officiallyliam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Tube We've done it before. We can do it again. The Culver route is circuitous; it'll never be the proper connection that Staten Island deserves to have. Hardly - it'll still involve branching off of Culver where there are no provisions, tunneling under Brooklyn in areas that already have subway service, plus the tunnel under the narrows. And it won't link to Saint George, which is essentially the downtown - or CBD - of SI. Let's instead make it so building things here doesn't cost such an absurd amount, and connect Staten Island to the city for real. A much better use of money, IMO, then attempting to replace the perfectly-workable Jamaica line with another overbuilt nightmare and risk doing what we did with the Third Avenue line.

I think this is the idea: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AUldHnWYI71L7LYC3UTa6rdCpnH4BQfo&usp=sharing

I've been contemplating various subway extensions in the last few days, and I think that SAS presents both an opportunity to increase capacity in Brooklyn (which is definitely necessary), but also to finally connect Staten Island in a proper way. Staten Island is both the least developed and fastest-growing out of all the five boroughs: if we continue to leave it isolated, we'll end up choking on congestion and crippling roadways, and increasing the already-critical pressure on subway lines between Brooklyn and Queens and Manhattan. The last time this was officially proposed was back in the 1950s, and before that by the IRT, but I think it is once again time to propose one of the larger perennial fantasies in NYC planning: a direct rail tunnel from Lower Manhattan to Staten Island. Yes, it seems infeasible and impractical, but since first proposed, we've set more precedent for tunnels with long underwater sections; the Transbay Tube is an example of a tunnel of similar length and character. Tunneling to St. George would then allow an SAS train - let's say the - to capture the SIR line and run down the length of the island to Tottenville. And while it might not seem on the surface like the best investment given current ridership and population of SI, I'd be confident that with inevitable future growth such a tunnel would be a good use of money. If we have the opportunity - a new subway line ending in Lower Manhattan - we shouldn't wait until congestion on roads and the ferry reaches breaking point to do something about it. The to SI raises the question of SAS northern capacity, because of the requisite line-sharing with trains. Obviously it's too late to solve the 72nd Street problem easily, but there are ways around this: I'd suggest, of course, that the MTA leave provisions for a new Queens tunnel branching off of SAS in Midtown south of 63rd, but that's a longer-term need (as has been discussed at length, there is spare Manhattan-Queens capacity that could be unlocked on existing lines). An easier proposal would be to alter the design of either 42nd or 55th Street stations with two terminal tracks, to allow trains from the south to terminate in Midtown - allowing for higher southern capacity than would be possible with current designs, and possibly for a future four-track expansion (the way Sixth Avenue was done). So to recap, and for service patterns: the would run unchanged, the would run to Tottenville via the new tunnel, and a second SAS service could run via the Atlantic Branch out to Jamaica. One of these trains would end in Midtown; if the terminal was designed well enough, you could probably get around 36 tph on the lower half of the line (so 18 on each branch), given the straight alignment and good stop spacing. While SAS can certainly be used to improve things in Brooklyn, it also presents a great opportunity to connect SI - one that shouldn't be ignored.

Do you ever get anywhere in this city when you'll only use a fraction of the transport provided to you?

I'm not sure - a ten-car IRT train is 510' and a ten-car PATH train would be 480', but I'm not sure how long PATH platforms are. This is a very good point, and a significant disadvantage to this proposal. In theory, you could continue to short-turn some trains at City Hall, but you'd probably sacrifice frequency on the WTC to Newark line doing that; either way, service would likely be affected by the merges at Exchange Place and Grove Street. This is now going into some of my PATH fantasy proposals, but I'd suggest a way to simultaneously remove the slow junction merges and expand PATH: separating the uptown and downtown tubes. The downtown line would be taken over by the running to Newark; then, you'd route the uptown tubes from Newport into a new lower level at Grove Street, where the line could turn south and capture the HBLR line to Bayonne - and, who knows, maybe reach Staten Island one day. The branch to Hoboken would run exclusively to 33rd Street. I'd do that building at the same time as any construction for the PATH to connection so that the final project is two separate Manhattan to NJ trains: an east-to-west line (downtown) and a north-south line (uptown). It's certainly a pretty long-shot proposal, but isn't impossible.

Yes, Montague was rebuilt in 2013; the tunnel was closed for about one year to accommodate for this.

Quite frankly, @Wallyhorse, I don't particularly want to respond to this - it's nothing you haven't brought up before and it's nothing that hasn't been debated on these forums on several occasions. I don't understand your fascination with "supplement" services that hardly run as a way to "placate" individuals or, at most, tens of riders. But here goes: Really? How many are actually using the from QBL to Manhattan - but especially from Jamaica? This question will apply to several more of your points: but where do you derive these conclusions on ridership for which you are so famous? You tell them either to make use of the very easy cross-platform interchange at 53rd and 7th, use the parallel line, or depending where in the 50th Street walkshed they're going, walk from either 42nd or 59th. This is why I suggested a simple solution for the 8th Avenue lines: south of 59th, the and would be express and and local; along CPW the and would be local and and express as usual. CPW would get the same service and 8th Avenue riders would be able to use capacity that is thrown away today by the Canal merge. And yet, you suggest this: Remind me, who exactly will be placated by a train running every 20 to 30 minutes? If I'm at 86th Street looking to get to 50th, you really think I'm going to wait 25 minutes, watching downtown trains go by, just so I can get to 50th Street? The double letter revival is creative though, even for you - but totally unnecessary and certainly potentially confusing. @RR503 has covered this one already, above - please provide reasoning why Chambers is the ideal location for the Nassau split. Again, cry me a river! 6th Avenue service is available through a cross-platform transfer at 7th & 53rd - but segregating 8th Avenue trains to 53rd and 6th Avenue trains to 53rd allows the capacity that theoretically exists today to be actually used effectively. Why are you so vehemently against using capacity in a way that balances demand with operational effectiveness, and instead choose to use the subway system to provide point-to-point service for every subway rider? I - and I believe, most people here - love debating transit proposals and talking about how we might see the subway in the future. But again, I think I can speak for most people in saying that there's no fun in talking at length about the same exact proposals - proposals which have been proven time and time again to be either operationally infeasible, not what riders are asking for or want, or some combination of that. Talking every other day about why the shouldn't become the and , or why trains shouldn't end at Chambers Street, or why running a train every half hour down 8th Avenue just to let three people get to 50th Street quite simply takes the fun out of an otherwise enjoyable conversation about how the subway could be changed.

NTT = New Technology Train - that is, all of the new trains that have been developed since the late '90s up until now. That's the R110 (the NTT prototypes), the R142(A)s, R143s, R160s, and R179s, and presumably anything that comes out in the future. I'm not sure that any yard tracks are actually equipped with CBTC, even Canarsie or Corona, though even if they were, I don't think that any of our trains are capable of driverless operation, but I could be wrong.

A connection from PATH to the wouldn't add much transportation value; it won't add much coverage to the PATH network that isn't covered already by the uptown Hudson tubes. Connecting PATH to the , on the other hand, is something that certainly should've been done during the rebuild of the WTC complex: it would add an east side connection to the PATH network, connect NJ to Grand Central as well as to other centers of employment such as Union Square and the Upper East Side. The most formal proposal would have built a new (non-loop) platform at WTC, and connected it to the local tracks south of Brooklyn Bridge, using layup track 1 southbound and the space taken up by the City Hall loop tunnel going northbound. It was proven that this would actually be possible, even given the tangle of lines that the new tunnels would have to cross. Port Authority claimed that the grade would be too steep for trains, and that's why they dismissed it; this was a poor excuse to not have to go through any kind of integration process with the MTA, given that subway trains negotiate steeper grades than the one proposed. It could still be possible today. It would involve digging under the Oculus - a definite pain - but probably isn't totally impossible. If you're interested, you can read the proposal here: http://www.rrwg.org/path-lexa.pdf

PATH and the B Division of the subway - which SAS is part of - have distinctly incompatible loading gauges; in other words, the sizes of the tunnels and clearances are not the same. Specifically, PATH cars - which are 48' long and 9' wide - are smaller than B Div cars, which are 60' (or 75') long and 10' wide. There's no chance that any B Div subway car is running through PATH tunnels, unless you're proposing a total rebuild of the PATH tunnels. PATH cars can run in the subway, but you'll have a sizable gap between train and platform at B Div stops that will need to be filled. Unless you want to use PATH-size cars on all SAS lines - which will decrease capacity - we'd need gap fillers at every SAS station, which increase expense and dwell time at stations in exchange for a service pattern that I don't think is going to do all that much. I'm all for PATH integration, though - and PATH theoretically would be compatible with IRT tunnels - but that's a whole other discussion.

Oh, right - I had forgotten to add that in. I’m somewhat hesitant to extend the , though that could work - otherwise, you could repurpose the W designation for an Essex to Bay Ridge train.

I would agree with this when it comes to these proposals; people tend to get too caught up in the idea of keeping certain route designations going to certain places when that really shouldn't factor in to the planning of what trains actually go where. Which trunk services in Manhattan are paired with which branches in the boroughs is what we should be thinking of first - the routes themselves can be designated as anything. But if we must look at what route bullets might be involved, I think this is what I (and @RR503) were thinking, both with regard to the to Fulton proposal and the resulting reshuffle: from Astoria to Euclid; cut the , you don't need two (unless you really want a separate letter for short-turns at Whitehall); moves to Fulton and 8th express, then via 53rd and local to Forest Hills; via 63rd; possibly a reborn to cover CPW in place of the ; and stay unchanged. And please, don't touch the or attempt anything else through 11th Street. The whole point of this is to get rid of that merge and still serve QBL adequately.

This via Broadway proposal is almost as much a capacity waste as trains to Forest Hills; it's not really like the and combination at all and would be no more useful than ReThink NYC's misguided / combination. A combined / is only going to be the fastest way into Manhattan for a very small number of people: those in Greenpoint, who (mostly) don't currently have direct Manhattan service, and in Long Island City, where there are a plethora of Manhattan-bound trains. For everywhere else along Crosstown - particularly people south of the - going to Midtown via LIC and 60th Street is a circuitous and not-very-direct way into the city. The is much more of a straight shot into Manhattan, only mildly circuitous if you're coming from the northern end of the line near Middle Village. And this proposal does nothing to decongest 60th Street. One of the advantages of taking the off of QBL is that it allows 60th Street to run all services to Astoria, removing some of the congestion caused today by the 11th Street merge. The way to get ridership up is not to find any old way to shove it in to Manhattan through existing tunnels; rather, it is through building more and better transfers (like to the at Broadway, or the and at Hoyt) or possibly through short extensions to Queensboro Plaza or 21st Street. None of the existing Queens to Manhattan tunnels should have any of their spare capacity spoken for by a looping train.

Please provide a good reason why a service pattern that has been proved inferior since the Queens Blvd line opened should be restored. For once, those who continue to preach "send the back to Forest Hills" need to please provide reasons why trains running along QB would be any less empty than they were back in 2001 when service was cut most of the time, or back it 2010 when the line was finally truncated permanently. Court Square isn't an ideal terminal - I'm not arguing with that - but that is consequence of poor planning decisions in the construction of the line that would not be rectified by running empty or near-empty trains back and forth on a busy line. I want as much as anyone for the line to be better-used and to have more and easier connections, but the fact that we've built two separate connections since QBL opened just to allow more trains to go to Manhattan should show us that the simply doesn't belong running along Queens Blvd. I'm not against useful extensions that would improve connectivity, though. As @RR503 wrote, a better choice than building a likely less-than-popular transfer between Queens and Queensboro Plaza would simply be to reroute the to make these connections itself. You could realign the tracks (or build a flat junction) so they shift from Jackson over to Hunter Street, then turn left onto QP North; here you could build an elevator and stairs to connect to Queensboro Plaza. From there, a right turn on to 21st would carry the line up to a terminal at Queensbridge. You'd gain connections to the , , , and - meaning that all the Midtown to Queens tunnels would have a connection with Crosstown without having to backtrack (today, riders have to take the back to Court Square and riders have to go all the way to Roosevelt just to go all the way back on the ). You'd also open up the possibility of extending the further, taking it under the river and across town possibly on 86th - but I don't want to get too ahead of myself here. A map of the proposal here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1UARGuOmG-fFzKzuiFac5b8V8Ut7AkmQr&ll=40.758009636160246%2C-73.954060066333&z=14

Lincoln had very little to do with the Declaration of Independence; it was written thirty years before he was even born. And it doesn't really change anything about whether the Declaration belongs written on the wall of a subway station.

Adding a connection in the style of 11th Street from Montague to IND Fulton won't make it much more useful, because of capacity constraints, but the proposal to add a new tunnel for the to run to IND Fulton would both make Montague (indirectly) more useful. Montague isn't a popular way to get to Manhattan because most riders switch to a different train before Manhattan, but switching Montague service to run to Nassau would likely mean two things: firstly, more riders to Montague, because Nassau gives you tons of transfers, and secondly, add a significant capacity to the Fulton and 8th Avenue lines. Why even bother? Transit didn't cut the back to LIC because it hates railfans, it did so because running trains from Crosstown to QBL is a flawed service pattern that has been proven to waste capacity. Don't act like you're doing some noble deed by not formally suggesting a proposal that's going to get shot down on common-sense grounds, and then mention it anyway. If you didn't want to court the controversy of the to Forest Hills, don't mention it at all. And running the via 63rd is just adding a merge for no reason - if the is going via 63rd, it should go to SAS.

The space that CS Depot occupies today will be used by LGA AirTrain-related facilities, so therefore won't be available to be used as a bus terminal. Which is fine, because Willets Point isn't the best place for a bus terminal to begin with, regardless of whether the silly AirTrain exists or not.

Agreed - I think that Broadway, Cranberry, and Rogers Avenue should be the top priorities for deinterlining, though Rogers does require construction of new turnouts east of Franklin Avenue. But I also think that all the junctions where merges take place should be examined and their operations cleaned up - and if it's determined that the advantages of deinterlining would be greater than whatever disadvantages are presented, then they should be deinterlined. I like it as a theory, but I get that there do exist instances where deinterlining would cause more pain to riders than would be balanced out by whatever ops benefits are presented. In relation to the previous talk about Queens Blvd, though, what are the diverging speeds on the turnouts at 36th in Queens? I seem to recall trains going pretty slow on those switches (although that could be a symptom of aggressive timers), and having a mix of local and express trains in both 53rd and 63rd mean that 36th really needs to run like clockwork if we're to get highest possible capacity.

That would align perfectly with a State Street tunnel; the tracks at Atlantic Terminal end facing State Street and expanding them could be a simple matter of just punching through the wall, if that's possible. And a super-express from Jamaica to Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan would be great, since there's really no quick way to make that journey now, and such a line would simultaneously relieve the Fulton line and provide riders in Woodhaven and Richmond Hill with a genuine express train. And it's not totally infeasible, either: the Atlantic Branch exists perfectly intact and is absolutely usable for subway service. As an optimist, I want to believe that fixing the way junctions and terminals operate, and upgrading the signaling, should be the way forward - even though I find the isolation of lines that deinterlining allows to be attractive. Queens Blvd has two options: and via 53rd, and via 63rd, with local and as express (the flexibility choice), or local via 53rd and both as expresses to 63rd (the deinterlined choice). Both options mean that something has to change in order to keep CPW in order; in the latter option, you could simply revive the old to cover 8th Avenue and CPW local stops in Manhattan. While the pragmatist in me says the latter is superior, the idealist in me wants to make the former option happen. I am curious, though: what would some improvements to junction ops look like? The isn't really isolated running on State Street - it still transfers to the at Hoyt. While it loses some of the transfers it has today, that's sort of the point of this: the IND lines (Fulton and Crosstown) were planned with characteristic IND competitive interests in mind and thus lack transfers to the BMT and IRT; sending the to Fulton allows IND riders to have easier trips to BMT and IRT destinations - such as the heart of the Financial District and Union Square. So while the route might become somewhat more "isolated," it helps lines like the and become far less isolated. And as @RR503 mentioned, the provisions at Whitehall should be built in a way that allows them to cross under Joralemon, considering the BMT was built later (it wouldn't make sense to put in the bellmouths if you couldn't cross the tunnels right in front of you!)

Trying to modify Montague - or any of the river tubes - is rarely going to be worth it, especially not if we can get our construction costs in line. The should get its own tunnel from Whitehall to Hoyt-Schermerhorn, but that won't be very simple engineering either. Connecting to Court Street looks like the best option, but when you consider that Schermerhorn Street ends a block beyond Court, and that the Court station isn't very deep, such a connection probably won't be possible. Trying to do it would likely mean taking buildings - and using eminent domain through Brooklyn Heights is a non-starter. Atlantic looks decent as well, but the old LIRR tunnel is in the way, and it's too far from Schermerhorn; a connection would likely require lots of eminent domain or a nasty S-curve. Would a tunnel under State Street work? The disadvantages are that you need to cross the Joralemon tunnels, and find a way to connect to Schermerhorn. That looks like it would be possible, though, if you went diagonal across Boerum Place (which is wide), and underpinned the buildings on the corners of State and Boerum and Schermerhorn and Boerum. Still complicated, undeniably - but wouldn't be the biggest engineering feat in the subway. It would also be useful to think about building this tunnel in the style of 63rd, with two levels (or at least provisions for a second level). The second level could be used for different things - perhaps a extension under the river, or LIRR service to Lower Manhattan. Considering the lack of space for new tunnels in Downtown Brooklyn, it would be much easier to think about future expansion through the area if we leave room for it now. What to do with the 8th Avenue trains? There are several ways to approach this; in terms of increasing capacity the most, the best choice would be to keep the and together on the express tracks. We're also left with the problem, though, of what fills the hole on Queens Blvd left by the . Full-scale reshuffling and deinterlining might be a good choice for capacity reasons, but would be ambitious.

The M15 SBS is going to get new artics as part of the next XD60 order; those haven't arrived yet, but will beginning later this year. When that happens, the 12xx LFSAs will be passed down to local service with the rest of the former-SBS artic buses.

But why should we do this in the most expensive way possible? East Flatbush would be covered by IRT extensions down both Nostrand and Utica; northeastern Queens can be served by IND extensions from Forest Hills up Jewel Avenue, along Hillside, and possibly an extension of IRT Flushing as well. If the goal of this South 4th line is to serve new areas, why should we be doing it this way when we can get all of these areas on the subway in a much quicker and cheaper fashion?

You could run a pretty simple service pattern here: from 96th to CI via Sea Beach; from 96th to CI via Brighton; from Bay Ridge to Astoria, based at 36th Street Yard. The question here is whether we want to continue running Broadway service to Queens Blvd. We could run the via QBL, or remove Broadway services all together; the latter option will require a number of other BMT and IND route changes in order to harness the maximum amount of capacity, but has the benefit of sending more service to Astoria and eliminating the reverse-branch from the QBL. If no revenue trains need to be run through it, the 11th Street cut can be used to stage or reverse or trains; this is impossible so long as any train needs to use the connection in regular service. Getting the most Manhattan to Queens capacity on existing tracks requires total deinterlining of 60th Street (no Broadway to QBL trains) as well as deinterlining the junctions at Queens Plaza and 36th Street.

In the most basic sense, you're right. None of this needs to be touched; the and merge every day at Herald Square and we get on just fine. That doesn't mean, however, that it's the optimal way to run the system, or that it needs to be in place forever. Here's the reality: that merge slows things down along the upper portion of the Broadway line, and if we ever want to increase service, we're quickly going to run in to the cap in potential that that junction places on us. Rerouting service so that the subway routes follow the paths of the tracks, without merging - so all Queens trains go local, and all 63rd Street/2nd Avenue trains go express - allows more service to be added in future, as scheduling will no longer have to account for the delay often accrued by trains crossing tracks in front of one another, nor will we need to account for the capacity crunch that occurs in the 60th Street tunnel as a result of that merge. If you're like the majority of passengers, and are either leaving the subway or changing trains at 42nd or 34th Streets - or even 14th - taking an from Astoria to Manhattan makes very little difference compared to the - especially when you account for the fact that running times are slower than they could be, since it might get held up by an at 11th Street, or a at 42nd. And when you consider the fact that more frequent and reliable service will run to Astoria if the trains don't have to merge, the net travel time could quite possibly be faster for many people. It also means that the very-popular Second Avenue line, which is often underserved with just the , will be helped out by getting twice the service, which will also have fewer merging-related delays. It was brought up in the recent Fast Forward plan that Transit will examine the idea of "reduce reliance on key interlockings," or words to that effect. Hopefully, this means balancing out service patterns in instances like this. Other than the fact that people will lose a coveted "express" label, reducing the amount of these merges is something that should be done if we are to increase capacity to serve future ridership.

In many ways, it's overkill. In many ways, it's a good thing that much of the IND Second System was left unbuilt, as it largely exacerbates the issues we have today regarding reverse-branching and piling too much service through a handful of interlockings. Even if we cast aside the fact that bulldozing South 4th Street, Beaver Street, and Bushwick Avenue to accommodate a six(?)-track subway politically (and physically) not feasible today, most of the capacity problems that this proposal solves by building new track can be mitigated by changing operational practice and through minor construction. The line across Worth Street doesn't really add much service coverage that can't be handled by the existing Nassau line; it's not useful for getting uptown, and the only area that gains direct access to northern Brooklyn, the Lower East Side, isn't going to be enough of a ridership generator to warrant it. And from an operational perspective, the junction in which the must merge with the and , then subsequently with the and away from the - seems like a merging nightmare. We don't need all this to get more cross-river capacity. The largest added transit value in this proposal is the ability to transfer between Crosstown and Jamaica lines at Union & Broadway, but that could be added today either using a passageway between Broadway and the east end of Hewes , or through stop consolidation on the Jamaica line. CBTC should raise the speed limit over the bridge to 30 mph, which will significantly shorten crossing times and add more capacity. Tail tracks on the past 8th Avenue could add more service to 14th Street. All this could be done for a fraction of the money - and in a fraction of the time - compared to engineering a brand-new trunk subway line under Brooklyn and two new river tunnels.