Did they forget about the G train??
I took the G 4 miles. It took 47 minutes. I am not exaggerating those numbers for comedic effect.
Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
21–30 of 118 posts
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#22For comparison, a taxi or Uber between Queens and Brooklyn will run $40-$50 each way. Taking the F train through Manhattan takes over an hour.
Though I've never personally experienced it, perhaps due to following the advice, I've been repeatedly advised when trying to get around NYC to always get in the taxi before telling them my destination is in Brooklyn. This could be wrong, but the stated reason is that drivers don't want fares to Brooklyn (typically lower, and harder to get another fare who wants to go Brooklyn to someplace else for the return trip),…
A taxi refusing a fare at all (inside or outside) is against TLC rules and the driver will be fined / have their license suspended if you report them.
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#23Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#24For comparison, a taxi or Uber between Queens and Brooklyn will run $40-$50 each way. Taking the F train through Manhattan takes over an hour.
Though I've never personally experienced it, perhaps due to following the advice, I've been repeatedly advised when trying to get around NYC to always get in the taxi before telling them my destination is in Brooklyn. This could be wrong, but the stated reason is that drivers don't want fares to Brooklyn (typically lower, and harder to get another fare who wants to go Brooklyn to someplace else for the return trip),…
This is good advice, but it's never worked for me. I've never hailed a cab in which they didn't have the doors locked until you tell them where you want to go. I even had one cab speed off while I was still holding the door handle when I told him I just wanted to go five blocks south (in Chelsea, in the snow), I figured he though I was going to change my mind when I got in.
I don't take cabs anymore.
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#25Heh - I used to live in Greenpoint and would reverse commute up to Queens Plaza to avoid the "G to the L to the BDFQ" into midtown...
On the contrary, Hoboken - where I now live - has a wealth of options to commute into both midtown and downtown NYC. Within a few blocks of my apartment: a subway trip of less than 20 mins to either Wall Street or 32nd (Midtown); ferry (a very pleasant 40 min trip to my office in the 40s); bus about 30 mins to midtown depending upon traffic. I love the ferry - it is the least efficient and most expensive option. I take it about 30% of the time to enjoy the river in the morning or evening.
This kind of access to NYC has made Hoboken (and downtown Jersey City) a much more desirable location than other small cities in the area. And I have more options than many of my colleagues in Brooklyn or Queens - and a quicker commute than some colleagues in the Upper West side of Manhattan.
Go a few miles further into NJ and commuting becomes a mess. The first time I googlemapped our new datacenter in the Meadowlands of NJ - I was pleasantly surprised that it was ~5 miles from NYC office and roughly the same from my Hoboken apartment. And ~1 mile from a transit stop.
Thought I could ride my bike but the trip is through MadMax NJ wasteland, unmaintained roads on which semis rule and on which there are no sidewalks. I am not brave enough. Even the wildlife is scary - a giant groundhog grumpily rules the front gate area of the datacenter. And those 8 foot tall reeds are everywhere - I can just imagine full of rats and albino sewer alligators of immense size. I take a $15 cab from the nearest light rail stop.
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#26Did they forget about the G train??
When I was a kid, that might have worked -- the G stopped at Queens Plaza (with local service all the way to Continental Ave.), so you could take an E or F down Queens Boulevard, make a quick transfer, and be on your way. Sadly, the MTA seems to have it in for the G; the line now terminates at Court Sq., the trains are shorter than before (which was already shorter than other lines), and some of the stations are in v…
The J barely goes into Queens, only at the very end does it have half a dozen stops in Woodhaven and Jamaica. Someone below mentions the L which as far as I know has no Queens stops, and the the M which does actually serve Middle village directly from Brooklyn but otherwise requires a giant loop through Manhattan.
This issue is near and dear to my heart, I live in Woodside but I have close friends in Park Slope. By car it's a straight shot down the BQE -- 20 - 30 minutes depending on traffic. When all the subways are running, I can take the 7 to the G and it's an hour and fifteen minute trip. But both the 7 and the G have terrible weekend schedules so if I wanted to go right now, I'd have to take the 7 to the Q and go through all of Manhattan and it'd take more like an hour and a half. Or I could take three buses and hope that scheduled connections actually happen.
If the timing works out it can sometimes make sense to take commuter rail from Woodside-Jamaica-Atlantic Terminal though that's more expensive and you have to buy a ticket at the counter because the machines can't figure it out.
As an interim measure they should put a couple of express buses going north south -- one could go from the 74th Jackson Heights station down the BQE to the Lorimer stop on the L and then continue on to the Atlantic Terminal. Another could link the Middle village terminus of the M to the M (and R, F, E) at Queens Blvd with a second stop along the 7. The long term solution is more lines. We should be doing that instead of spending billions on silly prestige projects like the new Penn Station they want to build.
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#27You really can't overstate the differences between trams and busses. Trams are more like a moving sidewalk, a physical part of the city.
The meaningful difference is not between rails and tires. It is between dedicated rights-of-way and one shared with automotive traffic. When buses get dedicated right-of-way, as in Curitiba they provide similar service levels to subways .
A lot of tram systems don't have dedicated rights-of-way.
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
The meaningful difference is not between rails and tires. It is between dedicated rights-of-way and one shared with automotive traffic. When buses get dedicated right-of-way, as in Curitiba they provide similar service levels to subways .
A lot of tram systems don't have dedicated rights-of-way.
Still they don't/can't break as abruptly as buses and the ride is a lot less bumpy in general. And buses are notoriously crammed, even when the next bus would supposedly be there in 2 minutes, people will squeeze into the one that's there now, with trams you can just attach another cart, and carts can be larger to begin with.
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#29There's an excellent podcast episode of 99% Invisible which discusses the analogous thing that happened to the Red Car in Los Angeles.
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-r...
Re: Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens
#30How to fix it: - Improve G train service. - Use the Pulaski bridge. - Take care of the BQE infrastructure. - Public jetpacks!
Another possibility would be to build all the planned subway extensions in Queens; Brooklyn already has good subway service, and a few more lines connecting the two boroughs would not hurt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IND_Second_System While we are at it, let's actually make use of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockaway_Beach_Branch
Build it? With whose money? The city's finances have been a disaster since 2008 and they've only been scraping by with a series of unsustainable tricks. The next mayor will almost certainly be Bill de Blasio, whose top agenda item is basically to spending a lot more money on the city's unionized labor. (His next agenda item is to revive rent control, because the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act apparently hasn't done enough to run the city into the ground yet. (And yes, that war emergency is WWII.))
Have you ever wondered why we can't have nice things? :P