The report also points to the need for increased track access for crews, which Gomez, the signals chief, said has driven budget overruns. “That’s a little bit of a process.”Īn independent engineering consultant’s report in MTA board documents cited multiple concerns that could cause more delays on other signal projects - including software, communication and interoperability issues. “Think of if you were going to buy a lot of phones and you said iOS and Android had to work seamlessly together,” a senior MTA official told THE CITY Tuesday. MTA officials have pinned the repeated resignaling delays along the Queens Boulevard Line on having to integrate technology from two different suppliers, and on software and hardware issues that caused a four-month slowdown in July. “Taking the E or F from Manhattan to Queens is a mess.” Technical Difficulties “The R is very slow because it’s practically the only local train we have on weekends, the E and F are way too slow and way too full,” said Martha Ligia, 62, who commutes between Manhattan and Queens on weekends to her job as a janitor. “There will be some growing pains as different signal systems are phased in and phased out.”Īnd the project along Brooklyn’s elevated F line - aka the Culver Line - to modernize signals along nearly five miles of track between Church Avenue and West 8th Street, is experiencing COVID-driven delays that have pushed the substantial completion date from August 2022 to June 2023, MTA documents show.Ī third signal project - which will modernize signals along the Eighth Avenue Line from 59th Street-Columbus Circle to High Street in Brooklyn - remains on time, according to the MTA, which expects the $760 million job to be completed by January 2025.įor riders on the Queens Boulevard Line, the work translates to continued weekend service diversions, with trains switching from local to express and vice versa as part of a job that began in 2017. “It does happen far too often,” Andrew Albert, an MTA board member, said of the delays. The $663 million Queens Boulevard CBTC project, which was supposed to be in service this past March, is now scheduled to be operational by the end of the year, according to MTA documents - with its budget increasing to $729 million. Meanwhile, the latest estimates for “substantial completion” of launching a similar signal system along stretches of the E, F, M and R lines that run beneath Queens Boulevard and the elevated F and G lines in Brooklyn have been pushed back, MTA officials said this week. Members and sponsors make THE CITY possible. That’s above a systemwide average of 83% last month. 7 - produced some of the highest weekday on-time performance in October, MTA figures show, at 93% and 91%, respectively. The only two lines in the subway system equipped with modern so-called communications-based train control (CBTC) signals - the L and the No. “They provide for better service, faster running times, more capacity, shorter and bring the system to a state of good repair.” “The benefits are great,” Robert Gomez, the MTA’s chief signals engineer, told the agency’s board Monday. But with commuters steadily returning, state-of-the-art signals are key to MTA’s $51 billion five-year capital plan to upgrade the transit system. ![]() On many lines, the traffic lights and indicators can date to the 1930s, limiting capacity on a system strained by high ridership prior to the pandemic. “In terms of the daily experience that riders encounter, this is the biggest issue in terms of reliability,” said Ben Fried of TransitCenter, a transit research and advocacy organization. But snags with ongoing signal replacement projects in Queens and Brooklyn underscore the headaches and challenges that can accompany such ambitious and intricate projects. The transit agency plans to spend more than $7 billion for new signals on sections of six lines as part of its 2020 to 2024 capital program. The MTA’s multi-billion-dollar quest to speed up subway trips by replacing ancient signals is running into delays and cost increases.
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