JSLR7

Any reason why? Plenty of people use that passageway, especially from LI to Yankee games and from the MNR region to Mets and Islanders games.

Why would there be less TPH on the / ? Do the switches south of 5th/53rd have a lower capacity than the switches south of 36th St in Queens?

Probably a mistake in posting. It took a little over 4 months for the Queens-bound tracks to be replaced, and I assume it will also take the same amount of time for the Manhattan/Brooklyn-bound tracks to be replaced (maybe a bit faster since there was the Presidents week closure too). My guess is that they do one more full week closure during Passover week (when the schools are closed and ridership will be down), and the project will be done by the 1st or 2nd week of May.

If there is a months-long closure of 53rd St like 63rd St, I wonder what the service pattern would be. I don't think there's capacity for and trains via 6th Av/63rd St alone. And you can't have trains detour to 8th Av and terminate somewhere in midtown on weekdays like the current setup at 57th St. Maybe just not have the run in midtown at all and compensate 8th Av with some extra trains terminating at 2nd Av.

That will never happen. The MTA doesn’t like having 2 different services at 2 different times. (Which makes zero sense, since the MTA is always making route changes every weekend for other maintenance projects.) Either runs via 63rd at all times or runs via 63rd at all times. The only change I can see being made is to make the local in Queens whenever the isn’t running, and to make the express in Queens on weekdays, but use the pre-2023 tunnel service. ( uses 63rd, uses 53rd). Since both local and express trains can use the Jamaica yard from 71st Av, it not really an issue in terms of yard assignment (unlike the , which needs a B division yard in Queens since 4th Av has no yard)

A simpler solution which I haven't seen brought up is to make the local and the express in Queens while keeping those two trains on 63rd and 53rd respectively. Yes, Queens would loose an express train on weekends, but so do other lines on the system (Broadway, Sixth Ave, Eastern Parkway), and the express trains on those lines don't seem to be overcrowded on weekends.