CenSin

Smoke conditions seem to be uncomfortably common this summer…

Simple: They skip the station on the local track.

I had a premonition this morning that trains would run express to Manhattan. Well… at 7:15-ish AM, my train went BIE as it was pulling into 71 Street. Following trains went express, mocking the stranded passengers who had to run a marathon to 62 Street or New Utrecht Avenue for the or .

\It'll be one of the few lines with closed segments when under construction with no alternative service other than bus.Imagine the Brighton line closed and people were told to use the Culver line for alternative service.

I would have been late to work had I not formed the habit of going 30~40 minutes early. I ended up at work 5 minutes early.

A passed by me at 18 Avenue on the way to Coney Island. It was full of people and skipped the station. The following shortly after made all stops. Does anyone think it's related to that incident?

I have photos (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151165753820948.502594.665845947&type=3&l=4d92cf6fe8) now. lol.

I just got home after trying to catch at train at Grand Street around 4:14pm. I ended up going to Canal Street and taking an , which wasn't too bad until it stalled at Rector Street. The signals were all red and there appeared to be an R160 behind the train. I figured things weren't looking too good for Brooklyn-bound trains, and then an announcement said that trains were not running between Whitehall Street and Brooklyn. So around 4:30~4:45 was when the MTA figured out that trains weren't going to make it through Dekalb Avenue even via tunnel. At that point, I took the slow train from Wall Street to Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center. Making my was to the BMT 4 Avenue platform and descending the stairs, I saw there was a huge crowd of people probably waiting for 20 minutes at least. A keen observer noted that trains were empty on the other platform which meant they were turning trains back at the station. An empty pulled into the express track and half the platform emptied itself into the train. I was going to Coney Island, but I figured I could get some relief from the heat until 36 Street or 59 Street. The train ended up running express to 36 Street where it was announced that it would be running to Kings Highway. "This train is now an !" At 59 Street, an R160 waited across the platform. I don't know if the trains were single-tracking, but on the other express track was an shuttle train heading to 36 Street. The "" train I was on ended up at Kings Highway where it terminated and dump everyone on the platform.

Money stopped the previous attempts because there was not enough motivation to build it and something else more urgent could always be found. Tunnel segments were scarce and were scattered. Now that so much of first phase has been completed, the possibility of a Governor Christie-style cancellation is practically nil. When this phase is successfully completed, enough existing tunnel segments are available north to spur further construction.

The Grand Concourse line has some evidence that it was originally planned to be a 4-tracked line. There might be provisions for it too, but the only clue that shows is the platform arrangement at the lower level of the 145 Street station.

True. Upper Manhattan is almost like an outer borough itself. It's less business and more residential use there. It does solve problems for two specific scenarios though: those who need convenient access further east and those living along the subway line traveling within Manhattan. A compromise would be the worst result. Compromises produce things that generally preclude further improvements. For example, had Roger's Junction been built right the first time, we would not need to count on a new signalling system to improve traffic only marginally.

We all seem to forget that the is pretty much a Manhattan "shuttle." That thing makes a bare 3 stops in Bronx proper and the rest is in Manhattan territory.

It's hard to say that an entire neighborhood doesn't want service when it's usually the vocal minority. The rich Upper East Siders with their private transportation clearly aren't too happy about getting subway service, yet the many people who live and work there will use it once built.

The yard is basically going to be placed right below 129 Street on Second Avenue. Two tracks from that same yard will be extended to the Bronx. As a grammar nazi master, I must correct the quoted post. Corrections follow: "I believe there will be a yard at 125 Street, and the will most likely feature R179 or R211 subway cars."

I generally take the train all the way to Queensboro Plaza before transferring. I don't want the seat, but I know that: The Broadway line gets to Queensboro Plaza faster by about a minute or two. The transfer at Times Square is such a long walk that I would have missed 1~3 trains by the time I got to the platform. One of those missed trains will be an express train.

The issue is with all the switching. By not installing a switch north of 57 Street–7 Avenue, you essentially add a level junction to the line that ties up each and every express and local service.

You'd have to do some digging north of 57 Street–7 Avenue to connect the local tracks to the express tracks after the 59 Street spur goes underground. Looking at the layout of the tunnels and stations, it might prove quite difficult to connect the to the Astoria line from north of Court Square. You might have better luck branching the line from south of Court Square though.

If they somehow end up bypassing the existing tunnels in lower Manhattan with a new tunnel, I'd congratulate the MTA for owning the most expensive storage area in the city, because I don't see this segment being used for anything else after the fact.

More people have probably died building subway segments shorter than the one we're building now in the past.

Different philosophies, but something I would've done too for cost-savings and transfer opportunities. Now I know the MTA considered the Nassau Street connection in its studies but ultimately chose the more expensive full build down Water Street. I don't recall the reason behind the choice, but I'm sure "difficulty making the connection" wasn't something that would alone convince the MTA to make an obviously more expensive choice. Without demolishing too much of the Myrtle Avenue line, connecting it to the TriboroRX line already cutting through the centenary would be another option. The Myrtle Avenue line is pretty close to the TriboroRX form Fresh Pond Road to Metropolitan Avenue. I'm going to have to think this through. Staten Island is lacking in direct Manhattan service, with the only line from 2 Avenue providing service to the East side of Manhattan. Including 8 Avenue would even it out, but a combination of 8 Avenue, Broadway, and 2 Avenue service would make service to Staten Island well-rounded. Broadway could connect to the "Battery Tunnel" (I've yet to name that parallel tunnel) from Rector Street. We'd send the there and move the to Brighton as a local—not exactly desirable, but what other train would you move there? The could branch off from Worth Street as mentioned before, and Staten Island would have access to both sides of Manhattan and along the middle as well as intra-borough service, crosstown service, and a connection to the rest of Brooklyn and Queens via the X.

How about using the …? The and are the only routes using the 8 Avenue local tracks (the is express), and it's not doing much anyway. 8 Avenue is already quite efficient this way too, so a switch somewhere along the Worth Street branch from the local tracks wouldn't hurt this efficiency much; World Trade Center would be closed and there would still be only two merge points along the entire length of local tracks. Both the 2 Avenue and 8 Avenue branches into Staten Island would have connections to 6 Avenue anyway.

The might be difficult to extend from its current terminus. I've been there once, but there's a massive cemetery sitting right outside the station; it has no expansion potential north. Previous plans probably intended to have the Myrtle Avenue line demolished and extended towards the Rockaway Beach branch. NIMBYs will be the great bane of progress in America, but having their support instead of trudging forward despite their objections would be a better way to go forward. These people are not simply against the hardships of having construction right in their backward, but are (for lack of a better word) just ignorant; the importance of efficient transportation is highly underestimated in this nation. I think he meant to say that these lines are best built in phases to make the costs palatable to whomever pays for this. And these short segments will likely start out as shuttles since we don't want these lines connecting to other lines and jamming them with more traffic. The Broadway line connecting to the 2 Avenue line is an exception since northbound traffic needed another outlet to terminate its traffic. How would your track connections look? Both the 2 Avenue line and 6 Avenue line have a lot of switches and connecting tunnels in the area. I think it'd reduce efficiency at both ends of 6 Avenue. Trains from Utica Avenue are said to be packed before even leaving the terminal. However, there are enough new lines and extensions in the area to divert many of the riders—riders who would have taken the to Atlantic Avenue or Fulton Street to transfer—away. That pretty much locks the 2 Avenue line to using the Montague Street tunnel though. :\ It could be done. I believe I've seen other (very detailed) plans where the were connected to PATH to the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center station ends right before the Broadway line's curve onto Church Street. You'd have to do some creative engineering in that area given that were are 4 other tunnels in the vicinity.

Where would you branch it from? If possible, I'd like to avoid the same situation as the 63 Street connector to Queens Boulevard. It really hurt the speed of trains passing through the area (see "kludge"); that means a connection from the Culver line to the Fort Hamilton Parkway line is out of the question. (And it might not work even it it were connected like that: passengers downstream of Church Avenue get no express service or passengers upstream of Church Avenue get no direct Manhattan service at the local stations since all tracks have a 2-route max constraint in my system.) I'm also running out of letters. We're going to have to be creative with the route nomenclature. Here are the areas without subway service (within reasonable walking distance):

I was going over the map and came up with this: Download New York City Subway Map 2 (With_Annotations).pdf from BayFiles. It's basically my theory of what could be an optimal subway system. Circled are 2 of the most common destinations for commuters: the central business district and the financial district. They're both situated in the southern half of Manhattan and apparently, they are well connected in all directions. The circumferential lines labeled rings 1 to 3 shows a rough approximation of the travel time "topography" to those two destinations. Along the outskirts of rings 2 or 3 are some labeled regions and radial lines are drawn from one or both of the circled regions in Manhattan to those regions; they represent the most direct path from those regions to Manhattan. Ideally, subway routes between the two districts in Manhattan and the outer boroughs should approximate these radial lines with spurs to fill in the gaps. Local routes should end by ring 2 (or a little beyond that). Express routes should end beyond ring 3. Crosstown routes connecting the outer boroughs should approximate the circumferential lines. Express stops and transfers should be put where the radial and circumferential routes intersect. The current subway system approximates the ideal pretty well except: there is no service to the far eastern regions (northeastern Queens, eastern queens, southeastern Queens, eastern Brooklyn) and Staten Island inter-borough connections are rather poor between Bronx and Queens, Queens and Brooklyn, and Brooklyn and Staten Island additional trunk lines are needed to fill in the gaps where nearby trunk lines are at capacity spurs are needed from trunk lines that are not at capacity and have service gaps between itself and the nearest line What I believe needs to be done now is a small expansion in Staten Island, and an extension of several crosstown routes. Actually, I really do want to know what needs to be changed. For example, vanshnookenraggen suggested extending the H to the John F. Kennedy Airport. I went ahead and made the change because it was an obvious idea that I had not put down. I'm just curious… what tools did you use to produce this? It's a bit off in some areas, but looks good for a rough sketch.

So what kind of changes would you make to my map?