right-of-way alongside the Merritt Parkway?

$2.5E8. Yes, that's 250 million dollars.

That's assuming it ever gets past the NIMBY issues.

Cichlidae fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Apr 24, 2015

Neutrino
Mar 8, 2006

Fallen Rib

Cichlidae posted:

EDIT: Just got back from the bicycle conference, and it was cool. I learned a lot. For example, do you know how much it's going to cost to build a 37-mile bike trail in 100% state right-of-way alongside the Merritt Parkway?

$2.5E8. Yes, that's 250 million dollars.

That's assuming it ever gets past the NIMBY issues.

Is that paving with gold or silver? What is the big ticket bid item for that type of project? I assume bridges because they still need to be rated for maintenance vehicles.

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:
Is that hilariously cheap, or hilariously expensive?

Lead out in cuffs
Sep 18, 2012

"That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."




Seems expensive, compared to projects I've seen around here.

Looking at the map, I'd be guessing some of the problem is that there are a lot of old bridges going over the Merritt Parkway, and they're mostly just barely wide enough, so the bike path would have to go around or each bridge would need to be altered.

Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

ME LOVE
MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD
^^^ The Parkway is in the northern half of a 300' right-of-way. The bike path would be nowhere near the freeway itself - not even visible from it.

Javid posted:

Is that hilariously cheap, or hilariously expensive?

It's over 4x the City of Portland's construction cost for every single bike facility they've ever built, and they have the US' highest bike mode share (6.1%). It's a HUUUUGE number.

Its biggest obstacle isn't structural, or environmental, or even financial. It's the rich assholes who live nearby and don't want "those people" riding into their neighborhood.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

What is making it so expensive to build? Like I get having to deal with NIMBY's who don't want urban ferals rolling in and cleaning our their houses with cargo bikes full of stolen consumer goods, but where is the huge construction cost coming from?

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:
Of course.

How much is a typical mile of bike path vs. mile of highway? All else being equal.

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

Javid posted:

Is that hilariously cheap, or hilariously expensive?

It's comparable in cost per mile for a shared use path / bike trail I worked on that had significant structures / river crossings. Comparing the cost of an off-road shared use path to on-street bike lanes is apples and oranges.

Edit:

Javid posted:

Of course.

How much is a typical mile of bike path vs. mile of highway? All else being equal.

Bike trail cost per mile is actually much higher than roadway cost per lane-mile, because with roads you start getting into efficiencies of scale. Putting down a 1 mile, 60 feet wide asphalt ribbon using large-scale equipment is a lot easier than putting a 10-foot wide asphalt trail for 6 miles, using small-scale equipment.

Devor fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Apr 24, 2015

Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

ME LOVE
MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD

Baronjutter posted:

What is making it so expensive to build? Like I get having to deal with NIMBY's who don't want urban ferals rolling in and cleaning our their houses with cargo bikes full of stolen consumer goods, but where is the huge construction cost coming from?

Not a freakin' clue, but it's been studied to hell and back over the past 20 years. I haven't been involved at all (not my district) so I couldn't tell you more.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Cichlidae posted:

Not a freakin' clue, but it's been studied to hell and back over the past 20 years. I haven't been involved at all (not my district) so I couldn't tell you more.

Typically what's the break down in costs for building something like that? How much goes towards the actual construction/materials and how much is eaten up by "soft costs" like the design, engineering, studies, community outreach and all that?

\/ That's not bad, some developments I've been involved with went higher than that. They also went bankrupt!

Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Apr 24, 2015

Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

ME LOVE
MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD

Baronjutter posted:

Typically what's the break down in costs for building something like that? How much goes towards the actual construction/materials and how much is eaten up by "soft costs" like the design, engineering, studies, community outreach and all that?

Engineering for roads makes up 10-20% of the overall budget. The rest is construction costs.

Ofaloaf
Feb 15, 2013

More history than current engineering, but when's the last time the NYC subway got a major overhaul, and has the MTA ever tried further consolidating its various networks organizationally? I did a trip to Munich, Stockholm and NYC (for the first time!) a couple weeks ago, and it was a stark contrast between the two European systems on the one side and NYC on the other. NYC's system seemed to lack many of the ease-of-use features I found in Munich and Stockholm's systems, like the Oyster card-like ticketing Stockholm utilized or the conveniently-plastered-everywhere maps of the system that both Munich and Stockholm have in their stations, meaning I jumped on the wrong train a few times in NYC.

The various ticketing systems present for separate organizations notionally under the MTA banner was also confusing and probably led to me buying more tickets than I needed, since I had to use the JFK airtrain to Jamaica, where the LIRR then took me to Penn Station, where I then switched to the subway and took the red line up to 66th. I'm pretty sure that both the LIRR and subway are part of the MTA, but since I bought a combo airtrain/LIRR ticket I think I needed something separate for the subway? Why does the Long Island Rail Road still need to be a separate thing? Why can't it all just plainly be MTA and no more, with a single ticket for everything, and an electronic ticket at that?

...I forgot what I was asking.

Minenfeld!
Aug 21, 2012



A bike path near the Merritt? But..but...that will go to close to Bridgeport!

What's the process like for building a bike path near the Merritt? Isn't the Merritt a national landmark?

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Ofaloaf posted:

More history than current engineering, but when's the last time the NYC subway got a major overhaul, and has the MTA ever tried further consolidating its various networks organizationally? I did a trip to Munich, Stockholm and NYC (for the first time!) a couple weeks ago, and it was a stark contrast between the two European systems on the one side and NYC on the other. NYC's system seemed to lack many of the ease-of-use features I found in Munich and Stockholm's systems, like the Oyster card-like ticketing Stockholm utilized or the conveniently-plastered-everywhere maps of the system that both Munich and Stockholm have in their stations, meaning I jumped on the wrong train a few times in NYC.

The various ticketing systems present for separate organizations notionally under the MTA banner was also confusing and probably led to me buying more tickets than I needed, since I had to use the JFK airtrain to Jamaica, where the LIRR then took me to Penn Station, where I then switched to the subway and took the red line up to 66th. I'm pretty sure that both the LIRR and subway are part of the MTA, but since I bought a combo airtrain/LIRR ticket I think I needed something separate for the subway? Why does the Long Island Rail Road still need to be a separate thing? Why can't it all just plainly be MTA and no more, with a single ticket for everything, and an electronic ticket at that?

...I forgot what I was asking.

Uh, what? The subway's been fully unified for the past like 50 years. And there's maps in every station. And you're going to have to describe what you mean by overhaul?f

The JFK Airtrain is operated by the port authority, because the port authority is a multi-state agency that operates all airports and seaports and most toll bridges in the area. The LIRR and Metro-North are separate from the subway because they have absolutely no relation historically. Also, the commuter rails have minimal service within the city, with most of their route structure extending hundreds of miles away and sometimes into seperate states.

There can't be a single ticket, because the subway has no zones, making it pointless. You can travel 300 feet on the subway or you can travel the full 236 route miles (current record slightly under 24 hours for the whole system) for the same fare. Also the subway shares a farecard setup with the non-MTA run PATH subway that goes into NJ and is run by the Port Authority, which is way more important to have interoperability with, and you can use the same Metrocard with the JFK Airtrain.

Edit: You also have to understand, no part of the Metro-North network is compatible with the LIRR network which has no parts compatible with the Subways which has no parts compatible with the Airtrain which has no parts compatible with NJ Transit. All of them use different electrification methods due to historical differences such as the fact that the Subway was originally 3 sseperate companies, 2 private and one city owned, the LIRR and what is now Metro-North derived from 3 competing private railroads that were temporarily merged into one super huge private railroad that quickly went bankrupt, and so on. In theory the diesel equipment each of the commuter railroads have could run onto the others with some fancy switching work, but it's illegal to run diesel service through the Manhattan tunnels except in emergency (like to remove electric trains in case of blackout from the under river tunnels).

The current NYC area rail transport infrastructure originates from no less than 10 predecessor railroads if we start from about 1900 (before then many of the constituents hadn't merged yet).

Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Apr 24, 2015

Ofaloaf
Feb 15, 2013

Nintendo Kid posted:

Uh, what? The subway's been fully unified for the past like 50 years. And there's maps in every station. And you're going to have to describe what you mean by overhaul?f

The JFK Airtrain is operated by the port authority, because the port authority is a multi-state agency that operates all airports and seaports and most toll bridges in the area. The LIRR and Metro-North are separate from the subway because they have absolutely no relation historically. Also, the commuter rails have minimal service within the city, with most of their route structure extending hundreds of miles away and sometimes into seperate states.

There can't be a single ticket, because the subway has no zones, making it pointless. You can travel 300 feet on the subway or you can travel the full 236 route miles (current record slightly under 24 hours for the whole system) for the same fare. Also the subway shares a farecard setup with the non-MTA run PATH subway that goes into NJ and is run by the Port Authority, which is way more important to have interoperability with, and you can use the same Metrocard with the JFK Airtrain.
Maybe it's because I really just barged into NYC under the assumption that I'd handled cities that didn't even use Latin script, I could handle a transit system in the US on my own without prior experience. Munich just had one single sort of machine to sell tickets for its metro system (one line from end to end was ~51 miles, so it's not just an inner-city thing) and it had several maps of the line at each station, at each platform, with one next to each ticket machine. The MTA does not even use just a single machine, and I was not previously familiar with the system, so I flailed around a couple of times because I didn't previously know what machines sold what tickets, and whether they accepted cash or not depending on their mood. There also weren't maps plastered everywhere, at least on the stretch of the red line I used most of all, and I ended up having to reference a freebie map I found at a branch of the public library for most of the time I used the system.

The lack of an electronic ticket was also annoying, because it was just so delightfully easy to swipe a card and carry on my way when I used Stockholm's system. Even the NYC subway proper didn't have that, but instead still used older paper tickets with a magnetic strip. When I talk about overhaul, I mean just upgrading some of these older machines that feel like they've been in use for a couple decades now, getting better signage in place, and maybe finish replacing the oldest rolling stock they still have running at some point.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Ofaloaf posted:

Maybe it's because I really just barged into NYC under the assumption that I'd handled cities that didn't even use Latin script, I could handle a transit system in the US on my own without prior experience. Munich just had one single sort of machine to sell tickets for its metro system (one line from end to end was ~51 miles, so it's not just an inner-city thing) and it had several maps of the line at each station, at each platform, with one next to each ticket machine. The MTA does not even use just a single machine, and I was not previously familiar with the system, so I flailed around a couple of times because I didn't previously know what machines sold what tickets, and whether they accepted cash or not depending on their mood. There also weren't maps plastered everywhere, at least on the stretch of the red line I used most of all, and I ended up having to reference a freebie map I found at a branch of the public library for most of the time I used the system.

The lack of an electronic ticket was also annoying, because it was just so delightfully easy to swipe a card and carry on my way when I used Stockholm's system. Even the NYC subway proper didn't have that, but instead still used older paper tickets with a magnetic strip. When I talk about overhaul, I mean just upgrading some of these older machines that feel like they've been in use for a couple decades now, getting better signage in place, and maybe finish replacing the oldest rolling stock they still have running at some point.

I don't get it, you're expecting the long distance commuter rail that often crosses state lines and uses tickets from ticket vending machines to use the stored value card designed for the rapid transit system? Also just about every single subway station has multiple maps in it, sometimes both before and after fare control. And then there's maps in every subway car. For perspective, NYC's commuter lines you're complaining about not having the same fare type as the subway go farther than the distance from London to Birmingham.

You also messed up by buying single ride tickets, which cost extra as opposed to just buying a plastic metrocard. The plastic metrocard has a lower base fare and when you load more than $5 on at once you get a bonus 7% credit compared to the money you put on.

There are about a dozen R32 trains left running, which date to the 60s but were heavily overhauled in the 80s to add new indicators, full air conditioning. and new brakes/engines. They and the similarly aged and overhauled R42s are only still running because initial plans to replace them by about 2008 got caught up by the 9/11 attacks wiping out huge sections of the subway and thus requiring money to be diverted. And also by the fact that later cars that were supposed to be replaced after the oldest turned out to break first and so the oldest had to be kept for a while while money was raised to get new vehicles in.

Almost half of the subway vehicles running on the system have been built since 2002, incidentally. Since you took the "red line" I assume you mean the 1 local and the oldest cars on that division of the system are from 1983.

Edit: This helps make it clear the extent, the green dot is about in between Penn Station and Grand Central, the two main commuter rail terminals. The red dots are the far termini of the commuter rail lines that directly enter either, or use the Secaucus/Newark transfer points:


Montauk (the farthest east terminal on Long Island there) is almost a full 125 miles by rail from Penn Station. Greenport the other one on the other far tip is about 100 miles by rail. Port Jervis over at the top of NJ just within NY is ~85 miles (and is a joint Metro-North/NJ Transit operation). New Haven over at the east of Connecticut on the map is about 80 miles.

Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Apr 24, 2015

Ofaloaf
Feb 15, 2013

Yeah, it was the 1 local, 2 and 3 don't even stop at 66th.

No, I don't need or want the entire commuter rail system incorporated into a single ticket, but I just don't understand why it has to be three separate services to get from the airport to a place to stay in Manhattan.

I don't understand why the system feels so wheezingly old, either; London Underground is quite old and was originally several distinct companies running everything, but I've been there too and that's is much more up-to-date than New York's subway system, and if that major city and center of finance can muster the resources to pull off the work that's been done, why can't New York?

Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

ME LOVE
MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD

Minenfeld! posted:

A bike path near the Merritt? But..but...that will go to close to Bridgeport!

What's the process like for building a bike path near the Merritt? Isn't the Merritt a national landmark?

This is also an issue, yes. The path won't be all that close to the Parkway, since the right-of-way is so wide. If you have Google Earth Pro, go take a look at the property lines in the area and see just how far the trail could be from the freeway.

RCK-101
Feb 19, 2008

If a recruiter asks you to become a nuclear sailor.. you say no

Ofaloaf posted:

Yeah, it was the 1 local, 2 and 3 don't even stop at 66th.

No, I don't need or want the entire commuter rail system incorporated into a single ticket, but I just don't understand why it has to be three separate services to get from the airport to a place to stay in Manhattan.

I don't understand why the system feels so wheezingly old, either; London Underground is quite old and was originally several distinct companies running everything, but I've been there too and that's is much more up-to-date than New York's subway system, and if that major city and center of finance can muster the resources to pull off the work that's been done, why can't New York?

We do not shut down the NYC subway. Unlike every other global system, NYC does not shut down, which means repairs are.. a nightmare of track routing. Also, I'm sorry but what? Like, are you not smart or something, because I've used NYC, and it is easy to navigate, and the machines are only 3 types, a no Cash machine, a Cash/Card machine, and a shrunken Cash/PATH type in the WTC area. Like, I'm sorry you don't seem like well, like you have the ability to understand NY, but it might be my angry NYer speaking to a tourist who can't get with it, and if you were having trouble in NY, Boston would probably kill you, and Boston is a clusterfuck of 3 types of 'subway' (2 car standards and a light rail/streetcar from 18XX)., and a series of electric-diesel busses (Silver line)

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Ofaloaf posted:

Yeah, it was the 1 local, 2 and 3 don't even stop at 66th.

No, I don't need or want the entire commuter rail system incorporated into a single ticket, but I just don't understand why it has to be three separate services to get from the airport to a place to stay in Manhattan.

I don't understand why the system feels so wheezingly old, either; London Underground is quite old and was originally several distinct companies running everything, but I've been there too and that's is much more up-to-date than New York's subway system, and if that major city and center of finance can muster the resources to pull off the work that's been done, why can't New York?

Well yeah, that's how express service works..

But you don't need 3? You can do the Airtrain to the Subway at two different points, and both of those use the Metrocard so don't need to change a payment method. Frankly, the LIRR never made sense to me for going into the city because it's not that much faster, but costs a lot more. In fact depending on where your hotel is, the A, E or J (depending on where you transferred from the Airtrain) might not even need you to change subway lines). And the commuter rail in NYC in general is designed around providing a few alternate places for suburban commuters to leave/enter from, rather than intracity transit.

New York City's system runs 24/7 and actually manages to have express services and almost every station as long or longer than a full train on the system. In another 5 years nearly all of the rolling stock will be newer than 2000 in its design and build date, because the system will have finally caught up from both the massive neglect of the late 60s to late 80s, the destruction of 9/11, and the problems from having a third of the system flooded during Sandy. On top of that though, station renovations get done in waves. Most of Manhattan's stations last got renovated in the 80s and 90s, significant parts of the Brooklyn stations are either in the midst of remodel or were just remodeled. Lots of the Bronx stations were remodeled recently, and a decent grip o downtown Manhattan stations are remodeled out of necessity (because they were destroyed or severely damaged due to 9/11) or due to long awaited projects finishing (like the Fulton complex).

Plus I guarantee you haven't seen some of the worst stations: http://forgotten-ny.com/2015/01/chambers-street-bmt-station-city-hall/

Anyway, you also have to consider that London only has to maintain 57% of the stations NYC does, your system shuts down every single day for hours at a time, and since there's basically no significant stretch of any line with more than two tracks there's simply a lot less that needs maintenance and more time to do it. Generally, extensive NYC subway maintenance is done during long deep of the early morning headways or by way of weekend closures (facilitated by the vast interconnectedness of most of the system).

will_colorado
Jun 30, 2007

Cichlidae, do you know what traffic/transit improvements are being built around the site of the new baseball stadium in downtown Hartford?

Cichlidae
Aug 12, 2005

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MAKE RED LIGHT


Dr. Infant, MD

will_colorado posted:

Cichlidae, do you know what traffic/transit improvements are being built around the site of the new baseball stadium in downtown Hartford?

Hahaha, I don't want to get in trouble, but the answer is pretty much "who the hell knows." The stadium got sprung on everyone at the same time, including CTtransit and our project, so there was no way to plan for it and now ground's already been broken. They did a rudimentary traffic study that basically said "no impact" and I imagine that CTtransit will relocate one of the Dash stops. There might be a special CTfastrak bus from New Britain, too, to bring Rock Cats fans to the games. The southern end of Windsor Street is being closed to cars, which is actually against our long-term plans for the city that call for improving network redundancy and reducing the impact of individual intersections on citywide traffic.

Their "no impact" thing is total BS, but the city's already taking it in both holes from the developers. I wish I could get some of that grade A land for $1/parcel...

will_colorado
Jun 30, 2007

Cichlidae posted:

Hahaha, I don't want to get in trouble, but the answer is pretty much "who the hell knows." The stadium got sprung on everyone at the same time, including CTtransit and our project, so there was no way to plan for it and now ground's already been broken. They did a rudimentary traffic study that basically said "no impact" and I imagine that CTtransit will relocate one of the Dash stops. There might be a special CTfastrak bus from New Britain, too, to bring Rock Cats fans to the games. The southern end of Windsor Street is being closed to cars, which is actually against our long-term plans for the city that call for improving network redundancy and reducing the impact of individual intersections on citywide traffic.

Their "no impact" thing is total BS, but the city's already taking it in both holes from the developers. I wish I could get some of that grade A land for $1/parcel...

haha. Just a few extra thousand people in that area, won't have any traffic impact at all. :downs:

And actually the team is going to be called the Hartford Yard Goats starting next year.

kefkafloyd
Jun 8, 2006

What really knocked me out
Was her cheap sunglasses
Oddly enough, a train related name! :v:

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Speaking of NY transit
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/04/5-subway-lines-new-york-hasnt-built-but-should/391352/

I don't know enough about NY subways to understand but it sounds like some good ideas.

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Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Baronjutter posted:

Speaking of NY transit
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/04/5-subway-lines-new-york-hasnt-built-but-should/391352/

I don't know enough about NY subways to understand but it sounds like some good ideas.

It doesn't matter since the price will be obscene, and we can't inconvenience the :siren: JOB CREATORS :siren:, so don't give it any thought until there is a concrete plan of financing.

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