Where are we with the IBX? | Interborough Express New York City
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
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We have a long way to go before getting to ride the IBX line in Brooklyn and Queens. Along the way the MTA conducts town hall meetings to update the public and gather feedback. In the most recent meeting, they talked about why the light rail was chosen as the mode of transit for the IBX or Interborough Express. They also talked about how they chose the proposed 19 stations along the route. In this video, we talk about some thoughts and take aways on that Interborough Express town hall meeting.
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We need more subway lines that connect the outer boroughs together without going into the city (none of that "light rail" or tram poo-poo!)
We also need actual subway stations at JFK and LaGuardia.
Would also be nice to run a line over the Verrazanno bridge to have a subway connection between Brooklyn and Staten Island and make SI part of the overall subway system!
0:37 Not trying to be funny but why didn't your co -worker take the E Train from Kew Gardens then transfer to the G Train at Court Square going to Brooklyn? That person would not had to go into Manhattan.
@@amazing50000 The walk from the E to the G is pretty long and very packed during rush hour. It would probably only save them 5-10 mins overall. Not really worth the extra stress.
It’s remarkable how we spent billions tearing through cities with interstates but now building a subway line is some major ordeal that is valiantly opposed.
Great video as always!
The valiant opposition is BECAUSE of all the urban freeway construction!
Americans perceive transit as something only poor and black people use, so they oppose it. Highways destroy mostly black neighborhoods and mostly used by whites so those are supported. Highways and suburbs -were- are a tool to enforce segregation more than anything else, despite anyone who says otherwise
it's idiotic!!
Freeways have to go through a very similar process to get built.
Let's be real, anyone who needs to use a freeway likely won't be living in the area getting leveled.
That is one of the reasons it seems more appealing, you wouldn't see the struggles and blood needed to build the road.
Can't wait for my great great great grandkids to be the first to ride it!
transit & housing projects should be exempt from these slow bureaucratic ass review processes fr
😂
Hahahahaha😂
😊 Lord have mercy
@CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRail adoption
this route is going to be in IMMENSE demand and building Light Rail is just begging for capacity bottlenecks much sooner rather than later. IBX needs to be heavy metro rail just likw the rest of the network
No Heavy rail would uses for Ibx.
Im glad that NYC is getting a needed transit line but Im worried that the use of light rail will cause lots of crowding and little room to grow especially since it is the main transit line for multiple growing areas
Me too I think it's ridiculous. Heavy rail is not that much more expensive than light rail so they should just do it right the first time rather than having to spend double the money to upgrade it later. They should plan for this to be a part of a full regional rail system like the Trans Regional Express proposal
It should be automated metro, not light rail. Automated metro is quick and alhough more expensive to build, it would save operation cost.
@@michalformanek2676 Exactly something similar to Honolulu's newly opened system.
@@michalformanek2676 Methinks the local transit union would have issues with the system being automated.
Yea the but u need to look at the full picture. Engineering issue. U can’t say heavy when it’s not really possible for it. The main problem is cost if you do heavy then u have to find a way to get around the cemetery which is more money and the stations have to be longer which is also more money. Light rail works well because it will get around those tights areas on streets where it must get around the cemetery. . Remember that’s a freight line so they have to build three more tracks which means more engineering more money and a longer delay. Light rail can easily go on the streets the only cost is overhead wires (if they go that route) The only downside is dealing with the community may not want it which I don’t get cuz they do it everywhere else without an issue. Yes it be crowded but that when u just add more cars like in LA Metro system. The light rail honestly is the only option we have.
I'm still not convinced light rail is the way to go tbh. Queens and Brooklyn have over 5 million people between the two, and light rail just doesn't have the capacity to handle that. Not only that, light rail destroys any chance of the IBX getting extended into the Bronx. Rapidly losing interest in the project unfortunately.
one potential advantage of light rail is that, depending on how it will be implemented, the rail itself might on existing roads, with the electrical lines overhead. This would reduce the the need to build any dedicated stations, but would potentially add to the congestion on the roads. This would be similar to the green line in boston. They are probably looking into dedicated lanes for the light rail lines, similar to the NJ Transit or Dallas light rail. The other alternative, which I do not know if they had discussed, would be an elevated subway such as in Chicago and parts of the MTA subway, which may have cut down the amount of tunneling and property requirements.
Bronxites need to organize to demand an environmental study to extend the IBX to our borough. Manhattan-centrism and our relative isolation from the other boroughs has contributed to impoverishing our communities and limiting opportunities. The Manhattan of today is no longer the Manhattan of before the pandemic, more and more economic activity is emerging in the outer-boroughs, including here in the South Bronx. It's time the City truly solidifies as one.
@@Jack-ti7mgStreet running a supposed express line is the wrong move. It's slow, and you have to deal with at-grade conflicts with other traffic.
And I wouldn't compare modern elevated rail to what Chicago and NYC have, because old elevated tracks are a lot noisier and dingier than newer ones. Vancouver's Skytrain, Montreal's REM, and HART in Honolulu are examples of modern elevated metros.
If I'm being cynical, and I am, I think the light rail decision was made to sink the project on purpose. The alignment through Middle Village will push car people to oppose it. The lack of capacity and speed -- good luck accelerating on Metropolitan Ave -- and access to the Bronx will push transit people to oppose it. And another decade of it not happening will go by.
@@Jack-ti7mg Really, the only reason it's light rail in the first place is to avoid tunnels through All Faiths Cemetery (one terminus of the M line) while the rest as the line involves using the existing (and grade separated) freight tracks which turns the advantages you get with light rail moot (especially if it involves low-floor vehicles).
I wish they would upgrade it to a full heavy rail line as a part of a new S-Bahn type system. Connecting that with the LIRR, the Metro North Railroad, and the NJ transit as one big system would be unimaginably good for travel in the New York metropolitan area.
Edit: just checked this is already proposed with the Trans Regional Express plan. Town hall just needs to take up that proposal and invest the money needed. It would be absolutely transformative for the country's largest metro area. Spend the extra money now for far greater benefit
Same here. Like a London Overground but MTA is going to do what MTA is going to do
@@williamerazo3921 They could also make it fully automated too.
Yes that's something New York is sorely lacking. It's commuter rail systems are disconnected from each other and serve simply to shuttle people in and out of work from the suburbs to Manhattan. They could be so much more if they invested and coordinated. The low hanging fruit is to start through running LIRR/NJT trains through Penn Station, the NJT trains are even equipped for third due to the tunnel, and I'm sure the LIRR trains could be upgrade to be dual mode like the New Haven Metro North trainsets. If they also invested in a few crucial connectors, like connecting the East Side Access track to the Metro North tracks, build the long delayed Hudson River tunnels, and so on, they could develop a world class S-Bahn/RER type system.
Where would the money come from to build it? Right now, the Second Avenue Subway gets priority. You are looking at federal government money to fund this, and between repair of tunnels and finishing existing projects, the only way to do this is go with a less expensive option.
@@eddihaskell Same place the 2nd Ave subway is getting its funding. Federal funding is also possible since Biden has signaled support for funding public transit projects and operations. As I said heavy rail is not that much more expensive. In the long run, it is cheaper because you don't need to run as many trains to carry more people and it's faster so trains can run more frequently. The corridor it goes through is already very densely populated
No one change any of the subway lines to light rail. That decision is so short sided. It doesn’t matter how much it costs in 100 years.
It's not even that much more expensive to make it heavy rail. Pay a little extra now for massive improvement and future proofing
@@moosesandmeese969 To do that, they'd have to buy people's properties to build tracks and/or subway stations. It may take a long time to force everyone out of their homes. They need time to find a new place to stay and there may be discrepancies about the price of the property. As you probably know, rent isn't cheap and buying property isn't either. Looking at the Q train's 96th street subway expansion, it will take a long time to complete and expensive.
The Montreal REM shows how something like the IBX could be built and opened in less than 10 years 😢
Yeah...but, uh, let's just say there's a reason why the REM de L'Est got sabotaged by the NIMBYs and the local transit authority. CDPQ Infra took a few notes from Robert Moses' playbook. They basically shouldered aside any objectors to get things done.
That's the thing I hate about the USA: EIS (Environmental Impact Studies). We don't need to study for years about how a train is more environmentally friendly than more cars and roads. Why the unnecessary bureaucracy?
@@AustinSersen I think that's more on the human environment than the environment environment... maybe even related to the constructions... EIS is always useful, but just not to "you" mostly...
@@AustinSersenbecause that's how you keep people employed -doing useless busywork.
You don't know how the approval process works in New York City. There are myriad community approval meetings, environmental impact studies, construction contracts -- everything takes forever.
As mentioned, lightrail is not the way to go. The IBX literally ends and connects to the 7, a train line that has so much traffic, it's the only line we have that's 11 cars long. The MTA already screwed the project up.
This is nuts that LR is even being considered, it should be automated metro running 8 car trains every
Light Rail, or Fast Tram, is an improved streetcar.
Is the expected traffic really that low in a city of 10 million?
Also being a orbital line connecting to many lines and it outer areas of NYC, that’s why even in London they the Overground and Underground doing Circle Line stuff
closer to 8 than 10 million. most of the areas along the proposed line have relatively low density in comparison to manhattan or downtown brooklyn. many of the neighborhoods this will run through are borderline suburban.
@@johnharrington1744There may be only 8 million residents, but the daily population definitely goes well over 10 million. I live and work in Brooklyn and half of my coworkers commute from Long Island or New Jersey. BTW, my work location is walking distance from the IBX route.
It does need more capacity 3 light rail car are better then nothing but 4 rail or even longer fullsize trains with 6 cars would be better.
The passenger count has to be standing, Also if you're going to use light rail you probably will go with four car trains before too long. That's what Seattle uses and often the trains are standing room only.
i cant believe a city like nyc theyre opting for light rail that is literally insane. melbourne w a quarter of the metro population is getting a heavy rail line like
9:40 that's 1,000 suggestions. Each person probably had several suggestions
12:50 95% accessibility goal is for the existing network. The ADA law ensures this new route will be accessible upon opening.
Yeah it is 95% i am sure this is still a challange for such an old and inparts difficult to renovate system.
IBX could be running by the early 2030s
Love this. Wish the MTA wouldn't forget Staten Island. I'm in southern Brooklyn, and I often just drive the 15 minutes over to Staten Island and go to entertainment and shopping there.
You're probably the only one. Also, it's not possible to build a rail on the Verrazano bridge.
*clicks video*
Ooh, an exciting addition to the NYC transit system that's badly needed!
*sees light rail*
Fuck.
Why can't this country build any more heavy metros?
What's wrong with light rails?
@@professional.commentatorthey are the rail version of jack of all trades master of none.
The capacity numbers seem quite low for NYC. It seems like the capacity will be smaller than Vancouver's Canada Line (two-car metro trains that can run at 2 min headway when the need comes), which is already considered under built for Vancouver.
Plus, light rail vehicles don't have faster boarding than metro or subway. Metro rolling stock has more door area. I think it's a mistake to take such a good ROW and not invest a little more to do a fully separated metro.
Or at the least a light rail with high-level floors, level boarding, and automatic pocket doors like in Los Angeles.
I wish we would embrace elevated rail again. New technology makes them virtually silent compared to the old, screechy steel elevated tracks we have that were built a century ago. The new REM line in Montreal is elevated, stretches 42 miles and took ten years to build. In contrast, the proposed IBX light rail would only run 14 miles, run on the street and be completed in 2055.
I live along this route and was never asked for any feedback, which I would have loved to provide bc south Brooklyn needs this!! But yeah, the reason why only 1000 people responded might be that we were never actually told to participate in the first place. Also, the survey should’ve been available for all Brooklyn and Queens residents
I bet they already decided the project, they just do public consultation just cos the law says so...
IBX is a much needed project, but are you aware of the Q44 SBS route? That is the only Transit line between Jamaica, Queens and The Bronx. It currently takes 1 hour and 25 minutes for the Q44 SBS to complete its run in each direction, and the Queens Bus Redesign will have the Q44 SBS extended Northwest to Fordham Plaza. This merely adds 7 minutes to the trip.
If there was a Subway line parallel to the route, one can get to many areas of the Bronx in only 35 to 45 minutes.
In reality, there should be 2-3 IBX routes between Queens and Brooklyn. 5 if you add in "shuttles". Queens is woefully underserved in general, especially when a 7 train extension from Flushing got shot down some years ago
@@Demopans5990 I would say an IBX route from Flatbush Junction to Rockaway Park via Breezy Point, with one spurring from Coney Island. I don't see any more from Brooklyn to Queens as the proposed IBX would connect with (A) trains for Ozone Park and (J)/(Z) trains for Jamaica.
The Q44 has so much potential as a future rail service. Jamaica and Flushing having a direct rail connection would be great, but a tunnel under Long Island Sound to connect to the Bronx would take things to the next level. It'd have the potential to induce so much demand due to the lack of viable travel alternatives between Queens and the Bronx.
White Plains Rd wouldn't be a bad landing spot in the Bronx, with connections to Parkchester 6 train and upcoming MNRR stop.
@@eriklakeland3857 That's the only thing. It would have to take White Plains Road to Pelham Parkway and then across Fordham Road and Kingsbridge Road to Broadway/225th Street, as to distinguish itself from the Q44 SBS. There would be a Soundview spur to Yankee Stadium as well.
@@ahmadfrw1 the network effects from such a line would be god tier
God forbid they have to build a 300 ft tunnel. Instead they bottleneck the whole thing with a street running portion mixed with traffic.
I think it's because they don't want to disrespect the cemetery.
@@professional.commentator moving graves happens all the time. They are respectfully and carefully dug up and transferred to a new location where they can be respectfully and carefully buried again. If you look on google maps, the tunnel area goes under an area with basically NO GRAVES.
I would say max 5 graves have to be moved. A huge difference to the THOUSANDS that were cleared to make way for expressways
massive corruption and cost overruns on the east side access tunnels, so they're probably just incapable
@@professional.commentatorfuck the cemetery build an El
The tunnel is already there and a google maps search shows no graves above it
Look, I've been to train track parties along this line, the tracks are half erroded and buried under soil, and there is debris and damage everywhere. This line has a very long way to go before a single train can pass.
Ikr! I feel like most people have no idea what the current infrastructure for this line looks like. The surrounding area is so abandoned it's literally got a whole forest surrounding it.
That's the point - it's so, so much easier to build around this than to build along a route that's been built over with skyscrapers and townhomes. Any route is going to have to be cleared and built up from scratch but you don't have to relocate buildings and utilities from all along this line.
Picture an overgrown Amazon rainforest with a single track running thru. That's what it looks like right now. I bet there are several thousand trees that will need to be removed. What's that gonna cost?@@professional.commentator
I think part of the cemetery should be acquired some graves over 100+ years moved to a ossuary or mausoleum to save space and more recent graves could be placed in the remaining space. Then it wouldn't need to effect the train.
They could just dig a tunnel.
I agree with the tunnel. On street section just sounds like a delay
The segment north of Middle Village is DOA unless they can make a 500 foot passenger tunnel under the cemetary's parking lot happen--and if they can't do that, they're probably too incompetent to get any of it done at all! Bringing a small part of the route up to street grade is a stupid idea, a non-starter.
@@MichaelPuterbaugh It would be the worst example of the flexibility tax of light rail. It would be sold as a benefit, but in reality that small section would undermine the return on investment for the rest of the line
Light rail can do a lot of things, but it can't do any of those particular things well. It can operate in a metro-like environment, but it doesn't do that particularly well because of the doors and the interior layout. It can operate on long cross-city routes, but it can't do so particularly well because the speed is limited. Light rail is an extremely flexible mode, but this flexibility comes at the cost of not doing anything particularly well, and can actually provide worse transit as politicians seek to cut costs by downgrading the project.
Light rail is best for short routes with high demand on the street, not long cross-city routes.
In the case of the IBX, it appears that most of the route will be completely grade separated which makes the street running section seem especially silly. This is because that one street running section will become a massive bottleneck in terms of capacity and reliability and will be the source of major delays since LRVs need to go on-street and interact with traffic. This negates many of the benefits of grade-separation such as automation, increased reliability and speed, etc. If we're going to do so much modification on an already excellent corridor, we may as well maximise capacity and speed by building a line with full grade-separation, 10 or 11-car trains and CBTC. This would allow for 2400 passengers to be accommodated per trainset compared to 540 for light rail, at 30 to 40 trains per hour compared to 20 max for light rail, giving a theoretical capacity of 72,000 to 96,000 people per direction per hour, compared to 10800 for light rail. Given that demand on this route will be very high, we need all the capacity we can get. Just build a new set of tunnels and get 5 to 9x the capacity. Even a light metro would be better because you'd at least get most of the benefits of a completely grade-separated line and still have a capacity of 36,000 people per direction per hour.
The stop spacing on the IBX is also grossly unsuited for light rail. The average stop spacing is 1.2km. For reference, many modern metros have an average stop spacing of 0.7 to 1.2km. Real trams have a stop spacing of 250 to 500m. Trams are not designed for routes with wide station spacing. Many trams are limited to 70km/h or less while metros can hit over 80km/h. This decreases the average speed of the line and makes trip times much slower.
Light rail isn't very good at dealing with metro-levels of crowding- the plug doors are fragile and easily damaged by overcrowding, the door layout makes boarding slow and cumbersome, and the interior is constricted by the bogies for the wheels. The Ottawa O-train has repeatedly had issues with the trains and the doors as a result of poor mode choice.
And there is no such thing as a "standard" or "off the shelf" design of train, at least not in most of the world. Trying to buy a "standardised" train usually results in a train that has a lot of faults because it wasn't designed for the specific conditions it is running in.
It just seems like a massive waste to let an excellent transit corridor that's completely grade-separated be used by a transit mode that doesn't match the corridor. New York should build a subway along the corridor, or a light metro.
That's not going to work building a subway line. It's too complex.
@@durece100 Much of the IBX alignment is completely grade-separated apart from a small section of street running which could be rectified by a short tunnel section. It's not "too complex". If anything, making it a subway will simplify the project as vehicles will be compatible with those used on the existing subway system, meaning that maintenance will be simpler and the line will be built to the same standard as existing lines, simplifying the design. By choosing Light Rail, the MTA is throwing away a lot of the benefits of the project for not that much savings. It's a case of "80% of the costs for 20% of the capacity".
@@williamhuang8309 You are clueless! Why don't you search a 20 year assessment from MTA? Light Rail is chosen.
@@durece100 I've seen the MTA's 20 year needs assessment. Just because the MTA has chosen light rail doesn't always mean it's the best option for public transit (queenslink vs queensway ahem. Seriously, why is queenslink ranked so low on the needs assessment?). Transit agencies make mistakes all the time or make suboptimal decisions all the time and are subject to local politics and worst of all, transit trends which can often lead to suboptimal transit lines being built. If transit agencies were perfect and always made the right decision, why would there be an entire youtube community devoted to criticising transit projects?
Again, just because a mode for a project has been chosen does not mean it is the best mode.
A subway would provide better capacity and a more interconnected system, better service reliability and potentially even faster journeys than a light rail does while not costing that much more.
Also, just because "light rail is chosen" by the MTA doesn't mean that it's too late to make changes to the project. The IBX is still in planning and under environmental review which means that construction hasn't started. Saying that we can't build a subway because the MTA wants a light rail is false; this is why transit advocacy groups exist, to push transit agencies to make the right decisions.
@@williamhuang8309 Do you have transportation near by your home?
Light rail for this is a massive mistake. It needs to be a 4-6 car subway line
Paris T1 streetcars carry 220 000 on working days. That is slightly more than NYC G subway whose 4 car trains are 91 meter long, and almost twice as much as the expected ridership on IBX. The T1 has been doing it with narrow (2.3 m) and short 30 meter trams which can't be paired because the street landscape doesn't allow longer stations, a problem the IBX won't have.
I was taking a 2 hour break from building my Cities Skyline “city” now to end up watching your video proves transit videos are in a bubble. Good Video 👍🏾
It's crazy how cities like London and Paris are actually addressing this sort of cross-city connectivity but the United States does the United States. It's a shame for New Yorkers.
These are crucial trips to target post-COVID. The IBX should only be a small part of the crosstown or circumferential rail lines built in NYC.
Even worse it going to be LRT>
Having been a 30+ year resident of Brooklyn and having a lot of friends, family and business that'd take me into those East Flatbush/Southeastern Brooklyn locations, it's amazing to see that something is being proposed with full intent to bring to reality with the IBX. There are many aspects of it I think should be criticized (not 100% on the chosen mode of transit being light rail especially after hearing the major reason for the street running portion; there could be one more station in the portion after Brooklyn College Junction and before New Lots/Broadway Junction in Brooklyn as that specific region has been hurting for rapid transit for decades) but overall it's a very refreshing time to be in these parts especially looking for new housing to move into.
While I think it's still going to be a harder sell to folks to get more "outer" borough radial transit greenlit and built up, it's only going to get more important over time as the entire covid saga had a lot of people realize that Manhattan/city center focused transit has weaknesses as much as it makes the most sense generally speaking. I'm hoping that in my lifetime, things get sorted and we could see like a Bronx-Queens-Brooklyn line (maybe as a G extension? or maybe as something IBX?) or a real attempt at a Staten Island to Brooklyn (alongside renewed discussions on the legendary Big Tunnel™ from SI to Manhattan) connection. We need these things almost as much as we do the housing and development/redevelopment that'd come along with them in this city.
As a final aside, I'm hoping the IBX also reactivates conversations for the Utica Avenue subway line as well as an extension of the Nostrand Avenue IRT line here in Brooklyn as they'd both have some pretty awesome transfers to it. Southeastern BK could do with both projects!
Would love to see actual an New York current events channel seeing as how there are virtually no local news outlets that actually cover local stories anymore.
I wanna say first great video!
Now, Light Rail or "Trams" are better than nothing or BRT but NYC should be taking notes from London's new Elizabeth line for its IBX and not the light rail fad that is going on in the US. New York should be better than that, it's not like other many US cities where trams would be their first taste of transit in a long time so their new transit systems not being designed well can almost get a pass. But New York is instead deciding to spend billions of dollars and decades of time for a rail alignment that already exists for the most part and not ever for full-sized trains but Trams!?!!? Is the MTA trying to replicate Montreal's mistake of canceling its second REM line in favor of trams too?
And I find it hard to believe the technical reasons or "advantages" they gave for why they choose Trams over trains. In every case except perhaps some property acquisition ...(which will have to happen anyway, because that street section is a nonsense idea when this rail line has 'EXPRESS' in the name) ... and the kinds of trains NY could get could be the exact same trains london is using now or another comparable product which plenty exist. And these trains are better than trams in every single way that matters for what will be one of single most important transit lines in NYC. An Elizabeth line or Thameslink-inspired line is the obvious choice if they are genuinely trying to improve NY's transit as much as they can.
Rant Over and I want to be clear I'm angry at only the MTA's Incompetence and not Urban Caffeine.
And a similar RM transit video rant on this light rail fiasco is also inevitable.
11:21 Unfortunately, the transfer u mentioned from the Broadway (G) stop to the Hewes and Lorimer (J/M) stop is NOT free, it is a pay transfer.
I like how on the West Coast we complain about cross platform transfers or bus to train transfers, but in NYC, they consider a 3 block walk acceptable.
Nahhhhhh, we actually don't like that shit. We're more like "fuck it, it is what it is".
Thea listed all the advantages of light rail for the IBX, and they are strong advantages. One disadvantage, however, is that NYC Transit would have to build a new maintenance and storage facility and develop a work force with expertise in caring for light rail. A associated disadvantage is that the loads and the beating light rail would take in New York would demand a robust design. Using subway rolling stock would mean NYC Transit, assuming a connection were built to an existing line, could move a train requiring service or repair to any of its existing subway yards. Using LIRR rolling stock would mean the LIRR's Hillside Facility could take care of the trains. Overall, though, light rail is a good choice.
IBX is something I have a lot of hope for 😊
You mean your grandkids have a lot of hope for.
@@LMB222 maybe even my great grandkids. Who knows 🤷♂️😂
It seems that the issue of the 'tight curves,' which is never clarified, is the right of way along the streets to avoid the graveyard. If that is the problem, then this is a whole transit line that has to deal with about 5 blocks and a graveyard. Which seems like a bad reason to choose light rail over anything else.
People also imagine that walks take longer than they actually are if the route is complicated, so it makes them less likely to do them.
Thank you for this quality content!
Great project! A win win for MTA and it’s riders!
The MTA can learn a lot by looking at Paris. They have the same situation where all of the Metro lines are radial, but commute patterns have changed and many people need to be able to travel circumferentially, especially in the near suburbs. They are solving this by building a series of light rail lines that connect the outer neighborhoods. The routes have been extremely successful, with ridership far exceeding projections. My experience riding the route that circles the outer ring road is that the trains were packed, and due to the street running, there were frequent delays when cars and other obstacles got stuck on the tracks. But the big advantage in Paris was that they were able to get these routes built quickly, in just a few years each. In New York, looking at the experience with how long it took to build the Second Ave subway, I have little hope that I will see the IBX running in my lifetime.
Really interesting video, thanks for sharing!
1:00 *subtly throws shade at Staten Island*
Shhhh......let them.....
I loved seeing the Oval since I graduated from tOSU and used to work in Derby Hall. I never knew that's how the paths were designed!
Very interesting stuff. I live not too far away from the original IBX rail line. It's only one train track line and is extremely abandoned. Like it's got a whole forest surrounding it. It's going to be a lot of work clearing the soil and trees and reconstructing the surrounding areas.
At one time time the line was double-tracked, and still is in some places. Anything that's built there will require rebuilding the track bed anyway.
@@josephveksenfeld5344The line even had electrical power like the rest of the LIRR.
Would have 100% have given feedback if I’d known about this town hall. I hope they publicize future ones better. We live within walking distance of the proposed route.
Agreed with your premise. The G is an important train for passengers wanting to travel along a north-south axis in western Queens and Brooklyn. There is away to do it in eastern Brooklyn, albeit with a transfer: The Archer Av subway provides the opportunity to travel between the boroughs utilizing the BMT Jamaica Av Line (the J subway) and the IND Queens Blvd. Express (the E subway). The transfer stations are ADA-compliant. Two additional direct links between Brooklyn and Queens are the A train coming from the Rockaways or Liberty Av and crossing into Brooklyn, and the Long Island Rail Road's service between Jamaica and the Atlantic Av terminal. Nonetheless, Governor Hochul's proposal is very good. One request of Thea: Don't talk about a transfer and say "I'm not sure if it's free or not." You want to be an expert. Look up the information, or ride a train to that transfer point and try it yourself. Then use that information in your video. And if you are quoting a study, tell us who wrote it and published it.
This is very good, my sister in Brooklyn will be happy.
All I know is that I wish this was going to The Bronx. I know that now that can’t happen but it pisses me off that we have been cut off to this because of that Metro North plan. It blows so much smh.
Thank you 🙏
Not sure if it would be kosher but I wonder if they'll assign it a classic NYC line letter / number.
I vote for calling it the "Y", so we can finally spell N Y C in actual line letters.
I really like your cutesy lighthearted transit humor !!!!!!! 🥰🥰🥰
My biggest criticism, it should have been a passenger train going from the Bronx over the Hellsgate into Queens then finishing off in Brooklyn. Maybe even connecting to a ferry going to both Staten Island and Lower Manhattan. Could have possibly been a Metro North train.
Metro north is a conventional rail and it will not use for interborough express. Didn't you watch and look at the verdict?
Damn, 30 years! But to be honest, I shouldn't be that surprised. My hometown of Vantaa, Finland will get a new light rail line:
- the first plans were made in 1992
- the potential new light rail line was taken into consideration for city planning in 2007
- they started to make a more detailed plan in 2019
- the city council approved the plans this year (2023)
- construction should start in 2024
- the line should be operational in 2029
In short, once construction can start, it should be done relatively quickly. But making the plans is always a long process.
In regards to capacity, I know in Japan, they measure capacity up to 200%. 100% means all seats are filled and some people are standing, while 200% means people are absolutely crammed shoulder to shoulder.
I don't know how the Interborough Express will worked in the near future but when it happens, I will see it. : )
It should have been built sooo long ago! We need the ibx asap! Hope they fast track it
Love her videos
Light rail seems like a very short-sighted and cost cutting decision for a line that is expected to have very high ridership.
I 💜 this channel.
Should have went with commuter rail and extended it into the Bronx. The south and eastern parts of the Bx are transit deserts and you can finally link the Bronx with Queens. Busses just don't cut it.
I strongly you suggest you check out the Twin Cities Light Rail. I live in MN most of the year but work in NYC (Queens and Manhattan) during the summer, and I find the light rail here to be very enjoyable and useful. It's far from perfect, and they're slowly expanding it but I find it to be a very good implementation of LR. Much akin to Seattle's system, but a bit smaller. I'm also just a huge fan of transit, urban planning, etc. and your channel!
speaking of transferring between stations, you used to be able to go from the 6th Avenue station at 34th to the 2/3 station at 34th street underground. They should re-open that corridor under 33rd street.
It had lots of blind spots where muggers lurked. The city never cleaned it either so it filled up with garbage.
Back then, the city never cleaned ANYTHING....@@FadkinsDiet
6:55. There's literally a tunnel already there. There's no need for street level through running around the cemetery when the tunnel has been built 100 years ago.
why not build a bridge over the cemetery? like there's only a 500ft gap between preexisting track lol
The low feedback is pretty easy to explain. The way this information is presented by the mta, PEOPLE DONT KNOW ABOUT PARTICIPATION, and I’m certainly not sure that it’s not intentional.
0:38 ur coworker couldve just transferred to the (E) or just ride it straight thru during rush hour to the (G)
I live and daily commute along part of the planned IBX line. I take the L to the 3, and occasionally the M up to middle village. I had no idea about the pin dropping thing. In general, I have no idea how the MTA communicates that they are asking for feedback to commuters. I don't think I've seen an ad or an announcement about that.
I see what they doing. They are using tracks that are already laid out! I remember when i was a kid, I use to wonder what kind of trains run along that line. lol.
How about talking about NJ Transit in NJ and its connections to NYC and other local destinations.
what was stopping your co worker from taking the E to the G? if this was before 2010 they probably could have just taken the E to forest hills and taken the G the rest of the way since the G ran to Forest Hills before 2010
The IBX is going to use the right of way of the Bay Ridge branch so i dont really get why there is an envorinmentas study needed 50% of the trackage is already there
We have the same issue in Chicago where all the trains go into the Loop first. We've been begging, pleading, offering everything short of a blow job to have a crosstown line built.
And we also have to deal with a couple of very busy bad transfer points like Lake and Harold Washington Library where we have to exit the Blue or Red Line subway to walk to an elevated station and vice versa.
I used to live in that transit desert! And went to high school on the upper East. That commute really sucked.
To your point about the pins, it may be that, when prompted to click on a location, other people may have already set a pin for that spot, therefore you wouldn’t have more than just 1 pin per spot, if that makes sense. Not saying that is what happened here, but I have used systems like that before.
The MTA could make things better now by moving the G train back to 71st street. Or better yet to 179th street
The ideal would be a tunnel over the Hudson River and link the forgotten Staten Island with the ferry port area, a tunnel that leaves from the docks, since the ferries go directly to Manhattan and it is not the purpose of the Interborough Express, the station. terminal could leave next to the port of Staten Island ---since the track of this train practically faces the port of Staten Island ,and should reach the Bronx, or why not a little further if it is a fast train , until New Rochelle
As I understand it, the light rail doesn't need to turn. It can just go backwards, assuming it has 2 heads.
Could please someone tell me what's the local burger chain of restaurants?
I encourage any New Yorkers on this channel to reach out to the MTA. They are likely still receiving comments informally and may reopen the 'pins' survey with enough requests.
I would love the ride interborough express light rail. I live in Brownsville, Brooklyn located in New York City.
The MTA clearly didn't consider all options. A (light) metro (not NYC style subway) would have all the benefits of low floor light rail and more, expect for the fact that it would need a tunnel under the cemetary. But regardless of the mode chosen that tunnel should anyways be built, so you might as well just build a metro.
If your coworker was coming from Kew Gardens, why didn’t they take the E train to Court Square & transfer to the G there🤨
They can take the E to Jamaica for LIRR Atlantic branch
If the IBX goes forward is going to be finish and running before the 2ND ave line is finished.
I look forward to try this new line when I'll be 96 in 2055. I'll wait :)
Big Fan NYC Subway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Automated
Light
Metro
:,)
Why didn't they consider an automated light metro like Vancouver skytrain?
Probably to appease MTA operators union. Automated is the way to go for service frequency and saves a lot of money in operations cost.
I live in Stockholm, and here all metro lines and commuter lines go through a central station which translates to T-Central. Also a tram connects here, and soon another light rail. It’s also directly connected underground to the Central station with long distance trains. As all lines basically go out from that one point (there are a couple other exchange stations too between some lines but still), we’ve also built a tram line that basically goes in a ring connecting different metro and commuter stations, offloading the central metro stations, can save you time and also goes to some places which are too small to get a full metro connection. I feel like it’s pretty similar to this.
Brooklyn alone is the same size of Stockholm city and has more inhabitants than the whole Stockholm metropolitan area . Queens is even larger and has pretty much the same number of inhabitants than the whole Stockholm metropolitan area. A lightrail/tram ring route might work for Stockholm, but it won't be enough capacity for this project. The IBX should really be a high capacity heavy rail, like a proper metro/subway or maybe part of a new system more similar to the CPH S-tog.
@@f.g.9466To be clear, with the tram everything except a few small parts are separated from roads entirely. But you’re probably right then, maybe it’d have been better to go full out subway. But you can get pretty decent capacity if you run them very frequently, though it will require more drivers than the long subway trains I guess.
I have a strong feeling they are going to end up needing to add the third car. 360 per train with two cars just doesn't seem like enough capacity for what will be such an important line.
I am very skeptical of the capacity being sufficient: from what i can find, the shortest trains the MTA runs have a total capacity of 800 people. 540 IF MTA runs 3 car trains seems very insufficient in comparison. Street running, rather than full grade separation, would also mean lower headways, further limiting capacity. For such a large city, this seems like a very poor decision.
Ridership is determined by local factors, not by the size of the city. Tokyo with 30 million inhabitants has a couple of light rail lines carrying 50 thousand a day. Paris has light rail on converted freight lines like the IBX. T2 carries 220 thousand a day, almost twice as much as expected on the IBX, T4 35K, T11 and T12 about 20K.
yea I hope they thought of double parking because light rails biggest obstruction is double parking cars on the light rail path
7:56 Almost all subway lines in The Brinx has left the chat
Thea - I think people are going to have to get used to the idea of a new service which doesn't require them to go through Manhattan, and sometimes this takes a while (and change can be scary), so patience! It might help to ask people who live in the neighborhoods where stations/transfers are being proposed to suggest important activities, features, and attractions in each location so as to give folks an idea of things they could have access to *aside* from just getting to work and home again. Consider, too, that "Noo-Yawkuhs" (and I'm a native, from Woodside originally) get busy and hate distractions, so they'll need to be nudged to participate in the research more. It would also help if the station and FREE-transfer designs that MTA is talking about are guaranteed to be convenient to use, protected from weather, and ADA-compliant (which means they'd be easier for *everyone* to use, whether or not schlepping luggage). Others will also remind us that it's pretty easy to couple more cars together to accommodate more passengers. Cripes - this used to be a *freight* line - why not re-purpose it?
It must be high floor lrt vs. Low floor lrt for the crushloads mta gets
Light rail for the IBX is in the wrong mode. MTA should use Light Metro, like the Montreal REM or Vancouver Canada Line.
Light metro has more capacity, is faster, can be automated for cheaper running costs, can have platform screen doors/ gates, is fully accessible with level boarding, and can be bought as a complete package from manufacturers like Hitachi. Light Rail can be pretty bumpy, slow, and cramped.
If we are going to use a brownfield, abandoned rail corridor with full grade separation we should take advantage of it and use the best mode possible. We shouldn't make the same mistake as Ottowa where they used Light rail on a fully grade-separated route and are now stuck with an impereft tansit line forever!
Hell Airtrain JFK already uses the same trains as Vancouver Skytrain
2055?
Montréal just built an LR in 7 years, converting an old train line to automatic operation.
The Deux-Montages Line (the commuter line turned light metro) actually hasn’t opened yet and planned to open in Q4 2024 and so is another branch, only the South Shore branch to downtown has.
Light rail is the wrong choice. Light rail is good for corridors where bus services are over capacity. Heavy rail is for serving entire population centres.
Why? Capacity. This IBX light rail will be absolutely overcrowded and will not be enough for the region. You will have dangerously packed trams and crowding at the platforms.
How do I know this? Light rail is having a come-back across the world, and the results of its lack of capacity are easy to Google. Nearby to my city of Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) is another coastal city of Gold Coast. They built a light rail, starting from the heavy rail that connects the two cities, and travelling down the coast through its population centres. It's a city of 600K and it is already getting dangerously overcrowded during peak hours and during events the trams are so full you can't even get on or off.
That's all whilst having much higher capacity trams than IBX is proposing, and also higher frequencies. So no, IBX Light rail is the wrong choice.
I think IBX cars should be the same as an “A” division trains, also known as the number lines.
it took only 7 years to build the holland tunnel 1920 - 1927. they can certainly start building the IBX in 2023 & complete in 2025 -6
With so many stops it would be a local, not an express.
Hi Thea, I wonder who make such decisions in the MTA... Did the Person, or the Board or how they name themself, ever seen a working public transport? Walking three Blocks is no Transfer, it's lousy Planing, uninterested development and very bad building stuff.... Here in Zurich, Light Rails and Buses are the Main movers in the city, sure we have Suburban Trains with many additional stops in the city, but every stop of these trains have at least a connection to one or more Light rail lines and or Bus Lanes... I wonder how these people are planing when they want to be 95% accessible in 2055? it's no secret to lower Broadwalk, to buy Low Floor Cars, To make Markings for Blind, to Make announcements via Speakers. it is no secret to build wheelchair accessible Elevators... Still think, when New York is twenty years in front of the USA, then America is stuck in 1890 or so...
The tracks already exist, and they intersect where they intersect. Whether the MTA extends existing stations with new passageways or requires transfers to be out--of-system, riders will still have to travel up to 3 blocks' distance.