mrsman

In April, I posted the above as a doomsday scenario at the beginning of the COVID crisis. My point wasn't to address a full scale collapse of the system as we are discussing now, but rather to conserve resources to weather the storm. My focus was more on eliminating individual stations, rather than eliminating whole lines, with the idea that every neighborhood would still basically get service, even if they had to walk a little further to get it. The inspiration for the above was that Philly and DC closed a few stations in their systems in order to conserve resources. If you close 20% of the stations, you don't need to clean them on a regular basis and the staffing needed would be minimal. It's far less of a sacrifice then my more recent post, but it's an interesting comparison when looking more broadly at doomsday scenarios as the board is currently doing.

An interesting topic. Here is my ultimate doomsday scenario: Reduced service frequencies. No service south of 14th Street. Reduced service frequencies. No service south of Times Square. Eliminated. Reduced service frequencies. Local service in Brooklyn terminating at Flatbush Ave. Reduced service frequencies. Service from both White Plains and Dyre Ave maintained. Local service in Brooklyn terminating at New Lots. Reduced service frequencies. eliminated. Otherwise unchanged. Reduced service frequencies. eliminated. Otherwise unchanged. Reduced service frequencies. Runs local in Brooklyn. Service to Far Rockaway. Lefferts and Rockaway Park served by buses. Eliminated. Reduced service frequencies. Concourse local run at all times, CPW local, 8th Ave local. South of Jay Street, will service the Culver line. Eliminated. Reduced service frequencies. Otherwise unchanged. Eliminated. Eliminated. Reduced service frequencies. No service south of Chambers. No skip stop service. Reduced service frequencies. Half of rush hour trains will short turn at Myrtle/Wyckoff. Reduced service frequencies. No service to Midtown, terminates at Chambers. Reduced service frequencies. From 179th, QBL express service, 63rd street tunnel, Broadway express to West End line. Reduced service frequencies. Otherwise unchanged. Reduced service frequencies. From Forest Hills, QBL local service, 60th street tunnel, Broadway local to Sea Beach line. Service to Bay Ridge via bus. All shuttles eliminated. Reduced service frequencies. Astoria - Broadway local service terminating at Whitehall. Eliminated. To further account for budget decreases, certain stations on each remaining line will be shut entirely, and others will be shut during off-peak hours. Walk to nearest open station.

Can something like you suggest be done somewhat more simply without the wye? (M): Either starting in Queens with a 63-2 Ave link or starting at the 55th st station on the SAS mainline, this train goes down SAS and then links over to the Williamsburg Bridge. I think part of the connection between the Williamsburg Bridge and the 6th Ave line can be repurposed for this connection. From Bronx or 125th/Broadway down 2 Ave through Grand Street and then to Chambers* and then continuing down the Nassau line into Brooklyn. While this means that does not have access to Canal, it does provide an easy cross-platform transfer to and then all of the transfers that can be found at Chambers and Fulton. : From the Williamsburg Bridge, the path will not change, other then some track changes north of Chambers so that and merge tracks at that point and then continue south, with terminating at Broad. : From the Williamsburg Bridge, the path will not change, other then some track changes north of Chambers so that terminates at Chambers with as little interference with the as possible. So maybe the will run on the inner tracks of Centre while the and run on the outer tracks. The will terminate at Chambers. As far as colors go, I prefer J and Z staying brown to denote Centre/Nassau line trains that do not go up 2 Ave. There arrangement of the trains in such a manner will necessitate some changes in their operation in Brooklyn, as J and Z are no longer equivalent trains in Manhattan. I will follow your suggestion regarding running the J peak express between Broadway Junction and Marcy on weekdays, while running the Z local alongside the M. * I believe there must be a feasible way of routing trains from Chambers to Grand without too much new digging. The old Nassau loop somehow went from Chambers to the Manhattan Bridge, I believe following Centre and Canal. If part of this pathway is still available, trains could take it and then head north toward Grand street station instead of turning south toward the bridge. If that's not possible, then a new tunnel should be dug deep bore to make the connection, perhaps using Park Row for part of the route.

There's a lot one could do with the Nassau line, even if all of the Williamsburg bridge trains go to 6th Avenue or even if we terminate one or both services at Chambers. Let's look at the possibilities. Assume all Williamsburg bridge trains go uptown and the SAS is not routed at all on Nassau. As others have said, the best case scenario here would be to have a new train from Essex to Broad continuing down the Montague tunnel as the 4th Ave local. Willamburg bridge riders will have direct access to the (B)(D) and can transfer to the new for all downtown service at Essex, have access to and and at Broadway-Laffayette and at W4th. These trains provide good service to all parts of Midtown. A new transfer to the at Prince is also possible as it is close to Broadway-Lafayette. The only trunk lines that would be tricky to transfer to would be 1,2,3 and the SAS (which presumably would run to Grand Street, but there is no current stop on the current line routing to there). But as it is, I doubt that any current train rider goes to Fulton if they are headed for the midtown (A)(C)(E), it would seem to make more sense to just transfer to and then make the ACE transfer at W4th. Under this scnerio, Williamsburg Bridge people can do that same transfer and make only the transfer at W4th - one transfer instead of two. And if anyh Williamsburg Bridge customer is headed towared a 7th Ave IRT destination in Manhattan, they would likely just walk from a nearby 6th Ave or 8th Ave station. Assuming we have one Will Bridge line going to 6th Ave, and one terminating at Chambers - kind of like today's service, except we terminate at Chambers instead of Broad. riders can then transfer at Chambers to and to go further Downtown or to whatever takes over the Nassau line (presumably the SAS) at Chambers. riders will still have connections to Broadway trains at Canal , but will miss the direct connections to (2)(3)(A)(C). Presumably service on the SAS and the 6th Ave express can be reached with a new transfer from Bowery to the Grand street station. As I said in the previous paragraph, I can't imagine many midtown bound passengers to the 23AC would go all the way down to Fulton to avoid transferring more directly to those lines via the , so most of those destinations can be reached either by walking from an station or taking the and transferring at W4th. I can't imagine realistically that a new service pattern would cut off both Midtown and Downtown from all Williamsburg Bridge riders, basically cutting off the current routing and forcing all Will bridge trains to stop at Chambers. If that were done, yes, we would push all of those people to make transfers. They would still have transfer access at Essex to the 6th Ave local, a new transfer at Bowery could provide transfers to the 6th Ave express and the SAS, transfers at Canal to the Broadway trains and . Agreed that this would make the connections to 23AC even more difficult requiring a hard transfer at Essex and then another transfer at W4th. But even that would be better than simply rerouting all Williamsburg Bridge trains to SAS, as the Williamsburg Bridge passengers would only have access to SAS and transfer access to 6th Avenue trains. No direct access to Broadway or Lexington trains. A hard transfer at 2Av/houston or Essex to 6th Avene trains and then a second transfer at W4th for 8th Ave trains. Not a good idea. Bottom line - if one or both Williamsburg Bridge line maintains direct Midtown access to 6th Ave, access to basically all of Manhattan can be maintained with one additional transfer and some extra walking. Downtown along the Nassau line could also be reached with one transfer and direct access to Fulton would not be necessary.

I agree with your assessment on San Francisco. I would hope that the J-Church could be combined with the F-Market to allow for the people on Church to have direct access to the surface trolley route into Downtown SF. The J passengers could also still transfer to the underground lines for a faster trip. [At crowded times, J passengers may avoid the subway and stay on the surface routing on Market.] I could also see L-Taraval going back into the tunnel (and maybe replacing the S). It would mean three tunnel services (instead of the old 5): L-Taraval to Embarcardero, M-Ocean View/T-Third combination as proposed by SFMTA, N-Judah to Caltrain as currently exists (pre-COVID). Perhaps the K-Ingleside can be bustituted. Five services was simply too much for this tunnel, especially if three of them turned back at Embarcardero. swap can work if the number of trains servicing each line gets adjusted. I agree that we do not want to cut service drastically on 63rd. You can still run some trains to QBL, but perhaps fewer and to allow more and and . The extra do not need to go to Brooklyn, they can go to 2 Ave/Houston and terminate there. Alternatively, the extra can be called or and provide extra Culver service. The extra can be full length trains if they do not go to the Williamsburg Bridge. The idea is that the every QBL express will continue onto 53rd, and conversely every 53rd train continues onto QBL express. This will eliminate significant merging delays for the express trains. I would say the following may work: 18 TPH, 12 TPH to Jamaica Center, 6 TPH express to 179th 12 TPH 13 TPH, 10 TPH to Middle Village, 3 TPH to 2nd/Houston 7 TPH (or local ) to be increased by 4 TPH to maintain existing service on Broadway local. If I were to address issues on Broadway as well, I would have service, at 14 TPH, be the sole Astoria service. R would terminate at Whitehall and W would continue to Bay Ridge. Ideally, the service pattern on the Broadway local would be: W,W,R ,W,W,R. would be a Broadway express and go to 96th/2 Ave.

This is good. I'm glad they are publicizing an official list with features present at each station.

San Francisco should be an interesting case study. But the general approach is to make it better operationally better for the trains so that the Market street tunnel can run efficiently. But the cost of doing that is to force more people to transfer. As stated by others, we can see if this works. Certainly in some circumstances, you can employ some elements of deinterlining in the NYC subway system at the cost of increasing a transfer on the trip of some passengers. Many threads in the past on this forum (including mine) have provided some suggestions on doing so. I guess the lesson from SF is that you can't push five services down the same tunnel. Some service streamlining is necessary. NY should proabably do something similar.

Exactly. It shows a lot of poor decision making process in Albany. Its also likely that the Senator and Assemblymember who sponsored the bill did not have thorough conversations with the right people at MTA. Someone should have mentioned how confusing it would be to have two stations in a row with the same name. The fact that it got passed once proposed is not surprising, as these seemingly local gestures are routinely passed with near unanimity. It's probably viewed in the same context as renaming a post office at the federal level -- if Cong. A wants to rename the PO after a local veteran, why would anyone else object? Especially in today's climate anybody else in the legislature who would say, it's a bad idea to rename two stations in a row for MEC would be seen negatively, even though the point is sound.

Not going into the politics of it, just for the sake of transit operations, it is not a good move. Legislature requires it, so it has to be done. But we can still criticize this legislation as being unnecessary for many reasons. But if you're doing it, it makes no sense whatsoever to do it to two stations. As far as I'm aware no other college has two stations based on the map. Even if there is a good reason to apply the name to Franklin, I can't justify doing it to President as well. It's further from the campus and it only meets two of the four lines that already go to Franklin and Franklin is an express station and even has a transfer to S. City College is closer to 135th on and then the 137th-City College station on . Perhaps it isn't named on the IND because it is across a park from the campus, but this would be a good choice. While the main/older buildings of NYU are closest to 8th street, there are some parts of campus that are closer to W4th, yet NYU is only applied to 8th street. The law school, the Kimmel student center, and the library are all closer to W4th street. NYU and City College are far bigger and also have good reason to have two stations (on two totally separate lines [and systems]). Not saying that they should go through the expense now, but it would be more sensible to give NYU and City College two stations over Medgar Evars College.

This sounds quite interesting. Jamaica Center trains skip stop and then run express along Broadway Brooklyn. Locals starting at E Pkwy to Manhattan (or are they required to start on the Canarsie line, would be concerned about interference with ). Middle Village trains also running local on Broadway Brooklyn. This could work really well. Then, when these trains get to Manhattan, some could go up 6th Ave and some could go down to Broad Street. Perhaps if there are 6 , 6 that run express but go to Broad. Then, the remaining trains 6 and 6 K [from E Pkwy] will go to 6th Ave (and eventually QBL local). Then again, that is a service increase not a decrease, so it won't pan out financially,

I like this. If were express along Broadway Brooklyn, it can probably accommodate longer trains because the express stops have longer platforms. Another alternative to get the same service pattern would be a train from Bwy Jct - Forest Hills, Metropolitan to Broad St, Jamaica Ctr to Broad St. Cancel .

MTA needs a far better EXPRESS nighttime bus service. If something were planned better, they could probably accommodate the nighttime users.

Google already has partnerships with many transit agencies as well. You can get transit directions and in many cases it can also provide you with schedule information.

Not only is the name unnecessary, it also makes the station names way too long. And with respect to the 2 and 5, you put in place two stations in a row with the same destination. For this reason alone, the name change should only go to Franklin Ave, which seems to be closer to the school anyway.

Stuff like this already happens on highways. You can pull up Google Maps or waze and see that construction and accidents get reported and you can see the exact locations of such incidents. No reason that something similar couldn't be shown on a digital map and on the MTA's website. Whether the MTA is interested in developing this (or working with a contractor to develop this) is another story.

I don't think he was referring to the electronic roll sign, which can be changed at will. The older roll signs were definitely had an order and it does take time to roll to the proper sign

Is that supposed to be a branch off the 2nd Ave line?

It certainly true that people are favoring 57th as a subway corridor because it is a wider street. And it really is close to practically every trunk subway line, except as it is conceivable to make transfers from it to every 57th or 59th street station in the system. I would only favor connecting this to NJ if there was full fare integration between subway and PATH, because I think 57th is more valuable as a corridor to serve Queens, since a 57th line could potentially service Queens Plaza, especially if the is displaced from Queens Blvd.

They don't cross each other. But if one were to build a short tunnel connecting the 63rd St tunnel to the 11th St cut, you have the potential of routing all QBL expresses to 53rd street and all QBL locals to 63rd street, while maintaining that all QBL trains service Queens Plaza. This will mean that all the local stations on the QBL between Roosevelt and Queens Plaza will have direct access to 63rd and cross-platform access to 53rd, on a deinterlined system, without the need to go the reverse direction to Roosevelt. Among other ideas, Nerdy Nel imagines such a possibility on the bottom of this page. (Search for 11th Street) https://nerdynel.me/2019/02/13/nytip103bwayqb/

This usage of the diamond was a great simplification for the reading of the map and utilization of the services. Currently the only services utilizing the diamond are and . They both are peak directional expresses as they run on three track lines (on they take the long view of peak). As one utilizes the system and one rides outbound trains toward the outermost stations one has to be careful for regularly scheduled variances. Some trains short turn and don't go all the way to the normal terminal, so listen for the train's destination. There could be any number of emergency reroutes, but then there are some unusual things that also happen regularly. Some trains go to Nereid and not Dyre. Some trains are Hillside expresses to 179 and do not serve Parsons/Archer. Some 6th Avenue or Broadway trains, other than end up at 96th and 2 Ave (usually the weekend ). Some trains get sent to New Lots. And, of course, trains can end up at Far Rockway, Lefferts, or Rockaway Park. The last one bothered me the most since the variant was basically all day (as opposed to just rush hours or just weekends), so I have felt that the Lefferts should be renamed with a different letter, like or , to distinguish it from the JFK/Rockaway services but this was never adopted. Some people on this forum have proposed a service variant of which would be a Culver line express (and meets the criteria of the above), but would also provides for a unique variant. If were moved from 63rd to 53rd, and were run on 63rd, there needs to be a variant of service to allow for a QBL local - 63rd - 6 Ave service that continues onto Culver [and not to the Williamsburg Bridge] so that there won't be a service cut to 63rd and that the number of trains to Culver is maintained. Some have termed this as an but given that it's local, the designation would be confusing. So perhaps a new orange letter like K or would make more sense.

That might be a feasible way for doing work like adding switches between parallel express and local tracks. The only qn is whether the signals allow for running trains in the reverse direction.

I think that is fine and good and may explain why the subway should not run down 1st Ave or Ave A. But let's say that the SAS were to run from Grand St station under Chrystie, and then hit Houston, 14th, 23rd, make its way over to 3rd Avenue somewhere between 23rd and 34th, then hit 34, 42, 52, 62, along 3 Ave, and then move back along 2 Ave to hit 72, 86, and 96 and from hence northward. From Grand Street to 23rd you are going straight and not losing any distance. You merely move over one avenue to the west to be closer to the heart of Midtown (and to provide very important connections to the crosstown subways at 42, 53, 60, and 63) and then move back one avenue to continue north and service the eastern part of the Upper East Side. This still seems like an efficient path. This also will be that much closer to Grand Central to pick up some of the downtown passengers coming from there. The crosstown subways will allow connections to all services in Queens and provide transfers to and to subways servicing 6th Ave, 8th Ave, and Broadway. While it is nice to think that we can get both a 3 Ave and a 2 Ave subway, I don't see that as realistic. It is better to have and running from Bronx or West 125th, down the current SAS, and continuing to the south in such a way as to get as many transfers as it can. With regard to the comment that there won't be enough trains running if and are also running on the current SAS, I agree. So if there is no budget for a new tunnel to Queens, we may have to terminate at 57th and send to Astoria so that all trains on the upper SAS can continue onto the lower SAS via the Third Ave route (to maximize connections).

It is nice that the narrowest part of Manhattan on the East Side, at least between 125th and Canal, is in the heart of Midtown. A subway along 3 Ave servicing the area between 42nd and 63rd will allow transfers to all 4 crosstown subways (and all 4 subway tunnels to Queens) and still be a close walk to all points to the east to the river. Where manhattan bulges out, the subway can also move to the east to be able to service the edges of the Lower east side and alphabet city. A subway like that will have all of the eastern part of Manhattan within its walkshed, while maintaing very important connections.

Is there any possibility of branching off the SAS somewhere between 72nd and 63rd such that the could have a station between 59th and 63rd along Third Ave? If that were accomplished, then maybe the new station will connect to at 63rd and at 60th. In that sense, you create a grand NE Midtown station, improving the connection for to the Lexington line via the new platform and providing one place where everyone from the Upper East Side, Astoria, and anybody coming from the 63rd St tunnel could all transfer to SAS (along 3 Av), Lexington, Broadway, and 6th Ave (local) service. Furthermore, if the had a better connection to East Midtown (to Lex and SAS trains), there may be the possibility of better organizing the trains to/from Queens so that all 60th street trains go to Astoria, all 53rd street trains go to QBL local and all 63rd street trains go to QBL express. The only down side to all of this that I see is that we would still be running Broadway express trains and SAS trains at half-capacity because the two lines join as one line to service 2nd Ave between 72nd and 96th. One partial solution to this problem is providing a third track on the Third Ave platform of the new station so that half of the SAS trains can short turn there, so that there is full service on the SAS from 59-63 all the way to downtown.

I agree with this. For service that is headed to Midtown, I assume that most people on those lines would transfer to so as not to have to head south to then turn back and go north. Along the , one can transfer at W4th for 8th Ave services. Do people on the J/Z really go all the way to Fulton so that they can transfer to A/C or 2/3 if they are headed to West Midtown? Given the track layout, even if the lower part of Nassau is taken over by SAS, J/Z can still run to Chambers. In Manhattan, the J/Z will maintain connections to the following lines: at Essex, all Broadway trains and at Canal, and all Lexington trains at Chambers. If a transfer were built, there can also be a connection to at Grand/Bowery. Depending upon the configuration of the SAS, there should be a direct transfer to the SAS as well. I see two possibilities for connecting Nassau tracks to SAS, both of which preserve J/Z service to Chambers. The first has SAS running down 2 Ave (or 3rd Ave) south of 14th, connecting with at Houston, B/D at Grand, and then somehow making its way to the Chambers station providing a transfer to J/Z and 4/5/6 and continuing south. Part of the alignment may repurpose the old tracks that took Nassau trains to the Manhattan Bridge and I definitely see most of the route being dug under Park Row. The second possibility provides for a connecting track from the outer tracks at Kenmare street to Bowery (for 3rd Ave) or Chrystie (for 2nd Ave). This also preserves J/Z service to Chambers along the inner tracks of the Centre street line. This will allow SAS to have transfers to Canal and the Broadway trains connections to the Manhattan Bridge, but will preclude the connection to Grand Street and the 6th Ave connections to the Manhattan Bridge. So there is a trade-off. Nevertheless, both options provide a lot of connections for the SAS in Lower Manhattan and allow the J/Z to run to Chambers. Both options also limit new tunneling in the Financial District, which I am not convince is needed.