T to Dyre Avenue

It’ll probably be well into the 2030s by the time those options R211s come online anyway. The newest R68As will be over 40 years old by then.

But also harder to escape a train with storm doors. Only so many people can fit through the doorway at one time and really, who’s going to have time to think to hold open the door for the person behind them in the melee? Definitely a case for open-gangway cars here.

I think the would work well for riders who are headed to/from East Midtown. And it can serve as a secondary SAS service. I suggested having the continue into Queens via 63rd a couple years back in this thread, but it would be better to run it local like the current because of its shorter trains. Or else lengthen Eastern Division platforms to fit 10-car trains. Which you’d have to do anyway if you want to run trains via the line in Lower Manhattan. I get your point about the ‘s shorter trains being an issue on QBL as a reason to substitute the there. Though because the is local and weekdays-only, it’s not quite as much of a problem as it would be if it were a QBL express. I suppose running the M via 8th/CPW local wouldn’t be much different than the current (although the runs trains of various length depending on whether it’s R46s or R179s, which isn’t a good thing).

Maybe in this case, you might run a variant of the Vanshnook plan with the to/from Bay Ridge (local to 36th; express 36th to Atlantic/Pacific), the via the Sea Beach Line and the as the 4th Ave local via the West End Line with a peak direction express between Bay Pkwy and 9th Ave. You’d then terminate just the at Whitehall and eliminate the entirely. Personally, I’m not really a fan of extending the to South Brooklyn because it would require either duplicating or replacing the existing or services in South Brooklyn. But is there any kind of real advantage in the replacing any one of those five services? I honestly think this entire service plan overall is complicated. What advantage is there in the going to Forest Hills over the ? Why have an ( M ) via 8th Ave to/from 168th and Broadway? I personally am not a fan of any proposal that reroutes the or to Forest Hills or has the return to being a full time Broadway local train. I just don’t see how any of these would be an improvement over the current services in Queens or the current Broadway Local.

“This is the way we’ve always done it” is and has long been the curse of the MTA. The could certainly cover for the on weekends/overnight if it’s rerouted to 63rd St, but whether the MTA would be willing to do that now is anyone’s guess, given their unwillingness to change. Same with cutting the at Whitehall and running the to Brooklyn in its place. But if you do a zoned express with locals turning at Burnside, then every station on the line other than Burnside and 149th will see a major cut in service resulting in more crowded trains. And most of the stations north of Burnside are major transfer points between the and buses from all over The Bronx and Westchester. The / setup isn’t bad because the is local in Manhattan and doesn’t interline with any other trains, so there can be respectable frequencies at the Bronx local stations and the stations north of Parkchester. A / setup would be much less fortunate due to having to share with the .

They’re following faithfully in the footsteps of the R62As and R142s, both of which had many mechanical problems early on, but then became very reliable later.

But if you run the via 63rd, then it would have to enter 57th and 7th on the express tracks, so that would be one hell of a merge point if the stays local in Manhattan. I’d either leave the as is, or remove it from the QB line and replace it with a ( V ) via 34th St (or another crosstown street in Midtown Manhattan) like @Vulturious outlined a few posts up thread.

I definitely like this proposal. I like proposals to bring the into Midtown Manhattan, because the current line is being used well below capacity. But by forking the tunnel in LIC and having this new ( V ) service and a Midtown Manhattan crosstown trunk, I think we can make the most of a line that is criminally underutilized. But I think it should go beyond 8th Avenue, so it can be a true Midtown crosstown and serve parts of the far West Side that are a long way from 8th Avenue. I think it’s actually better if you have the transfer in LIC and have both the and ( V ) run into Midtown Manhattan. And have the ( V ) run north to Queens Blvd to replace either the or . Because the way you’re suggesting to run the is the way it ran prior to December 2001, when it was cut back to Court Square to make room for old service. When the ran past Court Square, it simply wasn’t a popular choice with most QBL riders. They either passed it up in favor of the or rode to Roosevelt Avenue or Queens Plaza to make a mass exodus for the or . I see no reason why it would be any different now if the went back to QBL. In fact, I think the would be an even less popular option on QBL now than it was before 2001, because QBL riders are now used to all of their trains going into Midtown Manhattan. I’m fine with the Franklin being extended to Bedford-Nostrand to connect with the . But I do not think the should be extended down the Brighton local tracks. That will be the exact same issue they had with the on QBL prior to 2001. That’s exactly what I was thinking. It should be somewhere north of the and make landfall in a place in Midtown where it can easily connect with all five north-south Manhattan trunk lines (six if we ever get at least to SAS Phase 3).

The , , and proposals I can definitely agree with. But I'm convinced that relatively few Brighton Line riders will want the back, so it's better to leave the and as they are. Maybe a better option would be to swap the and . What advantages would extending the to Broadway Junction have? Agree fully with the first paragraph. There is really no need or advantage over the current Brighton Local to run what would basically be an extended Franklin from Franklin Ave to Stillwell Ave. Not even if you extended the shuttle platforms to fit 10-car trains, which I don't think you can even do. It would be like running the as the primary Queens Blvd Local train (which it was until 1987). I prefer your first plan because it appears to be a more simpler plan. The second plan (the four-track case) calls for far more changes than the first. Though the first plan would require the and to run more frequently in order to provide enough service on 2nd Ave and Nassau St. The problem with the is that it will take away service from the stations that are skipped. None of the Jerome Line stops are particular slouches in terms of ridership. Also problematic would be converting Fordham into an express stop because of all the property right near the el, which would have to be condemned and demolished to make room for a wider station. Bedford wouldn't have that problem because on the west side of the station is Concourse Yard, which is already TA property. But if you have a that skips from Bedford to Burnside, that's going to leave behind a lot of people. I suggested the possibility of a / skip-stop pattern, but even then, it likely wouldn't be much faster than the current service and you'd be leaving a significant number of people behind at the skipped stops. I definitely don't think bringing back the would be good because running it local and the express reduces service at the stops between 238th & Dyckman and 145th & 96th, most of which have high ridership. I've read that West Harlem to the UWS is the busiest stretch of the line and cutting service in half there is not a good idea. Timing it properly means you have to schedule trains in blocks of two - send the express first, then the local right after. And you have to do it in such a way that the express doesn't get stuck behind the local that's scheduled ahead of it. You can do that with trains on commuter rail frequencies because commuter trains run much less frequently than subway trains. With the lack of an express track between Dyckman and 145th, you risk creating big gaps in the schedule between every group of two trains. Because the NYC subway doesn't already have enough unneeded reverse-branching?

Agreed; maybe with a direct, free transfer between the and , keeping Lafayette as a local stop might not be that big of a loss.

That space just past existing Lafayette Avenue stop looks like it would be perfect. And for a station that express and local trains can stop at. Looks great; exactly what I would have drawn. Not long. The only place I’ve seen this idea suggested is here. I think it was in 2018.

The SAS connection is probably the best option. The problem is that it will take billions of dollars to construct and decades to get built, given how much more new subway in Manhattan would have to be built first. I already doubt the MTA's commitment to building SAS Phases 3 and 4, let alone a new East River tunnel between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. It's true that clearing the might be a bit of a challenge if connecting between DeKalb and Lafayette. But definitely not as challenging as a Montague-Schermerhorn connection would be. I honestly think the QBL-63rd connection was done in a way that should not be repeated throughout the system. So if a connection between DeKalb and Lafayette is ever considered, then the possibility of converting Lafayette Ave into an express station should also be looked at. We already see what a challenge it is whenever anyone suggests untangling QBL because the 63rd St connection diverges at a local station (36th St). In both Lafayette's and 36th's cases, neither station was designed to be readily converted to an express station, like Woodhaven Blvd. But I noticed something interesting between Lafayette and Clinton-Washington - the tunnel widens and there is a middle track. I wonder how difficult it would be to repurpose that stretch of the tunnel into a new express station to facilitate cross-platform transfers between express trains and local trains.

I fail to see any real good point in reducing the Lefferts branch of the into a 24/7 shuttle. Basically, bringing in another service to replace the as the Fulton Local (such as the ) should be the solution. But of course that'll take billions of dollars and decades to plan and construct. About four or five years ago in this thread, I suggested the idea of building a connection from the underutilized Montague to connect to the Fulton St Line at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, or possibly a connection between the DeKalb Ave and Lafayette Ave stations, and running the through said connection. Such connection wouldn't be dependent on a fully-built SAS and new East River Tunnel, like a connection would be. But I was told in response that connection between the Fulton Line and the Montague Tunnel would be extremely expensive to construct due to the need to dodge the web of subway tunnels (on top of all the other infrastructure) in Downtown Brooklyn and because the runs in cast-iron tubes in downtown Brooklyn and it's damn near impossible to tie another tunnel into cast-iron tunnels. As for a DeKalb-Lafayette connection, that would have the same issue of having to dodge an extensive web of tunnels, and also have the unfortunate situation of where the point of divergence from the express and the local is a local station (Lafayette Ave).

In fairness, moving 6th Ave to a higher priority will allow Transit to resume having the flexibility to reroute 6th Ave trains via the 8th Ave Line sooner rather than later. If 6th was kept further down on the list, then 6th riders would be screwed if the old signals shit themselves, like they did at West 4th St just a few days ago. Unfortunately, CBTC on QBL is still shitting the bed and messing up service on the and . But yes, there are plenty of incidents with the old wayside block signals outside of CBTC territory. Unfortunately, since the QBL services don’t operate in isolation, it has to be this way until every segment of the B Division gets CBTC.

Agree with most of the ideas in the first group. The ones I don’t are extending the to Lefferts, the and the swapping of the and in Brooklyn. Having the and merge yet again after Euclid Avenue will just make both services unreliable. Swapping the and will force a lot of transferring at Atlantic, because Brighton riders tend to have a much larger preference for Broadway versus 6th Ave, while southwest Brooklyn seems to prefer 6th. Maybe it might be less of an issue if it’s the and lines that are swapped. The will be of very limited use unless you can figure out how to run it between Woodhaven Blvd and Broadway Junction. Except the line has only two tracks there, so that’s why skip-stop is done. But they should at least expand service to the entire duration of rush hour, not just one hour apiece in the morning and afternoon. In the second group, I can agree with a connection for the tracks with the tracks. But I don’t think there’s sufficient space on either side of Hoyt-Schermerhorn to fit crossover tracks, so I don’t think it’s possible. I disagree with building connecting tracks at 53rd because trains on both levels of the stations travel in opposite directions (this is to facilitate transfers between downtown and downtown trains on one level and Bronx/Queens trains on the other). Not to mention that there is not sufficient track capacity for a Bronx-Manhattan-Queens service. In the third group, I agree the should be finished and joined by a second service south of the 63rd St Tunnel. I think we can do without the others. There just isn’t sufficient capacity on the 6th Avenue local tracks for a third service, especially one that would largely parallel the (and connect with it again at Knickerbocker or Wyckoff). I can see connecting the to the , but I really don’t like the idea of wasting Brighton Line capacity on a service going to Court Square via the line. That kind of service is guaranteed to be even less popular than the was when it ran on the QB line.

Right, but that was when Lower Manhattan was a much bigger destination for commuter ridership (although it was starting to decline in the mid-1950s). I wouldn’t be opposed to connecting the Rockaway Branch to the Atlantic Branch. But then it would basically duplicate the , unless it were to go somewhere in Manhattan or Brooklyn that the doesn’t. LIRR was more than happy to get rid of the branch in the 50s and they certainly don’t seem to want it back. In fact, given their plans to reduce it to a glorified shuttle train between Jamaica and Flatbush, I’m not sure the LIRR even wants the Atlantic Branch now. At least if Rockaway goes farther north, towards Rego Park, it can provide a nice option for intra-Queens riders, including to Long Island City. I know State Sen. Stacy Pfeffer-Amato is in favor of restoring service on the Rockaway Branch, as was her predecessor in the State senate. I didn’t know the MTA were considering abandoning service to the Rockaways in 1980. But then again, they were strongly considering curtailing and service in The Bronx, service in Brooklyn and shutting down the entirely back then, so I wouldn’t have put it past them to abandon the Rockaways. I’m also in favor of the (or just if Broadway is untangled at 34th St) being extended from Ditmars. If it weren’t for the flightpaths and Amtrak’s high viaduct in Steinway, then I wouldn’t be opposed to the branching option. But the flightpaths, less frequent train service and the Amtrak viaduct are obstacles - and bigger, more legitimate ones than any NIMBYs on 31st St between Ditmars and 20th Ave, so that’s why I favor the Ditmars extension.

Oh yes, there's that too. No way you're getting over Amtrak without getting in the flightpaths. In New York, we really have to learn how to tell NIMBYs to go pound sand like they seem to be able to do in Chicago.

The branching proposal will limit the number of trains that can serve LGA and would potentially require the taking of property near Astoria Blvd and 31st Street in order to create an easement for the flyover junction to allow LGA trains to go via the GCP. That, too, could trigger NIMBYs, maybe even more so than going further north and then east onto 19th Avenue. And swapping the and won't solve the limit on the number of trains that can serve LGA because you'd still have the current setup between LIC and 34th Street, which already limits the number of Broadway Line trains that can serve Astoria and QBL.

Hey, look what we’ve got here. It’s the PA’s newest alternatives study for transit links to LaGuardia… https://www.anewlga.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/LGA-Mass-Transit-Access-Evaluation-March-2022.pdf And here’s your chance to comment on them… https://mobile.twitter.com/ByERussell/status/1499136750953893889/photo/1 And, please, nobody speak in favor of the “emerging technologies” alternative. That’s probably fancy-speak for “Tesla Tunnel.” NYC needs one of those about as much as an apple needs a worm.

I found myself in situation #1 a few times in 2016 or 17. Lucky for me I happened to be getting off at the next southbound station (Brooklyn Bridge). Now, as for PSD’s, I can see doing them at the three pilot stations because only one type of subway car runs the lines that use those three stations (well, the uses some R160s in addition to R143s, but both classes have identical door arrangements). But what are they going to do for the lines with two or more cars with different door arrangements? The R143/160/179 cars have a different side door arrangement from the R46 and 68 cars and the R211s will have wider doors than the other cars. The R62 class have different door arrangements from the R142/188 cars. With PSD’s, you’ve got to be sure they line up correctly with the train’s doors because if they don’t, then the passengers on the train will be trapped and those on the platform won’t be able to board the train.

The 1968 plan also called for it to be a single track, which made no sense. Eventually, it evolved into a double track line along the LIRR Main Line, which made far more sense. Even back then, QBL had capacity issues. If they wanted to be able to truly add capacity, that second track plus a new trunk line in Manhattan (i.e., 2nd Ave) would have been key. But, to increase tph on QBL, I think a de-interlined service pattern should be tried before we spend $$$ to build two new tracks on the next to the LIRR Main Line and connect them to the 63rd St tunnel upper level.

Well, for about an hour this morning, due to yet another signal problem at 36th, they actually ran the QBL the way many of us have been suggesting they do… https://mobile.twitter.com/NYCTSubway/status/1496833833190117383 trains run on the line between Jackson Hts-Roosevelt Av and Queens Plaza and on between Queens Plaza and 47-50 Sts-Rockefeller Ctr in both directions. trains run on the line between 36 St and 47-50 Sts-Rockefeller Ctr in both directions.

Three QBL locals is overkill. You wouldn’t be able to run any of them very frequently and you’d likely have to cut one of them if express trains need to be rerouted onto the local tracks or locals onto the express. I think if you’re going to do an via Rockaways and QBL, it should be as part of a de-interlined QBL - local, express and no or other direct Broadway service. If not, then extend the to Rockaway Park via the branch and terminate it at Whitehall St, so it’s not too long of route.

If the splits after Main St, then yes you’d want a different number for the different terminals. But with the and it’s the same terminal at both ends, so perhaps it might be confusing to have a as the local in both directions and an as the express in one direction and local in the other. Flushing is better with peak express than skip stop, because of all the commuters boarding the at Main Street. Though if one track ever has to be removed from service long-term, as was the case in 1985 when the Flushing el needed major rehab, then skip stop can be implemented for the duration. This was done in 1986-88 on the Brighton Line with the and trains. For areas in between the Broadway and 6th Avenue lines, that could work. But for areas like Washington Square or the 40s east of 6th Avenue, Broadway may not be that great of an alternative to 6th.