Jamaica Reroute Scheme

[lirr42]

At present, of forty-nine westbound morning Peak trains from the Hempstead, Long Beach and Far Rockaway branches, twenty-nine of them go to Penn Station and twenty to Brooklyn. Are trains from those branches routed to Brooklyn because of their ridership -- a high percentage going to Brooklyn? -- or are those trains selected for other reasons? In other words, what percentage of the peak hour riders from those three branches ride to Atlantic Terminal rather than NYP? Obviously the LIRR has the figures. My guess is it's not too high.

According to this LIRR 2012 ridership report, total ridership on the three branches was about 32,300 riders per weekday. Ninety percent of LIRR weekday rush hour riders traveling to or from a western terminal are traveling to or from Penn Station and ten percent for Atlantic Terminal. I wonder if that percentage holds true for rush hour riders on the Hempstead, Long Beach and Far Rockaway Branches? If so it would seem maintaining through service to Brooklyn for those three lines is not critical.

It seems to me when I have ridden PM Peak trains from Atlantic Terminal they were not especially crowded. They ranged from almost empty to comfortably full. They really filled up at Jamaica.

It's difficult to quantify how many people ride through on those trains to Brooklyn since the railroad does not make such information available, but from what I've observed, probably about 60-70% of the people you see in the West of Jamaica column on Brooklyn trains likely ride through Jamaica, with another 15-25% or so transferring to or from other trains, and another 5%-10% originating at Jamaica.

But something that is not reflected in the ridership books (and likely among the biggest flaws of considering that when planning) is intermediate riders. The train counts are taken immediately before and after Jamaica, so if someone gets on an eastbound train at Mineola and rides to Brentwood, they're not counted. The Brooklyn trains do a very good job of shouldering those intermediate travelers, since the trains to and from New York are considerably crowded. For example, take train 2096, which makes every local stop from New Hyde Park to Ronkonkoma. If that train originated out of New York at the hour it does, it would likely be tremendously overcrowded since pretty much everyone who lives along the Main Line would be served by it. Having it come from Brooklyn does an excellent job of discouraging hoards of people from New York changing at Jamaica and mobbing the train, allowing it to make all local stops and serve those intra-island commuters. Similar things happen with the South Shore Brooklyn trains in the evening as well.

Getting rid of the opportunity for the LIRR to run trains like that further jeopardizes that intra-island market, since local trains that come out of New York would likely be too crowded to be of any use.

[lirr42]

The "drop-'n'-go" operation that Tommy mentioned might work and actually reduce delays during the rush-hours when there are plenty of trains running on all routes, so the wait at Jamaica shouldn't be too long. But during off-peak hours it might not work very well as there can be a much longer wait for a train to any destination. So the best answer might be to retain the timed-connection operation during off-peak only.

From observing the LIRR's GTFS RT feed, trains being notably delayed through Jamaica due to late connections don't seem incredibly common. Trains falling a few minutes behind can be fairly common, especially since trains from New York tend to be a couple minutes back by Jamaica when the Brooklyn ones aren't, but the amount of cases where a train arrives Jamaica on-time then leaves 8 to 10 or more minutes late isn't incredibly common, especially with the volume of trains that pass through Jamaica. (Unfortunately, there's lots of times where the LIRR will let the connection go nowadays anyways).

I'll see if I can quantify some of those figures over the weekend and I'll post them then.

[NIMBYkiller]

Tommy Meehan, thank you. That basically answers my question by demonstrating that Jamaica, not the capacity of NYP/FBA/LIC combined, is what is currently regulating the number of trains operating W of Jamaica. The next question then is this: Is there some way to reconfigure Jamaica so that the number of trains operating thru can be increased AND thru-FBA service can be retained?

[lirr42]

The next question then is this: Is there some way to reconfigure Jamaica so that the number of trains operating thru can be increased AND thru-FBA service can be retained?

You asked that question on page 1 and I offered an answer on page 2:

Does anyone know if they're keeping ANY thru-service to FBA? From the looks of this, I'd say no, but I'm not 100% familiar with the track configuration approaching Jamaica from the east. A damn shame since they're pretty much undoing a huge chunk of the capacity boost they're getting with ESA, and at a time where Brooklyn is the fastest growing part of the city. Whose bright idea was this anyway?

It would not be completely impossible to maintain through service to Brooklyn, even with the new platform F. Since the new platform would straddle tracks 10 and 11, those two tracks continue east of Jamaica, and actually parallel the Main Line all the way to just west of Hillside. Trains can come out from Brooklyn, over to the new platform F, stop there, then proceed east and jump up to Main Line 4 in HALL and then continue east on their merry way from there. And you could still streamline things through much of HALL and JAY. You would lose out a convenient way to get to the Atlantic Branch east of Jamaica, but you would be able to maintain some semblance of through service to Atlantic Terminal.

[jamestrains1]

Jamaica Capacity Improvements Phase 2 Information

Highlights from material sourced below:

PHASE II
- Construction - Part of future 2015-2029 Capital Programs

Phase II - Improve Jamaica Infrastructure
-Increased train capacity
-Improve interlocking by installing a higher speed track configuration
-All existing station platforms will be 12-cars
-Reduce the “Jamaica Crawl”

New York Building Congress - MTA CApital Program 2015-2019 Long Island Rail Road
24 May 2016
https://www.buildingcongress.com/pdf/MTA-Long-Island-Rail-Road.pdf
see pdf pg. 17

New York Building Congress Transportation & Infrastructure - Long Island Rail Road Capital Program
13 November 2014
https://www.buildingcongress.com/pdf/MTA-Long-Island-Railroad.ppt
see ppt pg. 11, 14

MTA Capital Program Oversight Committee Meeting
23 February 2015
http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/archive/150223_1315_CPOC.pdf
see pdf pg. 58-60

Phase I and Phase II Comparison

Phase I Final Design


Phase II Final Design

[RailTrek]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like they will be maintaining at least one line that can cross over the entirety of the complex (via switches)

[flexliner]

forgive my ignorance but do not the easbound (LI bound) tracks from NY arch up and over the brooklyn tracks (both directions)

IIRC tracks from NY tracks lead to 7 and 8 (i guess 6 too)
the brooklyn tracks lead to 6,5,4 and 3
and 1 and 2 lead to NY (3 also?)

so in that case why is there such a big conflict with parallel moves from/to FBA and NY
or is it that there are conflicts east of JAM?
(don't most FBA trains dip under towards the atlantic while NYP trains head up the main line?)

so instead of torturing FBA passengers with up and overs to 10 and 11
why not combine 4 and 5 to one track and allow cross platform to the (current) 3 heading west and 6 heading east
(bring the FBA shuttles on that track)
(and maybe in less crowded hours there could still be a few thru trains from FBA to points east)