This post follows my post on the capacity of individual vehicles. To keep this post at a reasonable length, this post discusses only certain combinations of frequency and vehicles, and will be limited to combinations that would reasonably deployed in…

Writing a comparison with Seattle’s transit now wouldn’t be useful if we didn’t also compared the past. Seattle and New York’s pasts are actually eerily similar. In 1968, Seattle voted 50.8-49.2 to build a brand new regional transit system similar…

I’ve temporarily moved to Seattle for a summer internship, and it’s been quite a culture shock for a New Yorker used to 24/7 life and dirt-cheap food. Equally interesting, however, is the public transport system here. Seattle’s public transit isn’t…

Frequent transit maps, as described by Jarrett Walker, are very useful; you can figure out where you can just show up to a bus stop and not waste your time waiting for that once-hourly bus. They can also show you…

Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley has proposed a light rail reactivation of the Montauk Line, which ended passenger service in 2012 due to low usage and the cost of upgrading the line with federally-mandated PTC. Granted, usage would be low on any rail…

Once in a while, someone will suggest a bus terminal in Flushing as the solution to the chronic bus and traffic congestion in Flushing. It sounds like a nice idea; separating buses and cars is bound to make both faster.…

After publishing my proposal for subway expansion, I received feedback on the plan. Some of it was constructive, and got me thinking, so I revised the proposal in order to improve it. Most of the adjustments were in the Bronx,…

In my previous post, I described a “core” expansion that would relieve the Lexington Avenue Line in Manhattan, the Queens Blvd Line in Queens, and the Jerome Av and Grand Concourse Lines in the Bronx. This new Second System would…

The Second Avenue subway has been the aspiration of New York’s transit planners for the better part of a century. Originally envisioned as a massive trunk line that would be six tracks wide at its largest point, the current plans…