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JFK and a one seat ride.


RailRunRob

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Don't know if you guys saw this. But what are your thoughts on these plans?

 

 

http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Creating-a-One-Seat-Ride-to-JFK.pdf

Interesting plans.

 

While extending the Airtrain to Penn might be the least expensive option, I don't know how feasible it is, given how it will run alongside the LIRR.

 

As for the LIRR proposal, IDK how passengers in Nassau and Suffolk would feel if resources are going towards commuting folks within City Limits. I mean, this occurs during the racing season at Belmont, but this would be to a much bigger extent. While Queens and Brooklyn are part of Long Island, the LIRR has always focused on commuters on suburban Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk). However, I would be for it, especially since it uses the Rockaway Beach Branch (in which several stops can be added to also provide service to Penn Station along the Rockaway Beach Branch, perhaps one at Metropolitan Avenue, and one at Atlantic Avenue, before shifting for Howard Beach). I don't know if the residents who opposed the subway would oppose the LIRR service, despite it being less frequent though.

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Any "one-seat-ride" to JFK has always had two problems;

 

  • The circular layout of JFK's terminals means that a train of subway or LIRR length can only really serve one terminal, maybe two. So the vast majority of people are still going to transfer to the AirTrain.
  • The Passenger Facilities Charge that funded the AirTrain and that would probably fund this can only be used on train lines that serve only the airport and major transportation hubs, which means to say that there can be no local stops along any such rail line built using that money. So express service on the RBB, or Atlantic, or SAS means dedicating those tracks to an express service to midtown, which quite frankly is a huge waste of money.

There is also something to be said about prioritizing the needs of a few monied travelers who already have rail options to airports over the everyday commuter pressed against the walls of our overcrowded subway trains, to say nothing of those everyday commuters who then have to schlep onto a bus for the next hour of their journey.

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Any "one-seat-ride" to JFK has always had two problems;

 

  • The circular layout of JFK's terminals means that a train of subway or LIRR length can only really serve one terminal, maybe two. So the vast majority of people are still going to transfer to the AirTrain.
  • The Passenger Facilities Charge that funded the AirTrain and that would probably fund this can only be used on train lines that serve only the airport and major transportation hubs, which means to say that there can be no local stops along any such rail line built using that money. So express service on the RBB, or Atlantic, or SAS means dedicating those tracks to an express service to midtown, which quite frankly is a huge waste of money.

There is also something to be said about prioritizing the needs of a few monied travelers who already have rail options to airports over the everyday commuter pressed against the walls of our overcrowded subway trains, to say nothing of those everyday commuters who then have to schlep onto a bus for the next hour of their journey.

Good points!

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Wasn't the Rockaway Beach Branch the "original " one seat ride to Idlewild ( JFK) airport along with some LIRR trains from Flatbush Avenue? I'm speaking of those trains that didn't require a change at Ozone Park that continued on to the Rockaways. I know that the airport was opened before the RBB was truncated and finally shut down. Just curious. I was aware of the airport surcharge and the restrictions on the Airtrain but often wondered about the viability of the line as an alternative way of traveling to and from Manhattan. Carry on.

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Interesting plans.

 

While extending the Airtrain to Penn might be the least expensive option, I don't know how feasible it is, given how it will run alongside the LIRR.

 

As for the LIRR proposal, IDK how passengers in Nassau and Suffolk would feel if resources are going towards commuting folks within City Limits. I mean, this occurs during the racing season at Belmont, but this would be to a much bigger extent. While Queens and Brooklyn are part of Long Island, the LIRR has always focused on commuters on suburban Long Island (Nassau and Suffolk). However, I would be for it, especially since it uses the Rockaway Beach Branch (in which several stops can be added to also provide service to Penn Station along the Rockaway Beach Branch, perhaps one at Metropolitan Avenue, and one at Atlantic Avenue, before shifting for Howard Beach). I don't know if the residents who opposed the subway would oppose the LIRR service, despite it being less frequent though.

The LIRR Main has a good amount of cap, and tunnel cap will become available with east side access.

I prefer SAS extension though; the Atlantic branch really should be a subway line.

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Wasn't the Rockaway Beach Branch the "original " one seat ride to Idlewild ( JFK) airport along with some LIRR trains from Flatbush Avenue? I'm speaking of those trains that didn't require a change at Ozone Park that continued on to the Rockaways. I know that the airport was opened before the RBB was truncated and finally shut down. Just curious. I was aware of the airport surcharge and the restrictions on the Airtrain but often wondered about the viability of the line as an alternative way of traveling to and from Manhattan. Carry on.

 

It gets you about as far as Howard Beach, at which point you take a bus or the AirTrain. There's never been a non-AirTrain station on the airport grounds itself.

 

Don't get me wrong, Rockaway Beach is a great proposal; just not for the LIRR as it's currently setup, and not for the one-seat ride. It's a strong enough project on its own merits if you can keep the costs down.

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Interesting. 

Btw you could ask AECOM to fund the East River crossing  B-), since they want something going to Red Hook

 

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That is a good point you bring up there. If you had unlimited money, you could continue under 9th St, Prospect Park, Lincoln Road and Sutter Av to North Conduit Avenue and JFK...

 

EDIT: Or on second thought, have the (T) serve Red Hook while the (V) operates from JFK via the RBL and QBL Bypass, through 63rd Street and 2nd Ave then through Williamsburg via S4th Street and then to Kings Plaza via Utica Avenue.

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The LIRR Main has a good amount of cap, and tunnel cap will become available with east side access.

I prefer SAS extension though; the Atlantic branch really should be a subway line.

Same here; I think it's one of the only ways we'll end up getting a full SAS phases 3 and 4.
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Maybe they could bulid the SAS phase 4 before phase 3, with the east river crossing and the connection to 6ave in Grand St?

Sure, not all the trains from LIRR Atlantic or Red Hook could continue to midtown, becuase of the limited capacity on 6ave

but technically, we could get LIRR connection to lower Manhattan, and the phase 4 done (with extra fundings from AECOM and Port Authority?) 

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Maybe they could bulid the SAS phase 4 before phase 3, with the east river crossing and the connection to 6ave in Grand St?

Sure, not all the trains from LIRR Atlantic or Red Hook could continue to midtown, becuase of the limited capacity on 6ave

but technically, we could get LIRR connection to lower Manhattan, and the phase 4 done (with extra fundings from AECOM and Port Authority?) 

 

LIRR and subway cannot share tracks.

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LIRR and subway cannot share tracks.

 

 

Why? signal? length/width of the rolling stocks? Kinda sure they will purchase new cars compatible with both Division B and LIRR if they really want to connect SAS and LIRR Atlantic.

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What make Subway and Railroad systems different?

Quite a bit from safety standards and heavier build quality. Power distribution in some cases. Way different rules and regulations. Two different Federal agencies FTA/FRA. And that's just for starters.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using NYC Transit Forums mobile app

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Why are they able to have subway and rail road service share tracks in other countries?

 

The regulatory setup is different. FRA and FTA here have wildly differing standards on what is safe and what is not in terms of vehicles, to say nothing about operations standards. That also is not easy to change; if an R160 and a freight train were to crash in a head-on collision, the R160 would probably crumple up.

 

The only other country that I am aware of that does this is Japan. European networks like the S-tog, Overground, RER, and S-bahns are railway operations run as if they were a subway network, but none of them actually interline with the subway.

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Have they ever explored extending the AirTrain just to Atlantic Terminal? That's not Manhattan, but it's convenient to a whole lot of subway lines. In practical terms, it's probably just as good as Penn Station or Grand Central in terms of total travel time to a great many points in Manhattan. 

 

If an extended AirTrain uses the existing LIRR branch to Atlantic Terminal, is there any way it could be given its own two dedicated tracks? I know when this was studied previously, they explored dual-mode trains, but the details were quite complicated. I'm wondering of that can be avoided. 

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