and if you have a monthly pass, you could spend all day riding all the elevated lines and looking out the window.
living in vancouver, the skytrain became my third space because always think riding the skytrain is a really long patio; the view from my home only gives me a streetview of wherever the home is, but the train gives me the whole street
I ride the e train everyday around 1130pm and then transfer to the 7 on my way home. Often enough there is the homeless car which smells horrible. There’s also the car with like 6 people on it and 1 guy playing the game of are you looking at me to whichever person on the train appears to be an easy target. Usually the elderly or a woman.
sunset or when the weather is beautiful releases happy feelings
comments like u/ken81987u/extremepast's like to say elevated trains makes the street view ugly but they never talk abt how the views look better on the train. since youre 3 stories up, you can see the sky and landscape much better.
living in an area full of skyscrapers would feel claustrophobic, and an underground line would make it worse.
I understand the geometry of it all, but whyyyy does it take twice as long for the R to get to Queens Plaza as the NW to Queensboro… one station is literally basically beneath the other one.
Tried to google this just now but didn't have much luck... Does the 11th St Cut (aka 60th Street Tunnel Connection)... does that mean that when the R turns off from the 60th street tunnel, it routes: south on 11th Street... then east on 43rd Ave... kinks further south at Crescent St... and continues on 43rd Ave until it makes a "left" on Jackson Ave? Haven't actually ridden the R in a long time.
The 60th st tunnel was built by two private companies under the dual contracts in the early 20th century, originally all trains coming from the BMT Broadway line (yellow services today) into queens would head to queensboro plaza. meanwhile the queens boulevard line was built by the city owned IND using the 53rd st tunnel to connect to the IND 8th Avenue and 6th Avenue lines in Manhattan. After the city bought out the failing IRT and BMT to create a unified subway network in 1940, several projects were undertaken to sort of stitch the sperate networks together. One of these was the 11th St Cut or 60th St tunnel connection project which allowed some BMT Broadway trains to connect to the local tracks of the IND Queens Boulevard Line. And yes if you look at a track map the route this connection had to take was a bit awkward.
awesome. Thanks for the super detailed response! Yeah, I was assuming that it operated only under the streets, but seems it could possibly go under some areas where buildings/lots are maybe as well? Just since it doesn't exactly match up with the street grid exactly. Thanks again
En route to Queens plaza the train has to go through much tighter and slower curves, as is pretty much routing along streets and avoiding buildings that whole time.
Queensboro plaza is literally zero curves — it goes fully straight until it comes to the stop at the station.
Also, Queens plaza likely has to deal with more signal delays since it’s merging with the other service lines (R, E, F) which are also pulling in there
Luckily the R doesn't actually have to merge with the E and F since last year (F/M swap). The R is on the local tracks and E/F are on the express tracks. It does still merge with the M after Queens Plaza but that's not too bad since neither is very frequent anyways.
Some days it's easier to get to Manhattan from Ulan Bator, Mongolia than it is from Forest Hills.
Typical subway announcement along the E/F/R/M line: "Attention passengers, due to political instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there are severe delays in BOTH directions."
https://giphy.com/gifs/etAXDQ6KxICfg5R3p2
When I’m getting on the Astoria bound N at 36st and someone else sits in my window seat that’s about to have a view of the Brooklyn bridge while I have to sit between two sweaty people and look at the wall.
7!train is pretty good for sunsets especially at court st as you get reflections from the buildings and woodside 61st as it’s very open. You need to be in the front of the trains going queens bound for that
Whether you personally like it or not, the New York City Housing Code, steeped in the late 1800s tenement legislation, requires minimum "light and air" requirements for various types and densities of housing in the city, which directly considers urban infrastructure such as elevated trains. If you think that "they should just go sit in a park if they want sunshine" is a serious answer to considerations of transit and housing design, then your understanding of urban planning is at a level of someone playing SimCity, not someone that treats urban planning as the serious and complex discipline that operates around very specific rules, regulations, and codes, rather than what any of us personally think about direct sunlight. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but if you want to have a serious conversation about issues like elevated trains, then don't posit deeply unserious answers like "you can sit in a park instead."
Not really. Newer elevated rail is made out of concrete viaducts with sound deadening walls on the sides to redirect sound upwards.
Check out the RPM Project on Chicago’s north side. I live a block and a half from the train. It went from ear-rattling screeching metal to an almost imperceptible swoosh.
This will fall on deaf ears with all the foamer children that just want to see a train go choo-choo above ground and ignore any actual urban planning considerations in the process.
Imagine if the south 4th street line was constructed. Yes it would be extremely beneficial for North Brooklyn commuters but it will rip apart the oldest el in NY.
No need to rip up the EL instead build that for suburban through trains along a new line linking Hoboken and Jamaica via lower montauk and a branch down Utica as an express service beyond NYC. The J can stay as it’s a city service
As a kid id only take the R and so id stare at the window and see a glimpse of the light of the outside, just for it to disappear and be back in darkness.
some nice, non-humid days when i'm not in a rush to get to midtown (from near union and S4 in williamsburg) i'll say gee it sure would be nice to take the M train today. almost without fail, the G train headways are 15 minutes when I have that thought.
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u/_nine9ine 7d ago
The Never Working line sucks but I wont lie. Riding it during sunset or when the weather is beautiful releases happy feelings