officiallyliam

The most common such plan sends the to Brighton, with the as the local, and the and rush-hour to Fourth Avenue. This way the could take West End, the and would be unchanged, and the can help the . I calculated some time ago that this could get you about twice as many trains through DeKalb during the morning rush, and along with de-interlining the Broadway line, would allow the and the to run as fully-separated lines.

The transfer for anyone coming from Woodhaven Boulevard to Jamaica will be nearly identical, the only exception being the extra required walk from Woodhaven to the RBB line. Those in Richmond Hill have the for Jamaica; those south have various buses which will get you to Jamaica as fast or faster than a circuitous route via Rego Park. Reopening the LIRR station at Woodhaven Blvd will do more for people in that area trying to get to Jamaica quickly than the RBB ever could. As for the operations side, there are operational reasons to give the Queens Blvd local a better terminal, either by extension or through diverting one of the lines. But we have to ask ourselves if the RBB is the best use of Queens Blvd local capacity, or, more likely, if another corridor in the area is a better choice. Is making terminal procedures at Forest Hills better really worth running half the trains to a line that won't carry many people?

Exactly. It suffers, in reverse, from the same problems that make the a poor crosstown, and that is proximity to the core. The line is to close to Manhattan to have a large ridership base of its own, especially considering that north-south lines in Manhattan have better transfers. The RBB, on the other hand, is too far from the CBD to be an effective crosstown, and would have the same problem with missing or annoying transfers that plagues the . I've never understood why the RBB seems to get so much more attention in transit circles than the Triboro RX, which is essentially the same concept (crosstown rapid transit service on underused ROW) but would be orders of magnitude more effective at both connecting radial lines and connecting residential and job centers. If we are so desperate to build a branch off the Queens Blvd line, why aren't we talking about Jewel Avenue or Union Turnpike? The RBB is a waste of precious capacity that would do little for either the region or the city.

Transit has been telling Bombardier for years now that we need the 179s ASAP. It's not really a strategy that works. The doesn't need NTTs any sooner than any other line that lacks them. The 4-car sets are top priority to ensure that East New York is composed solely of new trains as quickly as it can be; the 5-car sets aren't as critical until Jamaica needs to be fully new tech for Queens Blvd CBTC.

There are numerous problems with this analysis, which does little to show that the RBB is a needed subway extension, much less that it should move to the front of the line of other long-considered subway extensions. So yes, 300k+ people live in all the neighborhoods which the RBB passes through. But you can't seriously claim that all those people stand to be affected either positively or negatively by the building of a subway in this corridor. This is because you missed a key number, which is not the number of people living in these neighborhoods, but the population density. If the areas are very spread out, the line will have a smaller walkshed; not good for a route which already suffers from inconvenient walking connections. Here are the persons per acre figures for the neighborhoods you mentioned, as of the 2010 Census: Forest Hills 63.0, Rego Park 62.0, Woodhaven 66.4, Richmond Hill 53.8, and Ozone Park 37.1. The average density of the neighborhoods along the RBB, therefore, is 56.4 (and this assumes that all stand to benefit, which might be true if these areas were true transit deserts, and they're not). This means nothing, though, out of context. Let's take some other long-proposed and oft-discussed subway extensions and look at the density figures there. An IRT Utica Avenue extension would have stations in Crown Heights, East Flatbush and Flatlands; the average density here is 74.6. A line through the central Bronx (along Third Avenue, perhaps, or the MNRR right-of-way) would stop in Mott Haven, Melrose, Claremont, Belmont, Fordham, and Williamsbridge, and have an average density of 98.6 persons per acre. This is a density nearly twice that of the RBB, meaning that far more people will be served. Why and how? Density is how, as you'll have seen above, you determine how many people stand to benefit from transit expansion of any kind; therefore, it is extremely linked with cost. Density, or the lack of it, is the reason there's no push to build rapid transit services through countryside: the cost remains the same as in the city, but much less of that cost is ever going to come back through revenue. And while that may be an exaggerated example, the point still stands. While the RBB might be cheaper than Third or Utica because the ROW is already there, that doesn't mean anything if the line isn't going to be carrying anyone. And this brings me to my next and final point. This is often used as justification for the RBB extension; because the Q52/53 buses are often crowded, the subway line should naturally be built. The RBB corridor, and the Woodhaven Boulevard corridor that the Q52/53 buses serve, are not one and the same. At the respective corridors' northern ends in Rego Park, the RBB and Woodhaven are nowhere near each other, and while the RBB cuts through a relatively sparse residential area, the buses are serving a denser residential and commercial corridor, where more people are both getting on transit from their homes as well as getting off transit to go to jobs. Even where they are closest, the RBB and the Boulevard maintain a distance of several blocks away from one another, just enough to make walking a pain. Even if a transfer to the were built, it would be closer to 104th instead of the busier Woodhaven station - not to mention how much of a pain this transfer would be both to build and to use. People take buses on Woodhaven Blvd for different reasons - but more importantly, for more reasons - then they would use a train on the RBB route. If the ROW in question was closer or directly next to the the denser and more commercial boulevard, this might be a different story. But the RBB is purely residential, and not dense residential either. As far as rapid transit expansions go in my mind, it's at the back of the line.

I've though that the Bronx would do well with an LRT system to improve crosstown, as well as some radial, journeys. The only problem I see really is street space. I don't have an issue with reallocating street space to LRT; without a decent ROW that avoids traffic conflicts as much as possible, LRT is only going to be expensive slow transportation. The other thing I fear about LRT in New York is ending up with one orphaned line that doesn't have a place in a greater network, but the Bronx has several corridors that could do well as light rail. Other than Fordham, a good place to start (as you suggested somewhat) would be making an LRT system out of the Washington Heights - Bronx bus routes. They're well used, all fold in to a single trunk line, and have good subway connections. I made a map a while ago of what this would look like; it also includes some other Bronx routes that would complete a grid system of LRTs through the borough. I'm not sure how feasible grade-separation would be along 181st Street or on Fordham Road, but as @bobtehpanda wrote above, a system following the model of the Boston Green Line or the MUNI Metro could work here.

I was also in favor of LRT in the beginning, and I'm sure it could work. What started this whole subway debate in the first place was the apparent need for grade-separation of the LRT line along the narrower western portion of Fordham Road. Reallocating street space to give the LRT its own reserved path is perfectly possible, but often popular - though the busyness and importance of the Fordham corridor could change that. This is one of the reasons that I'm not in favor of having an Eighth Avenue Line extension - whatever designation the new service is given - serve Fordham Road. As for the , I don't think that the addition of the Fordham branch will cause reliability to tank on the 7th Avenue Local. The and would essentially be the same line, only branching near the northern end of the route on the outskirts of the CBD. That is perfectly acceptable service planning, and, as has been mentioned above, would eliminate the need for the short-turns at 137th and provide more service between 137th and 207th Streets. The third track thing isn't a big factor for me; I don't think that s, or s for that matter, need to use the third track at all. Now for runtime: the runtime of the from South Ferry to Bay Plaza would not be much longer than the current runtime to Van Cortlandt, and would fall within the 80-minute guideline. The is scheduled to take 54 minutes in the AM peak to make the northbound trip, meaning it will reach 207th Street in about 47. At a 20 mph average speed, the 5.5 mile journey across Fordham and Pelham will take 16.5 minutes; therefore, the full journey time is 65 minutes. Even with minor delays due to dwell time and other factors, the runtime is still perfectly acceptable. The junction at the proposed alignment would be just north of the 207th stop, and no, it wouldn't be level. While that would simplify construction, we could build a junction identical to the one on the at Rockaway Blvd, where the middle track is used to handle the new line in one direction, and the elevated is expanded outward by one track. The diverging tracks dip below the main line and make the right turn. This, as well as the tunnel portal, can be built fully within MTA property at the 207th St Yard. If residents object to an elevated in the Pelham Parkway median, cut-and-cover could be done relatively easily; otherwise, the tunnel portal there will be built on city land in the parkway median.

SAS as its being built (and planned) will not be able to support three northern branches (one to 125th and Lex, and two via Fordham) on the two tracks it has, if we assume reasonable peak TPH. Even if four tracks are built south of 63rd Street, which is a fine idea, the upper half will be double-tracked, unless express tracks are built below the existing ones. At that point, the total cost for the Fordham line has gone through the roof and is contingent upon other long-delayed and now-unplanned capital projects being completed. You're right about the potential operational issues with an extension, but the lets us build a Fordham-Pelham subway line without dependence on other projects and without operational or capacity headaches.

How important is this? The and are relatively parallel through Upper Manhattan and Midtown, though they cross each other a couple of times. The has going for it that it better serves the heart of Inwood on Broadway, but that's not far from the either. And the better serves the larger main commercial areas of Washington Heights by running under St Nicholas Avenue, while the skirts around that on residential Fort Washington. Poorer single train capacity, maybe, but far higher frequency potential. I'd rather have an IRT train every 4 minutes than an IND one every 8 or 10. But as I brought up above, the is simply not that much slower than the - only 2 minutes slower to Columbus Circle and 3-4 minutes slower all the way to Chambers. Yes, part of that is a consequence of timers, but even with express trains going as fast as possible, the is still only going to be a few minutes slower. And as for the number of additional people on the 7th Avenue Line, I don't actually think Fordham will add all that much. It's really only people west of the Concourse or Jerome, and those whose destinations are on the Upper West Side, who will use the line as a radial to Manhattan; that's just fine, as that isn't the service that a Fordham crosstown line is ever going to excel at providing.

You're absolutely right about the Broadway Line - but is that really a precedent that future subway expansions should follow? The merges on the northern part of the Broadway line are nothing if not a massive inhibitor of potential capacity to Broadway's northern branches. My logic in extending the is that it doesn't require us to shuffle around capacity immediately, only if a large service increase (above 15 TPH) to Fordham becomes a necessity. Even then, any changes in capacity are limited to the (and proposed ) lines, whereas the is already a delicate balance of capacity between its own branches, as well as the and lines. Having discussed the merits (in my mind), above and in earlier posts, of the extension, why is the a superior choice? What would an extension of the (or ) line bring to riders on Fordham Road and Pelham Parkway that the / extension wouldn't?

People value frequency more than physical capacity. This is the same argument against the MTA cutting service on a bus route when they employ artics; the ability to show up at a stop and get service quickly means more to the majority of riders than how long the train or bus is. Capacity increases from vehicle size and service frequency should go hand in hand, and are not mutually exclusive. Also, a train every 8 minutes at 6 AM might work, at 8 AM, when the majority of riders are trying to use the system, it won't work as well. The capacity crunch during rush hour exists before trains could get to Euclid; namely, it is between 145th and 59th where the shares with the , and between Canal and Hoyt where the shares with the . Short-turning at Euclid or 2nd Avenue could work on weekends or overnight, though.

As we've pointed out, the crowding on the line extends beyond Central Park West to other Eighth Avenue and Fulton stops, which the would do little to help. Why slow down the ride for people coming from the Concourse line, which already makes a lot of stops to get out of the Bronx, when the better solution its simply to add a couple more trains per hour to the line?

Both are within walking distance of the busier line.

Yeah, probably right, though CBTC on Lexington would be great for the line and should be accelerated. What about, then, adding new IRT cars to the R211 order? Yes, A and B Division cars are different dimensions, but could be built with identical or near-identical characteristics otherwise - like the R124A and R143. It would be a good way to kill two birds with one stone, and the MTA could simultaneously upgrade the R142s and R142As to the standards of the 211s. And the open gangways would help out with the crowding conditions on much of the IRT.

The only thing the has going for it over the is service to Atlantic Terminal, which isn't a big deal anyway as Atlantic is served by numerous other lines. I'm not sure what weekends are like on Sixth Avenue or Brighton, but added service will probably be more of a help, since the majority of Brighton riders are coming from local stops, and the is being added to Sixth Avenue weekends starting next year.

I've been thinking about this recently; the MTA are going to end up in a sticky situation regarding A Division rolling stock as they install CBTC. How feasible would it be to do a large-scale GOH project on the R62/R62As to bring them up to NTT standards and make them CBTC-capable? They're not that old, and the bodyshells should have lots of miles left on them if the components such as motors and compressors were replaced. This should cost less, and take less time, than an order of new rolling stock.

Yep - that sums up the last 18 hours of service. A track fire at DeKalb screwed up yesterday evening, and another track fire this morning at Bedford crippled the whole morning rush (I had to take the instead).

Or why service should just be increased. Because it serves Penn Station and Port Authority, where a lot of people are entering the city, as well as Central Park West, which is a destination for many of them, it seems like a more logical place to start adding more service. As well as that, the Fulton corridor's growth has outpaced the current service levels on the . If the returns on weekends, but the keeps its abysmal headways, the trains will still run crowded and the problem we're talking about here won't be solved.

The isn't that slow, and the isn't that fast. According to Citymapper, the is only 2 minutes slower than the from 207th to 59th, and 3 minutes slower from 207th to Chambers Street. Sorry, I wrote Norwood where I meant to write Inwood. Deinterlining would give you more capacity, but the logical solution in my mind is that the take Washington Heights and CPW local, and the take Concourse and CPW express; at that point you might have more capacity, but you'd have the same length problem on a from Coney Island to Co-Op City as you do with the . This is what I was thinking as well. Remember it's also capped to a combined 26 TPH with the through Cranberry. You pointed out 7 TPH service to Lefferts going to Fordham as being inadequate, and that's just for rush hour (not to mention, those headways are often uneven due to the merges). Middays and weekends, the mainline runs ten minute headways (6 TPH), and the branches only run every 20 minutes. A subway under Fordham that only runs 3 TPH won't do a thing to take pressure off of the Bx12. You could run trains that short-turn at Dyckman Street, but those trains would conflict with other services.

I'm also not a regular weekend rider on Central Park West, but when I have taken it, the trains are not empty. Particularly the lower half of CPW (72nd, 81st, 86th) gets a lot of ridership, mostly among tourists going to various places in Central Park, as well as the museums (AMNH, obviously, at 81st, but people also walk to the Met from there). The on weekends is often standing-room-only on weekend afternoons in both directions between 34th/42nd and Central Park West. On top of that, its pretty well-used heading downtown towards Fulton, also mostly tourists. I don't know enough to tell you whether they are technically overcrowded, but more service would certainly be welcome. The might have higher ridership because it carries people from a wider area, but it also skips over the CPW stops that are weekend tourist destinations.

Why not put SBS on the M14A and D? Those routes, especially the D, get plenty crowded and would do well with off-board fare payment. It seems silly to just have one M14 SBS service, considering that crosstown SBS routes rarely skip stops anyway, and will likely be a prime cause of confusion for people who don't know whether to buy a ticket or not. It shouldn't be just riders getting improved buses; this is an opportunity to improve travel for all on the 14th Street buses, which are very busy with or without the train, and which will continue being busy after the shutdown is over an there's no need for the bus to the ferry. I'm not an expert on bus conditions in Staten Island, but the S53 seems like a decent candidate for SBS. Frequent and popular services on a relatively straight route (like the 53) tend to be the best choices for bus improvement, and are often the routes where improvements are most needed.

Having considered extensions of the , , , and lines, as well as a light rail system, to serve the Fordham Road - Pelham Parkway corridor, I think that the superior option is a branch of the Broadway-7th Avenue line, as a resurrection of the designation without the old skip-stop service. The new line would branch off of the north of the 207th Street stop, with a new tunnel portal built in the 207th St Yard. The tunnels would pass under the river and follow 190th Street, with a station at University Avenue, and under Grand Concourse, connecting to the and and running underneath Fordham Road. From there, it would continue with stops at Fordham Plaza with a connection to MNRR and at Southern Blvd for the Bronx Zoo. The tunnels would run straight under Bronx Park, meeting Pelham Parkway where the line would then run elevated - stopping at White Plains Road for the , Esplanade for the , and Eastchester Road to serve the hospitals. Then, it would follow the ROW of the Northeast Corridor to a shared subway and MNRR stop at Co-Op City, where a station is planned as part of Penn Station Access. This is where the line will terminate; perhaps we could also examine a extension to a nearby location, creating a sort of transit hub to serve the area. I think that this balances the need for subway-level capacity on the corridor with the cost-effectiveness of using elevated structures wherever possible. There are, naturally, a few disadvantages that I can think of: 1. The would likely be a faster ride downtown, though, as I said earlier, the majority of riders going further downtown would have transferred to faster lines such as the and already. 2. While track capacity should be fine on the , the terminal capacity at South Ferry raises questions. The new station can apparently support 24 TPH; balanced evenly between Fordham and Van Cortlandt, this only allows a maximum of 12 TPH to serve Fordham. It would be feasible, though, to increase southern terminal capacity by terminating some trains at Rector and running OOS around the loop, and/or speeding up terminal procedures at South Ferry. The reason I choose the over the is because of track capacity and anticipated reliability. The already suffers from uneven headways and low reliability due to its merges, two or three branches, and Cranberry tube constraints. Because of that, I am wary of making the any longer than it is today. The has no track sharing with other lines, and is not terribly long. Also, under a totally de-interlined system, which would increase reliability and frequency, it would make sense to send the to Norwood, via CPW local. At that point, the ride downtown is just as slow as the , and the route would also be too long. This is a map showing the alignment of the proposed line, and the new stations: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1_O77SCCsOavlDMY0YTP8GBhjyNNF2uhJ&ll=40.79594693211451%2C-73.91882120000002&z=11 Thoughts?

I would think so - very few people are going to utilize a circuitous one-seat ride from most places on the Fordham corridor to downtown going via Inwood, when there are numerous radial lines you'll intersect first that will get you to Manhattan faster (unless you're coming from the extreme western end of Fordham). In that case, because I do agree about the grade separation on the western section of Fordham, what about an LRT line similar to a German Stadtbahn system like the Frankfurt Metro? A short tunnel could carry the line between University Heights and Bronx Park, where the line can have its own ROW in the median of Pelham Parkway. This would save quite a bit of money both in the construction of light rail tunnels, which are cheaper than subway ones, and in the use of a surface ROW for nearly half of the route. And because that section of Pelham Parkway has few intersections, the lack of grade-separation shouldn't slow the line down too much, especially if some form of traffic signal priority is in place. If the Fordham line is built as a subway, most people will still be transferring to different lines - either the , , , or - as the majority of riders on the corridor would be west of Jerome Avenue, the last radial line before Manhattan. The only people truly benefiting in terms of the ease of their journey by a direct connection are people going from somewhere on Fordham Road to an station in Upper Manhattan.

That could be handled by extending the upper level platforms at 50th across the local tracks so they meet the express ones, making 50th Street an stop. This of course only applies to people going from Central Park West to 50th and 8th, which I'd assume is a relatively small number to begin with, and either way, would involve a cross-platform transfer: either from the to the at 59th (if 50th is modified) or the to the at 53rd and 7th.

You wonder if the MTA looks into crew availability, merges, fleet availability, and budgeting when changing service patterns? They're the ones making the plan in the first place...