Service Diversification On The Brighton Line

THE COMMUTE: Allan Rosen is on vacation and asked me to fill in this week. My name is John Rozankowski, Ph.D. and I am a long-time community activist with a keen interest in mass transit issues. I am grateful to Allan for this opportunity to reach out to the readers of Sheepshead Bites. Allan does a terrific job of describing the problems of the neighborhood bus lines and offering some worthwhile solutions. I will attempt to follow in his footsteps by presenting some solutions to improve the subways of Southern Brooklyn.

Much has been written about the importance of mass transit for New York City and how it gets it citizens to where they want to go. Most writings, however, do not focus on the “quality of the ride,” i.e. how long does it take to get to a destination, how easy or how difficult. This is critical since a difficult commute means that the rider gets home exhausted by the ride. Someone exhausted is bound to crash on the couch rather than take a course, engage in a civic activity or simply spend quality time with the family. The wealthy know this and the upper management of the MTA, which comes from the same class, does everything possible to make their commute as comfortable as possible.

What about middle- and working-class New Yorkers? Can anything be done to enhance the quality of their commute?

A long subway trip punctuated by transfers from one train to another is extremely draining and yet the whole NYC subway network is overly dependent on transfers. These force riders to give up their seats and to make their way through crowds, sometimes at considerable distances, to board another train. This also affects what is defined as “train dwell time,” making trains linger at certain stations and causing delays up the line. Yet so much can be done to relieve this problem at so little cost.

The solution is service diversification. On the Brighton line, for example, with which most Sheepshead Bites readers are familiar: Instead of two services, all B trains going express while all Q trains are local, create four services with both B and Q trains having express and local services.

A rider at Avenue H desiring to go to Rockefeller Center has to board the Q train and then transfer to the B at some stop along the way. If the B had a local service, it would be a one-seat ride. Likewise, a rider desiring to go to Times Square from Sheepshead Bay has a choice of either crawling on the Q local or taking the B express, only to transfer to the Q at some station along the way. If the Q had an express, it would, once again, be a one-seat ride.

In the old days, people had to go to a station and simply wait for their train to come. With the publication of a subway route’s schedule, this is no longer the case. Today people look at schedules and time their arrival at a station — a trend that is certain to continue.

There are no technical problems and no at-grade junctions. For example, why don’t Brighton express trains go to Coney Island and Brighton local trains terminate at Brighton Beach, instead of the current arrangement? The at-grade crossover, located just south of the station, presents an insurmountable problem: Trains would be required to cross in front of each other, which would cause significant delays, as it did in the 1970s.

Creating four services with both the B and Q trains having express and local services would dramatically improve the quality of the weekday ride for Brighton riders. This setup could be applied to many other subway lines as well (including: some #2 express and some #5 local in the Bronx, a new Eighth Avenue express for the Concourse line in addition to the D, an F service for Jamaica Center, which would allow more E trains for 179th Street, a new train to take over the former M route to Broad Street and beyond after 2014, in addition to the present M) and could be achieved at little or no extra cost by scheduling trains differently. The services would be differentiated with a diamond around the letter for the express and a circle for the local.

So why doesn’t the MTA seem interested in implementing service diversification all over the system? There are at least three possibilities:

First, one color lines look neater and simpler on a subway map. Some E trains, for example, run to 179th Street, yet the blue “E color” doesn’t appear on the map! The MTA regularly underestimates the savvy of subway riders. It must be noted that people who position themselves in spots on the station platforms, where the train doors are located, clearly know what’s going on around them.

Second, making service diversification work requires continual monitoring and adjusting train schedules until an optimal balance of trains is achieved. The upper management of the MTA has often been charged with paying most attention to glamorous projects, which impress their peers and enhance their resumes, leaving minuscule time to basics like scheduling.

Third, service diversification entails working with the affected communities, which the MTA is well-known to abhor.

Brighton riders are blessed with having an express service, a feature not shared by Brooklyn riders using the F (Culver line) or the D (West End line). Since the late 1990s, F train riders have fought for an F express service on a line, which has 21 stations between Coney Island and Manhattan. The MTA is obsessed with the time factor, i.e. how many minutes would be saved. Yet, the real killer is the fact that too many station stops make the ride seem an hour longer, and doing this every day about five times a week exhausts almost everyone.

The publication of subway schedules significantly reduces the need to run alternate trains express and thereby shortchange local riders. The express could be phased in gradually and run on a schedule for maximum satisfaction of its riders. Those who really want the express would look up its arrival time at their station and make every effort to get it. If the F express ran from Kings Highway to Bergen Street, a rider at Avenue P would have a choice: transfer to the express at 18th Avenue, back-track to Kings Highway and transfer, or stay on the local. The only major cost for the F express would be the re-opening of the lower level Bergen Street station, which would make the G train a viable local. There are no major extra costs for a D West End express.

The MTA has invested millions in countdown clocks. They are currently present on the East and West Side IRT and the L train, with plans to have them on all lines. Yet it seems that the MTA doesn’t plan to use them to their fullest potential. The countdown clocks facilitate both service diversification and more express service since riders would know immediately whether their chosen train already left or is coming and when. They would be enabled to make an informed choice.

Everything must be done to improve subway rides for “regular people.” Service diversification and more express service would be a dramatic enhancement: Subway riders would get more options and they, not the MTA, would be making the choices. Both would reduce the tedium as well as the wear and tear on riders, enabling them to pursue more fruitful lives.

The Commute is a weekly feature highlighting news and information about the city’s mass transit system and transportation infrastructure. It is written by Allan Rosen, a Manhattan Beach resident and former Director of MTA / NYC Transit Bus Planning (1981).

Disclaimer: The above is an opinion column and may not represent the thoughts or position of Sheepshead Bites. Based upon their expertise in their respective fields, our columnists are responsible for fact-checking their own work, and their submissions are edited only for length, grammar and clarity. If you would like to submit an opinion piece or become a regularly featured contributor, please e-mail nberke [at] sheepsheadbites [dot] com.