CenSin

This one has white dotted lines along the connections I added. I haven't decided on what to do with them yet. It's hard to see if you're not looking for them, but they are: 34 Street and 5 Avenue connector Crosstown line and Astoria line connector Astoria line extension to LaGuardia Airport and eastern Queens Crosstown line and Central Avenue line connector Queens Boulevard line and Rockaway line connector Getting the routes to work out might be a bit difficult since I place emphasis on certain rules when making routes: Every pair of track in a line gets two routes maximum. A 2 track like can serve 2 routes. A 3 track line can serve routes. A 4 track line can serve 4 routes. Routes further from the important destinations usually become express halfway to those destinations and local routes take over where the other routes become express. Track alignments are modified where necessary to enforce this pattern (e.g., from Brighton Beach to Ocean Parkway the storage tracks rise up above the Ocean Parkway station to become a pair of relay tracks). Local trains usually stay local for the entire route. The same goes for express trains (e.g., the is the 2 Avenue, Broadway, and Brighton express). Routes are created for the most flexibility possible. (e.g., Coney Island has access to 2 Avenue, 6 Avenue, Broadway, and 8 Avenue via the at Brighton Beach). Track sharing and/or switching is usually reduced at the cost of routing flexibility when the arrangement appears to be delay-prone. I'll provide track diagrams for the new connections and lines soon.

I'll leave it at this for nowand think about possible routing changes. This is a 2100×3400 bitmap:

You might be right; it has 50 stops (tied with the )! The late night service wins the trophy though at around 56 stops. The is 53 stops. I removed most of the stops from the (Y) that didn't involve transfers anticipating an extension to Staten Island (which would make it very long lengthwise). The (Y) outside of Staten Island is supposed to be a connecting route to make travelling outside Manhattan easier. That was the point of the line: to get shoppers directly there. I might connect the Central Park West portion to the 34 Street crosstown line and name it the pink . It goes well with the letter P and N (both make digraphs in various languages). The elevated portion will be torn down (as with the Myrtle Avenue elevated, a portion of the Jamaica Avenue line, and the Liberty Avenue elevated). The open cut portion will lead directly into the tunnel which will weave through Halsey and Throop Streets to Broadway and Union Avenue. The from Astoria will be extended there (as in draft 3), though I'm worried for the length of the line. (It was in the second system plans too.) Thanks for your response.

Okay. Here is the big update. This was redone from scratch with a bit of influence from the previous versions. It's not quite done yet (no station names and other labels), but I'm putting it up to solicit some feedback (especially criticism). Things that should be noted (not an exhaustive list): The station at 145 Street has been removed. There's no place in my map for stations that can't handle full length trains. The express service in Bronx has been added. The express has been added from Gun Hill Road to East 180 Street. The Nostrand Avenue line has been extended to Sheepshead Bay. Most of the stations should be obvious. The Flushing line has been extended to College Point and Bayside. The serves Bayside while the new (8) service serves College Point. All trains run express while the (8) is in operation. The Liberty Avenue line has been removed between Euclid Avenue and 104 Street. The express tracks are now connected to the Rockaway branch via South Conduit Avenue with the local track leading to 150 Street. The no longer runs to Ozone Park. Instead, trains alternate between the two Rockaway terminals. The ( returns to the Washington Heights terminal in Manhattan. The 6 Avenue line is no longer connected to the Manhattan Bridge nor the Williamsburg Bridge. Instead, it has been reconnected to the express tracks at 2 Avenue leading to an underground Marcy Avenue station. The and have been rerouted to use the new east river tunnel to run to Flatlands and Brighton Beach respectively. The Grand Concourse line has been extended to Coop City along with the 3 Avenue line. The has been extended to Coop City. The has returned to Grand Concourse in Bronx. trains no longer run via Fulton Street, but via Worth Street, Broadway (Brooklyn), Throop Avenue, Franklin Avenue, and the Brighton lines to Brighton Beach. The Hillside Avenue line has been extended to Springfield Boulevard. A two-tracked super express line connects Queensbridge-21 Street to the Hillside Avenue and Archer Avenue lines. It also has a connection to the 34 Street crosstown line in Manhattan allowing for direct access to every trunk line in Manhattan from southeast Queens. The Archer Avenue line is planned to be extended southward via Merrick Boulevard and eastward via Jamaica Avenue. The runs express from Springfield Boulevard to Coney Island in both Queens and Brooklyn. During rush hours, the runs express via the Queens super express line. The provides one way express service between Church Avenue and Coney Island. During this time, all train terminate at Kings Highway. The remains of the Liberty Avenue line has been extended in both directions via the former LIRR Rockaway branch and a two track underground line to Springfield Boulevard. The has been extended to Springfield Boulevard via the Liberty Avenue line. The Myrtle Avenue line is now entirely underground. An unused connection exists connecting Bedford-Nostrand Avenues on the Crosstown line to Knickerbocker Avenue on the new underground Myrtle Avenue line. I plan to run an (X) from the Crosstown line to Inwood via the Triboro RX line. The Jamaica line has three tracks from Myrtle Avenue to 121 Street. The portion from Myrtle Avenue to Marcy Avenue is now part of an underground trunk line. The runs local from Jamaica Center to Bay Parkway in Brooklyn. The line is planned to be extended to Springfield Boulevard via Jamaica Avenue. The <J> provides one way express service along the Jamaica line for those looking for a fast ride to lower Manhattan. The terminates at Broad Street at all times. A new trunk line has been created along 5 Avenue connected to 57 Street-7 Avenue running to 263 Street in Bronx. The line has 4 tracks from 72 Street to 125 Street. The local tracks are stubs below 72 Street (planned to connect to the 34 Street or 14 Street crosstown lines). The line has 3 tracks from 125 Street to Marble Hill. A crosstown line has been created along 125 Street connecting to the 2 Avenue trunk line. The express runs from 125 Street-Broadway to Coney Island. The is express in Brooklyn via the Brighton line. The has been extended to 179 Street-Jamaica. The has been truncated to Whitehall Street or City Hall (lower level). The has been eliminated from the Rockaway branch. A 2 Avenue trunk line has been created connecting to Coop City, Queens Boulevard, Williamsburg, Manhattan Bridge, and the Fulton Street line. The runs from Bedford Park Boulevard to 150 Street (north of the JFK airport). The (U) runs from Coop City to Kings Plaza express in Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. The runs from Springfield Boulevard to Coney Island express in Queens, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. The <V> provides one way express service on the West End line. The replaces the in Astoria and runs to Bay Ridge local. The (Y) runs from a new line from Inwood to Bay Ridge via Fordham Road, Hell Gate Bridge, and the LIRR Bay Ridge branch. It is planned to extend to Staten Island. The Staten Island Railroad will be removed and repurposed for subway use.

I finally managed to get it into PDF format. You can download it here: http://www.4shared.com/file/189337259/de2f427d/New_York_City_Transit_Fantasy_.html Even with the Hillside Avenue, Jamaica Avenue, and Liberty Avenue extensions, Queens still has less service than Brooklyn, and I recognize the need to connect the ends of all these lines (, , , , and ), much like how the and ties several lines together in Manhattan. Queens could use a bit more development.* I'm also looking at current service patterns as well as previously proposed links to see how a new line could be built (possibly taking over the Air Train). Southwestern Queens is still quite empty; a line following LIE branching off 2 Avenue/34 Street could fill the gap. * Subway is good for the neighborhood.

Photoshop only works on Windows and Mac. I'm in the process of switching to Linux (Ubuntu), so my choice of software would naturally be open source. I'll add those if I have time, but they should be obvious from the labels. I designed the route to balance the need for a cross-town line versus the need to keep the route as direct as possible.

Draft 3 has arrived. There is still no Staten Island service but each and every station has finally been labelled. Despite the painstaking work of bringing the map to near completion, the software used to create the map began to fail under the massive size of the map. With thousands of little objects scattered throughout the map, none of the programs in the Microsoft Office suite could properly export the drawing to an image with readable text. PowerPoint did let me export, but only a piece at a time and I stitched the pieces together afterwards. I thought OpenOffice.org would be a sufficient replacement, but its export capabilities also failed me.

The problem is stitching all of that together. I'm not thrilled about pressing [Print Screen] a hundred times and then putting those 100 tiles together. Also, it only helps with showing the elevated lines accurately (by virtue of being able to see them). The bus maps are still more accurate (probably).

I suggested stitching together all of the bus maps for each borough and subtracting all the bus lines and minor streets on straphangers.org since it's probably the easiest approach. But I think working from scratch produces cleaner results and can be done in less than a month.

The IND Second System would have had this and more. And the lines are not as far-reaching as they appear to be. The geography on the MTA Subway map is distorted—very distorted, so you can't trust your intuition when judging scales. You'd actually have to look up the streets and find a real map to pinpoint them with any accuracy, which explains why some of the new stations on my map are so close together or so far apart. The in my map, for example, terminates at Francis Lewis Boulevard and Long Island Expressway which is only three miles from Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue—the distance between 82 Street–Jackson Heights and Main Street on the Flushing line, yet the terminal is shown twice as far away. Instead, it should be where the is. I'm thinking about redoing the entire map by starting with a more accurate geographical representation.

Any ideas for Staten Island? That's one lonely place since I don't know anyone from there nor have I set foot in it. All I know is that the garbage is (or used to be) dumped there.

Here's draft 2: The 2 Avenue line is extended to the Bronx via 3 Avenue with a track connection to the Grand Concourse line. The Grand Concourse line is extended east with a track connection to the 3 Avenue line. The and are reversed again. trains running the entire length of the White Plains Road line are express between 3 Avenue and Gun Hill Road. trains between 3 Avenue and Dyre Avenue run local. A new line connecting Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn is added. The Flushing line is extended with two branches. The Astoria line is extended with 4 tracks from Ditmars Boulevard to Parsons Boulevard. There is no local Broadway service on the Queens Boulevard line. The runs on the Queens Boulevard superexpress during rush hours. The (X) skips 3 stops along the portion shared with the . A line runs from Broadway–Union Avenue to Avenue U via Stuyvesant Avenue and Utica Avenue.

Thanks guys. It'll probably take another few days to get it done as drawing these lines accurately takes a lot of effort. One problem with the official map is its general inaccuracy. The Archer extension for example, should actually appear much shorter going south, but the white line that represents Linden Boulevard is way down there so I had to stretch it out. All of the lines were drawn from scratch with the official map (minus most of the foreground elements) as a base. Some of them were traced, but others were realigned to make room for adjacent lines or to more accurately reflect the station (e.g., the Canal Street complex). (Hint: Take Adobe Illustrator and crack open one of the PDF versions of the maps; delete whatever you don't want and draw over it. In my case, I deleted the lines as well.) Anyway, future additions: Astoria line extension (already planned) Flushing line extension and spurs (already planned) Will connect the Crosstown line to a new Fort Hamilton Parkway line with a spur to Staten Island. ("Fan Railer") TriboroRX will be done, but I will probably only determine the route and not all of the stations in the near future. ("R32 3348") If the goes back to being a full-time Wihte Plains Road local, then the switches will be reworked to enable the Dyre Avenue line to connect directly to the express tracks. I really value efficiency over anything else. ("NX Express") The Second Avenue line will be extended vie 3 Avenue in Bronx. The Broadway line in Brooklyn running from Huston Street to Union Avenue will be extended south to meet up with the Utica Avenue stations on the Fulton Street and Eastern Parkway lines. That combined with the 2 Avenue subway in Manhattan and its 3 Avenue extension should reduce the importance of the Lexington Avenue line and cutting it short won't be necessary. The Utica Avenue line will absorb riders directly east of the Nostrand Avenue line, providing relief to the and . It will run directly to the 2 Avenue line, so it can be a drop-in replacement for those who would have otherwise taken a Lexginton Avenue express to midtown and/or Bronx. I might decide to simply replace the Myrtle Avenue line with a subway connecting to the Broadway subway in Brooklyn and Rockaway line in Queens. Comments: The N runs express in the Coney Island-bound direction only and only during PM rush. Crowding doesn't seem to be much of a problem during AM rush, but a few PM runs can be crush-loaded, so the express redistributes Coney Island-bound riders. The express run from Broadway Junction to Cypress Hills is already on a flyover track that bypasses the slow curves. Accurate representation of the physical structures of each line has been eschewed for brevity. The Crosstown line's Bedford–Nostrand Avenues station has provisions for a northeast spur. I'm not sure if it would be useful to connect another line to it or what it could possibly connect to.

Here's draft 1 of my fantasy subway map. It was inspired by the grandiose plans for the second system. I have not gotten to adding route labels, some stations, nor any station names yet, but you could probably tell by the colors. The and the have switched roles, but the 5 will remain express and between Gun Hill Road and Third Avenue. The is shown on this map. The Second Avenue line is added. It has connections to the 63 Street, Huston Street, 6 Avenue, and Fulton Street lines. The Flushing line is extended westward. The 63 Street line connects to a new super express line that runs from 21 Street–Queens Bridge to Kew Gardens–Union Turnpike. The super express line has only one track. It also has a connection to the Rockaway line; where they run side-by-side the tunnel has three tracks with track connections right before two of the tracks veer off to the LIRR Rockaway branch. The Rockaway line runs using the old LIRR right-of-way with stations at 63 Drive, Metropolitan Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, Jamaica Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, 101 Avenue, Aqueduct, and beyond. The Hillside Avenue line is extended with extensions of the local services as well (which use the 4 relay tracks north of 179 Street). The Archer Avenue line is extended. The two levels still have no connection to each other. The Libery Avenue line is extended to Springfield Boulevard. Stations have yet to be determined. An express track is added between Broadway Junction and Cypress Hills on the Jamaica line. The Huston Street line branching off the 6 Avenue line is connected through the river to the Broadway station on the Crosstown line. The Myrtle Avenue line no longer connects to the Jamaica line at grade. The tracks fly over. The Fulton Street line branches off into another line running under North Conduit Avenue to 114 Street. The line is also connected to the Rockaway line. The Nostrand Avenue line is extended to Avenue S. Stations have yet to be determined. The Culver express makes its return. Locals terminate at Kings Highway. The Sea Beach express makes its return. There are only 4 runs per day, however. Please list suggestions! I am not entirely sure what direction to take this map.