mrsman

There is definite benefit to reinstituting an express service from Forest Hills to 179th. There are so many bus riders from Eastern Queens that shouldn't have to sit on a train at every stop on this line. Instead of extending QBL locals to 179th, you can divide QBL express into three services, all three of which are express west of Forest Hills: 1) Express to 179, 2) Local to 179, and 3) Express to Jamaica Center. As far as 7th Ave station is concerned, if were CPW locals, there would be no need for transfers of CPW folks to the 8th Ave local. QBL locals can become 8th Ave expresses and service 50th st at the lower level.

Once you commit to taking Broadway trains off QBL, and commit that all QBL trains will serve only 6th and 8th Aves there are three options for QBL: 1) Deinterline with QBL express to 63-6Ave and QBL local to 53-8 Ave 2) deinterline with QBL express to 53-8Ave and QBL local to 63-6 Ave 3) A 36 St merge with express and local, all 8 Ave trains using 53 and all 6 Ave trains using 63. It is true that there would be some operational problems with the 36 St merge, but it does mean that every QBL station from 36 St east will have access to both 8th and 6th. If one were to deinterline QBL, between 1) and 2), 1) is preferred. The customers boarding at any of the local stations from 36 St to Grand Ave do not have to backtrack to Roosevelt at all. They would have direct access to 8th Ave, a transfer at Lexington/53 to (and a future SAS service) , and a transfer to 6th Ave services and at 7th Avenue. Other transfers can be provided as well. I support a Q Plaza - Qboro Plaza transfer to make for an easier transfer to Broadway local trains. The QBL express will directly service 6th Avenue, have a cross-platform transfer to Broadway exp trains at Lexington/63rd, hopefully have a better transfer to and Broadway locals. It is true though that QBL exp trains do not have an easy transfer to 8th Ave until W4, but at least north of 42nd, the stops along 8th Ave aren't too far from the Broadway BMT stops (within an avenue).

Hmm, I think that bobthepanda is referring to the fact that if we kept the 36St merge, it is something that is workable, not ideal, but still workable. Are you envisioning something like this: Jamaica Center - QBL express - 53 St 179 - QBL express - 63 St Forest Hills - QBL local - 53 St Forest Hills - QBL local - 63 St This would mean that there would be merges of / and / in the outbound direction and a merge of and in the inbound direction at 36 St. But, depending on the service pattern, no other merges. and will be together along 53 and 8 Ave and both will either be 8th Ave locals that stop at WTC or 8th Ave expresses that continue through the Cranberry Tunnel. (I prefer the latter since the QBL service has higher demand than the CPW serivce, plus if and are both 8thAve-CPW locals, all 8th Ave trains can serve 50 St.) and will be together along 63 and 6 Ave local all the way to Broadway-Laffayette, where the two currently split between access to Culver or the Williamsburg Bridge. and will remain on the 6th Ave express, but their service pattern on CPW (whether express or local) will depend on the ervice pattern of and . My preference is for and to both be CPW expresses and to run more and , as and will be limited due to the WTC terminal. While I prefer a deinterlining of QBL, I think this is a good system. It separates QBL from Broadway and can be used to eliminate every other reverse merge along the IND. If this servce pattern were adopted, I believe that a Qboro Plaza- Q Plaza transfer would no longer be necessary as every QBL passenger can simply use the or if they want Broadway service and make a cross-platform transfer at 63/Lex to (and if that is also routed to 2 AV/96 St). An improved transfer from 63/Lex to 59/Lex is still necessary to provide a connection to the (and also the Broadway-60 St locals). So under the above system, take or if your destination is along 8th Ave or 53 St or most parts of Lower Manhattan. Use or with a transfer at 7 Ave if headed to CPW. Use or if headed to 6 Ave, Broadway [transfer at 63/Lex], or Lexington Ave. If your destination is along , it is a crapshoot, but and do have the connection at WTC-Park Place and possibly at Fulton Street that might be better than using to 14 St, especially if your destination along the is in Lower Manhattan or Brooklyn. [Of course if your destination is along 7 Ave in Midtown, take any train and just walk a block from either 6 Ave or 8 Ave.]

Just a quick comment, I like the idea of shortturing at Qboro Plaza. You still maintain as many trains at Astoria as that terminal can handle, but the short turning will allow higher capacity along the Broadway local. Plus, it would mean a few trains starting empty at Qboro Plaza, leaving room for more people who are transferring from or from any trains at Queens Plaza, assuming that a Q Pz-Qboro Pz transfer is created.

In my view, a real reason to focus on deinterlining plans is because with a little political will, it is actually something that can happen in the near term. Extensions take many years and lots of money. For most deinterlining plans, they can be implemented in short order, maybe with the addition of a few new transfers and possibly the addition of a few track switches. Those types of changes are taking place and require $$ as opposed to the $$$$$$ for many of the other extensions here. I am unfortunately a realist and I don't expect any changes beyond the official SAS plans to even be on the drawing board for the next 30 years. But deinterlining can happen. And it can improve many commutes because it will allow more trains to flow. Yes, many customers willl probably be forced to have an additional transfer to their current commutes -- but the trains will be more frequent and less crowded, so it is a fair tradeoff.

A new what if topic - that might no be so fictional. In order to conserve resources due to the current coronavirus crisis, MTA will need to close 50 stations. Which stations get closed, while doing the very best to still serve as much of the city as possible and only slightly increasing the amount of walking that people do. Which stations should get closed, and what stations will people use instead? [Not so far fetched, see what is happening with Washington DC Metro, https://www.popville.com/2020/03/metro-dc-close-17-stations-wmata-washington/ ]

I'm a little bit behind on my reading, but so far this seems like a great plan. Well done.

One could run trains like that, but in my view it will have so much intermixing that it could be a lot of trouble to run efficiently.

Yes. My plan for deinterlining the current system is basically the above, if ignoring new construction on 2 Ave. After thinking about it multiple times, this does seem to be the best way to handle the northern part of the system. My post dealt with Queens, as it would be necessary to have the improved transfers in my post to function well - particularly improved transfers to Lex and Q Plaza - Qboro Plaza. CPW could function fine without new transfers. Yes, there will be a lot of transferring at Columbus Circle, but there already is a lot of transferring at Columbus Circle, and the station is built for it. Also, in my plan, both Concourse and Inwood branches would each have a 6 Av express and an 8 Av local. It is not a pure deinterlining, but given the way the tracks are laid out at 145th, such a configuration would work well.

Right. If you are west of Roosevelt, I would assume that the trains that serve your station are QBL locals to 53rd street tunnel as all the expresses will go to 63rd. You will have access to Q Plaza (and hopefully some transfer made to allow for those who need to access Qboro Plaza and the Broadway locals), your train will then continue to Court Square and then Lex. Yes, the transfer at 53/Lex is a terrible one, but it is doable. If you don't like it, you can use Qboro Plaza-Broadway local transfer to connect to Lex locals and expresses. Then, the 53rd street trains will continue as 8th Ave trains (probably expresses in a fully deinterlined plan). A transfer to 6th Ave trains will exist at 53/7Ave. and/or West 4th A transfer to all Broadways and 7th Avenue trains will exist at Port Authority-Times Square. So for Queens travelers, I do recommend a de-interlining, but it will come with improved transfers at key locations: Q Plaza - Qboro Plaza (this has been discussed elsewhere on these forums and yes may be difficult but it could encourage a walking transfer of some sort) 63/Lex - 59/Lex (this one is so obvious a walking tansfer is already provided - basically it will allow QBL express- 6 Ave a transfer to Lex locals and expresses, it also will necessarily connect to Astoria-Broadway locals and 2 Ave-Broadway expresses, I believe that part of the construction of the SAS should be used to further untangle this potential transfer to as many as 5 separate train services, depending upon final configuration of the SAS service pattern) 42nd Street. This is already planned and in construction. By connecting Bryant Park to Times Square, you have a free transfer (albeit with some walking) between every local and express along the "7", the shuttle, 8th Ave, 7th Ave, Broadway, and 6th ave. Basically every Manhattan train will connect here except Lexington trains, Nassau Street trains, the "L", and whatever trains run down 2nd Ave for SAS phase 3. With these measures, I believe a deinterlining will work for all the Queens lines. My idea is with the current system to have QBL express-63-6th Ave local; QBL local - 53 - 8th Ave express; Astoria - 60 - Broadway local. No intermixing. People will transfer to different lines by walking using existing transfers and the three transfers outlined above.

I totally agree with this sentiment, which is why I so strongly favor de-interlining. The devil, of course, is in the details as any deinterlining plan will always be criticized for not being able to handle this or that transfer or other group appropriately. But you know, the only way to reall get the most bang for the buck in our system is to run as many trains as possible. So you may have an additional transfer in your commute-- big deal. Running more trains would be the only way to actually deal with the demand.

Thank you for the comments. Yes, if 2 Ave takes over one side of the Manhattan Bridge, I believe it is necessary to not de-interline in Brooklyn. Many of the proposals of deinterlining that have all Brighton trains to Broadway and all 4 Ave expresses to 6th Ave (or vice versa) only work because the Broadway trains and the 6th Ave trains run only one block apart through most of Midtown. As 2 Ave is far from the Broadway line in Midtown, it would be better to live with a littile interlining in Brooklyn, and limiting some train flow, to provide the better world of connections. Presumably, a T line would run from the Bronx along 2 Ave to the Bridge and continue as the Brighton express. A V line would run along 125th Street, down 2nd Ave to the Bridge and continue as the West End line. N along the Sea Beach and Q along the Brighton local as today. The 8th Ave express, E and F trains, would serve Spring Street. New switches would be needed between Spring and W4 so the 8th Ave express can run on the local tracks south of W4 with no trains normally running on the express tracks. South of Canal, E and F would follow the path of the current C train to stop at Chambers and continue to Fulton Street. The WTC station would not be served, people in that area will walk to Chambers or Fulton for 8th Ave service. I don't have a set plan for the Manhattan stations of the J. Anyone in the Lower East Side, including those coming in from the Rutgers tunnel or the Willy Br would continue to W4 or Broadway-Laffayette to transfer to a Downtown service. I envision a new transfer to the Broadway local (Prince) and the existing transfer to the Lex local at B-L and the existing transfer to the 8th Ave express at W4. As the tracks under Nassau Street are available, if a better plan does not service, one possibility would be a track connection to the 6 train, so that 6 trains can service Fulton and Broad. This would help with some of the 4/5 congestion in Lower Manhattan. I guess, even if you do that, you could run some shuttle between Chambers and Delancey/Essex, but I don't see that much demand for that. Another possiblity is sending one of the 2nd Ave services down the Nassau tracks to terminate at Broad Street. So the Man Br N is only half served. Not ideal, but it may meet the demand better. There may not be a need for two service desingations along the Broadway local, assuming they all go to Bay Ridge. But if one of the 2nd Ave services goes downtown, then we will need two separate designations along the Broadway local, one to service Bay Ridge and the other to service Brighton locals. Brighton expresses and Sea Beach trains will use the bridge to Broadway express and West End trains will use the bridge to 2nd Ave. This does unfoturnatelly make a mess of Brooklyn, but IMO it is far better to deinterline Manhattan than to leave merging in Manhattan. I do linke the idea of allowing PATH to utilize some of the 6th Ave subway to reach 57/6. I think it can be done and it would be a great improvement for PATH customers to reach the new heart of Midtown, as there are more modern skyscrapers in the 40s and 50s than in the 30s. While I may not need two designations for the Broadway local, I absolutely need two designations for the other trains. I still envision some interlining at 145th Street in Upper Manhattan. This will provide an express and a local for both W Hts and Concourse branches but very importantly eliminate the merging at Columbus Circle: A 168th St Washington Heights- 8th Ave local - Rutgers B Inwood - CPW express- 6th Ave - Willy Bridge and then to Jamaica C Concourse local - 8th Ave local - Rutgers D Concourse express - CPW express - 6th Ave - Willy Bridge to Metropolitan E Forest Hills - QBL local - 53 - 8th Ave express- Fulton express to Lefferts and the Rockaways F Forest Hills - QBL local - 53 - 8th Ave express - Fulton local to Euclid Notice that I reinstate the original naming scheme of the IND by having norther terminals of AB in Manhattan, CD in Bronx, and EF in Queens. I suppose we can add in an H designation to differentiate between Lefferts adn Rockaway E trains. Also, if we need more capacity to service these trains, we can turn some trains at Quees Plaza (so that H trains don't make it all the way to Forest Hills).

IMO, it seems problematic to have 2 Ave split up in that way. 2 Ave has no hope of decongesting the Lex line unless there is at least one service running all the way from Harlem to at least Houston, if not into the Financial District. Some of your ideas are workable to an extant though. Let's take your ideas, but force 2 AV to be one line, we then have: CPW EXP - 6 AV EXP - Willy B CPW LCL - 8 AV LCL - WTC QBL LCL - 53 - 8 AV EXP - CRANBERRY QBL EXP - 63 - 6AV LCL - RUTGERS ASTORIA - BWAY LCL - MONTAGUE 2 AV - MAN BR N 57/7Av - BWAY EXP - MAN BR S OK, seven trunk line services, but 8th Ave local and Broadway express are necessarily limited since these two services do not leave the CBD on one end, (S end for 8 Av local and N end for Bwy express). So we can make an adjustment to the above by using the switches at W4 to move the 8th Ave local to the Houston St trancks toward the Rutgers tunnel. It will also mean that we can connect the Broadway express with the 63rd street tunnel to Queens. CPW EXP - 6 AV* - Willy B [B,D] CPW LCL - 8 AV LCL - W4 switch - RUTGERS [A,C] QBL LCL - 53 - 8 AV EXP - CRANBERRY [E,F] ASTORIA - BWAY LCL - MONTAGUE [R,W] (an alternate naming system would introduce a yellow M instead of W) QBL EXP - 63 - BWAY EXP - MAN BR S [N,Q] UPPER 2 AV - LOWER 2 AV - MAN BR N [T,V] (*This first line could be a 6th Ave express with a 6th Ave local line limited to the CBD running from 57/6 to WTC. But that would be largely superfluous, so just eliminate the 6th Ave local and run the express on all stops between W4 and 34. I would much rather have 6 lines run frequently than 7 lines slightly less frequently.) Other than a few switches, the above can be implemented without any new construction, except for phase 3 and 4 of SAS. Again, a critical element is to be sure that SAS will have good transfer connections in Midtown. Connecting to the Bridge will ensure good connections in Brooklyn.

One nice thing about doing this is that you can have a "deinterlining lite". I know that there is still some demand for service connecting to QB, largely to accommodate transfers to . So while maintaining some trains prevents full deinterlining, to the extent that you send most QB trains to 53rd and 63rd, and send most Bwy locals to Astoria, sending a small number of trains through from Bwy local to Queens Blvd will help address people's desires to maintain their transfers. And if it is only a small number of trains that make this connection, like 6 TPH, it won't gum up the works too much. My personal preference is to go for full deinterlining, and divorcing from Queens Blvd. Improved transfers at 63/Lex to 59/Lex would be necessary, though. It is just that much more efficient overall to avoid reverse branching, to the extent possible.

I wasn't thinking necessarily of LIRR towards Atlantic, as you correctly note the extra transfers may not be worth it. goes directly there and continues to Manhattan. And of course, one can also transfer to at Utica. But what about using the LIRR tracks to reverse commute, to Jamaica, JFK, and areas east. Granted, these areas aren't as big of job generators as Manhattan, but if you are heading to the LIRR and you live along the line somewhere east of Utica, you will use that transfer t o to reach LIRR. (If you are west of Utica, you will probably make your way to Nostrand Ave station or Atlantic station, even though you are heading east, overall.)

I would imagine (hope) that before embarking on such a project like this connection, MTA conducted a survey to determine how many people would actually use such transfer. If the transfer is particularly difficult, it may make more sense for people to use the bus connections (and/or a third train) to get where they are going, instead of transferring here. Then again, a transfer here may be more useful than simply determining how people will make their inbound commute. If some kind of improved service along the Atlantic branch of the LIRR were to happen (after ESA, more frequent Brooklyn-Jamaica runs, especially if the transfer were free), I could see a lot of riders, up and down the line transferring to in order to reach the fast train to Dntn Brooklyn or Jamaica. I don't think the tansfers would necessarily be limited to folks coming from the parts of east of Livonia or the parts of east of Junius.

In my view, if there is really no hope to get to the Bronx, then there is certainly no need to get to Astoria alone and it makes even more sense to route it, in some way, to LGA. The best way for Astoria to connect to the rest of Queens would be a transfer from Q Plaza to Qboro Plaza.

Looking at the ROW, it does seem that it would be better to connect to 74 St in Jackson Heights, as there are more transfer opportunities there. I wonder what people think of building a branch to LGA off of this line. North of Jackson Heights station area, a branch can follow the BQE to GC to LGA. This is not as good as a connection to the Astoria line, which I know is largely favored by people on here, but to me it seems to be a far better way to reach LGA than the Airtrain to Willets Point. It can connect to the QB express lines in Jackson Heights, for a quick trip to Manhattan. But it can also connect to all of the Brooklyn subways that will reach the Bay Ridge line, allowing people in Brooklyn to reach LGA without traveling to Manhattan. The idea is that a branch from Bronx (and Randalls Island) and Astoria will merge with a branch from LGA to form a trunk line from Jackson Heights to Bay Ridge via ENY and Brooklyn College. LGA is a real destination, so there would be traffic actually wanting this line, as opposed to using it merely as a circumferential to connect between two radials for trips between Eastern Queens and Southern Brooklyn.

I would like to see better connection for in Downtown Brooklyn, but given what others have said, they are probably infeasible.

The articles aren't very clear, but I assume the connection will be within fare control, right?

There definitely needs to be a way to utilize commuter rail assets for the sake of an in-city commutes, at the rate of in-city fares. But I'm not sure I like the approach taken by the author.

In the news, Transit is working on a transfer at Junius as well as a transfer between Times Square and the . What other transfers would you like to see being implemented? I would like to see full (within fare control) transfers from 63/Lex to 59/Lex, as well as a transfer from Queens Plaza to Queensboro Plaza. I believe that one or both of those would make it more palatable to deinterline Broadway and Queens Blvd. To the extent that there are walking out of system transfers, I wish that they would be true transfers that keep the free bus transfer. Currently, if one starts at a station on the Lexington line, walks out at 59th and reenters at 63rd to take to Queens, one would have to pay again to transfer to a bus. This shouldn't be. The walking transfer should preserve the free transfers that you would have had if you used a system transfer like 53/Lex for the or transferred to the at 59th. As a side note, does anyone know why Times Square and the are being connected by transfer? Supposedly it's to make it easier to connect between 6th Ave and 7th Ave trains, but given that some of the transfers can be made at 14th and at Columbus Circle, I don't understand why this is receiving the priority from transit when there seems to be more important transfers that they are not funding?

I agree. I want to clarify that I don't beleive we should get rid of the Brighton express, it's just that given that there is a large 2 track section, it is of limited value to those who would have their chocie of line, like riders starting from CI. Many years ago, Transit had the best service to CI, known as the NX. Unfortunately, it was too good. Since it didn't stop at all between 59th and CI, it didn't pick up enough passengers on regular days, so it got cancelled. Ideally, the NX should have stopped at New Utrecht (for West End transfers) and Kings Hwy, with island platforms. Two extra stops would still mean a full fledged express service. And since it had 4 tracks, you could run a full time express service in both directions all the way to the Manhattan Bridge. A service like that would have been very popular. Given that, I think west end is the best option to provide express to CI. The trip would be faster than Brighton.

Or even 10 TPH each on the three services. The is a really valuable service and I think some Sea Beach customers would be willing to transfer to it, since it will eventually save them time. There are a lot of local stations on the south Brooklyn lines. There needs to be an express. Brighton line already has an express, but due to the two tracks north of prospect park, it is of limited value. In my mind, it is preferable to have an express that stays express until your reach the CBD. The fact that there are so many stops between Manhattan and Prospect Park on the means that I would prefer as the primary express train for southern Brooklyn, even though it can only be run in one direction since it is three tracks.

Of all the choices presented, I prefer a West End super-express. While there is some merging and re-merging, if the West End express connects to the Broadway express, you can have an express train that services the following stops: Bay Pkwy, 62nd (Sea Beach connection), 9 Av, 36 St, Barclay's, Canal, 14, 34, 42. 7 stops from mid-brooklyn to Times Square. And I don't believe in repeating Parkchester, so the super express should terminate at Bay Pkwy, with the option of connecting to CI trains to go further south. I can see a full fledged line divide into three services. IF at least 24TPH is provided, Broadway express-4th Ave express can divide to serve Sea Beach, West End, and West End express. There is precedent for this, the Cranberry tunnel line also divides into three services: Fulton local, Fulton express to Lefferts, Fulton express to Far Rockaway.