Second Ave. Sagas

@2avesag.as

12446 Followers 277 Following

Subways, transit, NYC. All posts by @benjaminkabak.com

A screenshot of the Film Forum website announcing the NYC IN TRANSIT series.
A post from auntiesophsoph_ on Threads saying "Moving around nyc is getting real expensive even with public transportation . I must be doing it wrong. $3 bus, then $8.25 airtrain, then $3? Subway. That’s almost $15 one way. And then same going back. So $30 in one day on public transportation. Jamaica queens to soho. Lol mercy "
The article abstract which reads: "Large cities worldwide have adopted congestion pricing to reduce urban traffic, with well-documented benefits for travel speeds, accident rates, and air quality. This paper identifies a novel external benefit: faster emergency medical service response times. We provide the first evidence on how the congestion pricing program in New York City – the first comprehensive cordon-based congestion pricing system in the U.S. that was implemented on January 5th 2025 – affects emergency medical service (EMS) response performance. Exploiting the sharp geographic boundary of New York City's congestion relief zone at 60th Street and a difference-in-discontinuities design applied to approximately 1.6 million EMS incidents, we find that the January 2025 implementation of congestion pricing reduced passenger vehicle traffic by roughly 21 percent near the boundary and improved total EMS travel times by 63–70 seconds, approximately 5–6 percent. Effects emerged quickly and show little evidence of displacement to adjacent areas. A concurrent FDNY directive requiring transport to the nearest hospital confounds standard difference-in-differences estimates but not our boundary-based design. These findings suggest that cost-benefit analyses of congestion pricing systematically understate net social benefits by omitting emergency response improvements."
Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow ‪@tomtomorrow.bsky.social‬ 🤯 me, learning that we could have had a subway direct to JFK when it was still called Idlewild, if robert moses had agreed to a minor extension while building the van wyck
A screenshot of an image atop an NY Times article with the headline that says "This Parking Spot Is Free. Should It Be?"
An extremely confusing diagram of weekend subway service with arrows in many directions indicating where trains are going. It's extremely hard to decode.
A misspelled press release features Transportation Secretary Sean P. "Duggy"
Statement from MTA Chief, Policy and External Relations John J. McCarthy on USDOT Announcement of an Appeal in Congestion Relief Case "Congestion pricing is working – fewer cars, less pollution, faster commutes. Secretary Duffy has already lost in court and if he wants to see us there again, let’s go."
Giant multi-floor slides from a 2006 exhibit at the Tate Modern.
Braindead Upper East Sider Andrew Fine retweeting a Crypto Bro's post blaming the mayor for Uber pricing from the airport. Take the train.
Statement from MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber on the Federal Government Restoring Funding for Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 “It shouldn’t have taken seven months and a lawsuit to get here, but with the federal government’s concession today on the courthouse steps, the MTA can now confidently forge ahead with Second Avenue Subway Phase 2. The billion-dollar contract approved at our March Board meeting is being awarded and contractors are mobilizing right away. “Today’s MTA is determined to expand our network and give riders more and better service. Long-awaited transit justice for East Harlem is just the beginning.”
An excerpt from The Times that says: "But there is already opposition from some community groups. Lynda Balsama, an organizer with one such group, United Neighbors of Prospect and Crown Heights, said the redesign would divert more traffic to nearby residential streets and add travel time for fire trucks and ambulances. “Everybody’s safety has to be included,” she said. Still, residents and civic groups have complained about traffic whizzing around Grand Army Plaza for decades. In 1955, one publication described the traffic circle there as “the only concrete and asphalt roulette wheel in the world.”"
Epic Handshake Meme Black Arm says: NYC Dog Owners White Arm says: NYC Car Owners The agreement: "Thinking the rules don't apply to them, as a treat"
Janno Lieber, the chief executive and chair of the M.T.A., called the idea of a strike “insane” at a board meeting last month. He said he was open to negotiating about salaries, but only if the union was willing to give up some rules that could greatly increase the costs of certain kinds of work. For instance, if an engineer drives a diesel train at the start of a shift, but is asked to switch to an electric train in the same day, the M.T.A. is required to compensate that worker with two days’ pay. And if, on the same day, the engineer is asked to switch from driving passengers to driving a train back to a yard for maintenance or storage, that worker is entitled to a third day of pay. These so-called penalty payments added almost 15 percent to the average engineer’s compensation in 2024, the M.T.A. said.