Letter from the Straphangers Campaign to the Transit Authority
May 2, 2002
Lawrence Reuter
President, MTA New York City Transit
370 Jay Street
Brooklyn, New York 11215
Dear Larry:
Thank you for the update on the Queens Connector service plan. I am attaching a list of follow-up information that I requested at the meeting. I look forward to reviewing the materials.
I understand your view that the plan has begun to modestly reduce crowding on the E and somewhat more on the F. In my view, this tentative achievement comes at an unacceptable price: New York City Transit is providing its Queens Boulevard riders with poor choices. They can either pack onto crowded E expresses, or take a slow local V, or ride an F express to a Manhattan stop few want to go to.
Since the meeting, I have reviewed the materials you provided. They support these observations:
- Little used: The V is operating at only 49% of capacity during peak hour. If New York City Transit were to follow its own guidelines, service would be cut drastically, perhaps to ten-minute headways.
- Slow: Riders aren’t taking the V because it’s a local and too slow, as say 66% of those you surveyed at the Roosevelt Avenue station in April. (Transit argues that there’s only a five-minute difference in scheduled running time between the E and V going from Roosevelt Avenue to 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue. But that still adds up to nearly an hour of extra commuting time a week. Many of those riders already having long bus-to-subway daily rides and also find the many extra local stops inconvenient.)
- Minimal Relief: In January and February 2002, crowding on the E was still above capacity (116% and 104% respectively.) Only in March did crowding fall below guidelines (96%), but with above-guideline crowding at Roosevelt Avenue in all but the two middle cars out of ten. As we discussed, that’s because many riders want to be at either the front of the train (to get off near the escalators at the 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue Station) or the back of the train (to get off near the Madison Avenue exit at Fifth Avenue Station.) Your future plans call for a re-design of Roosevelt Avenue station to make people walk to the middle of the platform. My guess is that many will still go back to where they want on the platform. Those that do not will just have an even longer commute, as they get on the back of the huge lines at the 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue and Fifth Avenue stations.
- Two approaches: You are launching a massive marketing campaign to get riders to "stay on the V." But you are not doing the same kind of marketing for other recent route changes that Transit initially resisted. These include midday M service (where platform signs along the line still incorrectly say service is "rush hours" only) and weekend and night G service past the Court Square station.
I appreciate that New York City Transit feels it is doing its best in the absence of what’s really needed: a new subway line through Queens. But I respectfully disagree with offering riders poor choices.
The Straphangers Campaign continues to support changing the plan, so that the F express would go to 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue and the V local would go through the 63rd Street tunnel. I understand Transit’s prediction that this "flip" would "not reduce crowding on express trains as effectively as the current plan." But this routing would be providing your riders with the service that they want.
Yours truly,
Gene Russianoff
Senior Attorney
Information Requested by the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign
on the 63rd Street Connector Plan
1. Projections of what ridership would be on the Queens Boulevard lines, if the routes of the V and F were exchanged, including estimates of what the "ridership as a percent of capacity operated" would be. (Page three of the Update says "NYCT model runs showed that running a local V via 63rd Street and an express F via 53rd Street would not reduce crowding on express trains as effectively as the current service plan Š")
2. New York City Transit’s survey instrument for polling riders at the Roosevelt Avenue stop about the service plan.
3. Any further detailed analysis conducted of the data from your all New York City Transit’s recent customer surveys/market research along the Queens Boulevard and Sixth Avenue lines about the service plan.
4. A copy of CPM’s review of seven options for constructing a G terminal platform at Queens Plaza.
5. The April traffic checks for the E, F, R,V, G and 7 when they are available.
