T to Dyre Avenue

On 2/28/2023 at 7:54 PM, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

The original plan called (and still calls for) a connection to the 63rd Street tunnel which is relatively easy cause it was built with provisions to connect. Even if there's no formal service in the plans, my guess would be if they built SAS as is, they would run a service via 63rd to Queens Blvd.

That’s the alternative they chose ultimately. But there were other alternatives in the late 90s/early 2000s Manhattan East Side Access study which called for a subway only from 63rd to 125th with a connecting LRT or proto-SBS service continuing the rest of the way down 2nd Avenue, Chrystie St and Water St. Here is the summary report from October 2001 -

 http://web.mta.info/capital/sas_docs/final_summary_report.pdf

I do hope, at the very least, they do run that kind of service. Because a Queens-SAS service would likely have connections to the lines that main SAS would cross over or under and the Queens service would be able to connect with them while still in Queens. This in turn could potentially eliminate the need for long and costly connecting passageways from the main  line in Manhattan. 

1 hour ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

With SAS though, the part that sucks is they're building it more as an independent line and not really a part of the entire system. The main provision Phase I misses out on is for express tracks, which is quite unfortunate.

But even worse is that it’s planned to be reverse-branched above 63rd St, so it will have more service uptown versus in midtown/downtown. In the MTA’s planning maps, it appears to be some sort of appendage instead of the trunk line it’s supposed to be.

16 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

If SAS is ever fully built in some form, it should help supplement local capacity. Growth patterns along QBLVD generally seem to favor the local service cause growth is happening closer to Manhattan near the Long Island City area. This would also take a bit of a burden off the  allowing more service to Astoria.

The  sucks because there's not really any short-turn options, especially with 42nd Street lower level now unusable. From my understanding though, Jamacia Center is a bigger constraint than WTC because at Jamacia Center, the crossover switch isn't till you're almost at Stuphin Blvd; at the very least they should address trying to move that closer to Jamacia Center so you can terminate more than a measly 12tph. In an ideal world of maximizing service, I would have the  and , with the  being the  except it runs locals on the Culver line and terminates at Church Av (whereas the  runs express and goes all the way to Stillwell Av). Also, the  runs express past Forest Hills to 179 whereas the  becomes local past Forest Hills. 15tph on the  (all going to Jamacia Center), 10tph on the , and 10tph on  during rush. For all practical purposes, the  and  share the same fleet, and may be both internally identified as the  similar to the  and .

But then you'll have the  merging with the  past between 71st and 75th avenues. That will cause delays on both the  and  lines, especially given that you'll have 10 tph merging with 15 tph in that spot. That's why I've always felt it's best if QB locals turn at 71st Ave, regardless of which trains they are (the late night  is an exception, because late night service is only 3 tph).

A service pattern which has locals entering Manhattan via the 53rd St tunnel and expresses via 63rd with no service from Queens Blvd to the 60th St tunnel (except for emergency reroutes and non-revenue moves) would probably be the best way to run more trains on the QB Line - as well as on the Astoria Line - because there would be far fewer delays in LIC due to the previously mentioned three merges in that area.

17 hours ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Also Rogers Junction is a shitshow, and ideally would be rebuilt to the same design as the IND junctions just below Columbus Circle as a congestion management thing, but that would be interesting and quite possibly require the rebuilding of President St as well (President St looks like it ends around 300' south of where the platforms at Nostrand Av sit, and just west of Nostrand Av the northbound has to swing under the northbound to pop up in the correct spot by Franklin Av, and the distance between Franklin Av and Nostrand Av  is only about 1500 feet. If we assume that the clearance for individual tracks to pass underneath each other is about 15', then I can take a rough whack at laying this out:

Just east of Franklin Av, the two Nostrand Av tracks branch off and descend 15 feet over about 450 feet (so a 3.3% grade), as does the westbound track. The Nostrand Av and westbound tracks then level off and continue for about 450 feet, while the westbound track descends another 15 feet; at that point the Nostrand Av and westbound tracks swing south; the westbound track connects to the lower level of Nostrand Av, while the Nostrand Av tracks connect to President St; the westbound track slowly rises back up over the following 900' and joins the old tunnel lower level just past the end of Nostrand Av station.

The downside is that making this happen would require the rebuilding of Franklin Av, Nostrand Av, and President St, which would likely take years because of the sheer amount of track that would be getting ripped up and relaid. Furthermore, while work on the junction is happening nothing can run through it; during that time you'd basically need to turn the at Bowling Green, turn the at either Franklin Av with a new crossover or Atlantic/Barclays using the central crossover there, and then turn the and upper section of the at Franklin Av using the crossover just to the north of there. The southern section of the would basically only run from New Lots to Utica Av at a fairly low frequency, and both Nostrand Av and Eastern Parkway between Utica Av and Franklin Av would need to be bustituted; in theory you could run a shuttle from President St to Flatbush Av, but unless you added a brand new track connection from President St to either level of the Eastern Parkway line east of Nostrand those trains would be trapped there without any way to maintain them (and if, as I suspect, making this work would require rebuilding President St then you can't do that either).

 

Columbus Circle at least has the advantage of all four tracks staying on the same level once the  diverge for 53rd St then 6th Ave, unlike Eastern Pkwy where the tracks go to a stacked layout almost immediately after Franklin Ave. That’s the challenge with rebuilding Rogers Jct into a Columbus Circle-style design. I wonder if it’s really worth it to spend billions of dollars and tear up Eastern Pkwy for years just so Nostrand riders can continue to have a one-seat ride to the Lexington Ave Line. Like, is it really the end of the world to have to transfer cross-platform at Franklin for an express? Especially if the trains run more frequently than they do now? That’s why I kind of like this study done a couple years back in July 2020 by STV - https://ia601408.us.archive.org/15/items/irt-capacity-study-final-reportt-redacted/IRT Capacity Study Final Reportt_Redacted_.pdf

Skip to section E to get the idea. Warning:    It’s a huge document (917 pages!).

17 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

In an absolute sense it did add capacity, though not quite a full line as you state. Before, QBLVD had basically 1.5 tunnels into the city (since 60th street is shared with Astoria), meaning no matter what, there was always going to be spare capacity on the QBLVD trunk for service into the city. Now, QBLVD can run at maximum capacity the terminals will allow. Imo this is another reason for the  extension; currently the expresses run at 30tph but if the  had a higher capacity terminal you could have 34-38tph (36tph is likely the practical max, but in theory you could have 40tph with CBTC).

The part about adding capacity in an absolute sense I agree with. Unfortunately, the current  service pattern prohibits them from taking advantage of said capacity, even with CBTC, due to the multiple merges in LIC (36th St, QP and the  /  merge). The 's terminal limitations at both ends, (WTC's tracks end within the station, limiting the speed at which trains can enter and leave) are already a constraint on that line's service. The  is constrained by Stillwell Ave due to a far away switch (like JC, but maybe worse because of the sharp curve trains must take upon entering/leaving Stillwell), but at least trains have multiple short turn options at 2nd Ave, Kings Highway, Church or 18th Ave. The  and ‘s capacity constraints are already well known and brought up many times here.

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

If only there was some sort of terminal in Manhattan we can use to terminate additional  trains without delaying the …

oh wait.

I suppose a limited number of  trains can turn at 2nd Ave. It would have to be a very limited amount to not delay the .

16 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much the  train as proposed really sucks. Barely connects to anything and doesn't really help outside a few very specific commutes. Any east-side line is going to suck to some degree, because at least far west side lines have a chance to cross over Manhattan from Brooklyn/Queens and make a connection with basically every north-south trunk. It's one of those situations that's just an unfortunate consequence of geography; the same way NYC geography naturally lends Brooklyn to being better served by transit than Queens and the Bronx since the Queens and Bronx have to split trains from Brooklyn. And you just get a bunch of stub-services terminating in lower Manhattan like the  and  

I fully agree that the  service as proposed really sucks. I honestly think the MTA haven’t really given much thought to building the line south of 63rd Street and that they drew a pretty blue line on a map to placate politicians who want(ed) a line down the entire length of Manhattan by the East River. And they haven’t given any thought to SAS service outside of Manhattan, even though a Queens-SAS service could address what will be the two biggest Achilles’ heels of the SAS below 63rd Street, namely its lack of connections and that it will operate well under capacity with just the  running there.

On 2/23/2023 at 9:52 AM, engineerboy6561 said:

Honestly yeah; my personal thought would be via SAS, Forest Hills-Whitehall St or 9 Av (would depend on how many trains can turn at 9 Av), and  Astoria-Bay Ridge or 9 Av (15tph , 15tph , 10tph , 20tph ) if we wanted to do this without adding any new tracks beyond SAS. The split on the  between Bay Ridge and 9 Av, with every third train going to 9 Av, would be if Bay Ridge couldn't handle 20tph on its own, and would also (alongside the conversion of 9 Av from solely a work yard to a storage yard) give the  direct storage yard access. Longer term, the SAS project kind of boxed itself into a corner by building only two tracks down the main corridor and then connecting them to Broadway express service; that basically either makes a  impossible with streamlined operations (or would require doing something weird where the lower half of 2 Av is served by a completely different set of trains than the upper half). Part of why I proposed quad-tracking a bunch of things and building out new trunks in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn was to basically turn 2 Av into a mirror of 8 Av/Central Park West, where some trains ran the whole length of the corridor, others serve only the lower half before doing their own thing in Queens, and others serve the upper half before branching off to serve a different Manhattan trunk. It's not as clean or easy to operate as a setup without merges, but it should split the difference reasonably well between ease of operation, frequency, and minimization of transfers.

I’m firmly in favor of running both the  and  via SAS once Phase 2 opens. Because the current  plus the few  and  trains was a stopgap solution that just barely works for now with the current three stations. But I don’t think it will address the additional riders that will be using the three new stations. There’s got to be a better and more consistent pattern for when the line becomes longer than a stub. Doing what we’re doing now just isn’t going to cut it when the line gets longer and its northern terminal gets farther away from Queens. 

Now, if taking away the  express train out of Astoria is going to cause riders there to riot, well sorry, but I have no sympathy for them. No, they are not entitled to both a Broadway Local and a Broadway Express service. Especially given how that  express ties up the entire Broadway Line at 34th Street by switching from the express to the local tracks there and messes up the ride for everyone else down the line. 

On 2/27/2023 at 12:12 PM, Wallyhorse said:

As I would do it, the would permanently be moved to 168 with the if an SAS service ran up the Concourse with the .

In this scenario, if there ALSO was an SAS line that continued to the Bronx via the route of the former Bronx 3rd Avenue EL (that I would do as an EL OR Subway), I would look to do it like this:

via current route on the SAS, then via the former Bronx 3rd Avenue EL route to Gun Hill Road (includes transfers at 138th-3rd to the , 149th-3rd to the  and , 205th Street (possibly via MetroCard/OMNY) to the  and (see below) and Gun Hill Road to the and ). 

 to Bedford Park Boulevard at all times via the full SAS (at least from Houston), then via 125th Street to St. Nicholas Avenue (transfers at Lex-125 to the ) , Lenox Avenue for the  and St. Nicholas for the  before joining the 8th Avenue line at that point and using the middle tracks in each direction of the six-track setup, skipping 135th Street-St. Nicholas both ways before joining the Concourse line at 145th). 

I’m fine with the  running crosstown on 125th. I’m not fine with the  being connected into the St. Nicholas Ave and Concourse lines. Because all that will do is kneecap the existing  and  services. And it will force the  to run less frequently too. Not to mention, as @Kamen Rider already has, that Concourse barn isn’t large enough to service two full time lines. 

On 2/22/2023 at 5:46 PM, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Oh bruh that tunnel already exists; if you look carefully on maps you'll also see subway grates behind what is now "The Church of God in Christ Jesus of Apostles' Faith Inc". The basically built the entire tunnel, just never the actual portal to connect the subway to take over the Branch of the LIRR to Laurelton. Today, this tunnel is used for layup trains. Today if the MTA wanted to it'd still be relatively easy for them to run  trains out to Laurelton just by adding the portal and converting the LIRR tracks; sad this is no longer talked about today.

The 63rd Street tunnel and Archer Avenue lines are smaller parts of a larger ambition that never happened; the Queens super express; had it been built, the 63rd Street tunnel would've connected to the LIRR tracks instead of Queens BLVD to create a new subway line via the LIRR ROW, the "Superexpress". This service then would've then gone via Archer Avenue, which was supposed to have 2 branches; the lower level (today ) was supposed to continue all the way out to Hollis Farmers Blvd 180st underground. The upper level (Today ) was supposed to take over the LIRR tracks to Laurelton.

Today, the MTA could still make the Queens super express a reality if they really wanted to, but tbh the current Queens Blvd config works well enough and this super express just doesn't offer enough of an advantage; the main goal was to increase capacity which 63rd Street tunnel successfully did. The extensions to Hollis and especially Laurelton still need to be investigated; they would both offer service to subway deserts, and as I said before, most of the infrastructure for the  to go to Laurelton is already there, they'd just need to convert the LIRR branch and add a station or two.

The decision to connect the 63rd Street Tunnel to the Queens Blvd Line didn’t really add capacity. It just basically moved some of the existing pre-2001 capacity (the ) to a different tunnel. Yes, there is now a fourth Queens-Manhattan service on QB (first the , now the ), but it’s a service relatively few people want to use and it has to merge with the other local service (the ) northbound and the  southbound. And you can only run so many  trains without truly impacting  service. There is the potential to run more service than is currently provided, but the current  service patterns with their many merges just don’t allow for it. 

On 2/21/2023 at 11:22 PM, Vulturious said:

Yeah, I'm very aware of how extremely difficult a new lower level line underneath existing tunnels can be especially the cost of said project would be. Although, getting back on topic, I decided to make an update to a map I edited showcasing how the  could run along Nassau St utilizing the abandoned portion of the old Nassau Loop.

Nothing much has changed above Chambers St outside of the added switches north of Grand St I forgot to implement last time. The only thing I truly changed was how trains are entering/leaving Chambers St on both sides. This time,  trains has it's own platform all to itself along with the  so no issue of timing train arrival/departures, also less wear and tear on the switches and curves. 

With that out of the way, now comes the issue of how trains would continue south of Chambers. A lot of reconstruction would be involved here, it wouldn't be too much of an issue if I only involved just making new tunnel from the tracks going to the layup to the southbound tunnel. Unfortunately, I decided I wanted to go the extra mile and create a new lower level station for the  at Fulton St to keep a connection to the Fulton Center along with the transfers. This is definitely too much to ask, but I said why not since Phase 4 is going to be expensive anyway and I wanted to have the SAS have a connection to something that's going to be attracting people to.

Now see, this I like very much. Though if it were me, I’d turn those connecting tracks west of Essex from orange to teal and run the  up 2nd Ave so we aren’t spending billions of dollars on a line that can only operate at 50 percent capacity (maybe 60 if we’re lucky). The easiest thing would probably be to turn the  at Chambers during peak hours and then turn both the  and  at Broad other times. At least then the  would have many more connections than as proposed in the MTA’s plans where it runs by itself all the way down with very few connections, sort of like an East Side  train. 

18 hours ago, Vulturious said:

I'm still not really for this idea, however this got me thinking of how service could benefit from such project if implemented.  trains would run to Bay Ridge with WTC platform closed off for trains similar to Columbus Circle's middle platform to keep connection with the  and to the  (I think that's how it works, I rarely ever find myself at that station transferring).  trains cut back to lower level City Hall full time with weekends to Whitehall St to cover for the  with late nights replaced by the and .  trains would continue to Whitehall St or extend to run to 9 Av with rush hour extension to Bay Parkway via West End. New switches south of 86 St along 4 Av would connect to the layup track between it and 95 St for a short turn since Bay Ridge station is limited.

I think extending the  straight down Broadway would definitely be one way to get around that capacity-killing S-curve south of City Hall. But it would have to get pretty deep, not just to safely underpin the  above, but also to clear the  and  tunnels. City Hall lower level might not be deep enough. It’s certainly an interesting idea. And it could connect back into the existing Lower Broadway Line just before Whitehall. Extending the  to Bay Ridge? Not so much, especially because it would likely require tearing up a part of the Oculus, which the PA will throw a hissy fit over.

6 hours ago, TDL said:

The tracks from the Willy B are on the outer side so that shouldnt be an issue.

Only in the northbound direction. The southbound  track appears to go below both  tracks as well as the  tracks before connecting with them. Though I suppose it is still possible to connect a southbound  from 2nd Avenue into the southbound Chrystie track, but it would require shoring up the existing Manny B-bound tracks and the southbound Willy B-bound track.

51 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Honestly the  train is not coming back at least in it's pre-2010 form. The  train was quite an effective and popular merger of the lines, and it's def the favored train on the Jamacia Line in terms of ridership.

I imagine down the road it'd be relatively easy for the MTA to change or add programming to the R211s as needed.

Is it? I rode the Queens Blvd Line every day for three years (2012-15) and I seem to recall the  having much greater ridership than the . Even in these post-Covid times I can’t see how the  would be more popular than the other three QBL services, especially since it doesn’t run there on weekends and it’s almost always the first to get booted off the QBL whenever it has a meltdown in service and the last to get restored. 

2 hours ago, Vulturious said:

These two images are meant to show the  program which is said to exist on the R211, unfortunately the programming wasn't complete. The image is cut off, but it says 6 Av Local and Canarsie Local going to Rockaway Parkway. It's meant to show the 6 Av orange colors on the FIND, but took the 8 Av colors instead. I believe the transfers when showing the strip map is normal the whole way through, with the exception of when arriving at a station showing the transfer info not being entirely accurate.

I doubt the MTA will get to it since they didn't bother having the Last Stop program recycle through on the Overhead when arriving at a terminal shown in Tech and Transit's video riding it. 

Interesting how it shows the  which isn’t a 6th Ave line at all. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever even seen the  rerouted via 6th Ave during emergencies, both pre-2010 and post-2016.

6 hours ago, TDL said:

Makes sense. Make the  the  running via 2nd Ave Phase 3. Terminating at 72nd St Lower level 

Well, that is one way for the M and V trains to coexist in Midtown Manhattan. Though I do wonder how popular a 2nd Ave  would be versus the current 6th Ave . Not to mention that the Chrystie St connection would have to be reconfigured to permit trains to go north onto 2nd Avenue. 

11 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

That’s BS. They can add any CBTC equippment to any NTT stock. 8th Ave does not “need” the R211’s because of CBTC. It can get the R143, R160, or R179.

Not all CBTC equipment is the same. The CBTC equipment on the  cars is older and not compatible with the kind used on QBL. And the R143s and R160s currently assigned to the  are in 4-car sets. So no, 8th Ave can’t just get the R143. It already has 5-car R179 sets on the  and 5-car R160 sets on the . Why not R211s?

23 hours ago, Vulturious said:

Here's another way to add another line onto the Fulton St line. As like other proposals of mine, this is merely just a proposal and not the final product. These ideas can easily change.

A track connection would be created from the Rutgers' tracks that would connect to the NYTM tracks for Hoyt-Schermerhorn. It should be easy to make one for the northbound side, the southbound side might be a bit more difficult. This isn't geographically accurate and most likely the split between the IND South Brooklyn and Fulton St line wouldn't look like what is presented on this map for the southbound side. Most likely, there would be an at-grade junction which shouldn't be too much of an issue since trains to the NYTM normally never runs around anyway.

Under this scenario, the  would return with the  probably cutting back and as much as I wouldn't mind keeping it around, it's just not worth the hassle. Obviously, I moved the  to run express with the  replacing service to Lefferts with the  having the Rockaways to itself with no shuttle service. Theoretically, this should be cheaper than creating a new tunnel from Montague St to and through the NYTM. This way it doesn't have to be moved at all, a new tunnel connection is created allowing for hopefully better direct service, and new redundancies.

I like it. This certainly is another way to eliminate the  merge at Lafayette and the split  at Rockaway Blvd. I can’t see how this  connection would be harder to do than the  connection between Lafayette and DeKalb that I’ve proposed in the past (the track map you provided suggests such connection wouldn’t be all that difficult), but then again, the track map isn’t geographically accurate like you said. It’s definitely easier and far less expensive than creating a new East River tunnel for the from the Transit Museum which would require building the entire SAS per the MTA’s current plan first. However, the  would almost certainly have to go back to Nassau St because there would be no way for this  service to coexist alongside the current  and  services and be able to run on acceptable headways (i.e., more than 5 tph at peak).

I haven’t heard if any R211S cars are here yet. Though that video footage of one being under construction at Lincoln, Neb.

5 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

I don't know how prevalent that issue has been so far, but what I do know is that the reverse is quite a issue: trains dumping along with the atrocious service. The running every 20 minutes barely helps matters, since they're usually timed right around an train, usually after. I had the pleasure of experiencing that yesterday since when I got off, the was 12 minutes away (and the was 16 minutes away). 

What's worse, is that the Astoria-bound trains are timed to depart Herald Square just before the Astoria-bound (N). However, because the is departing from the SB platform, virtually everyone takes the there, and since it takes time switching over to Times Square, the either beats the or arrives at the same time. And then because the switches to the local track before 57 Street instead of after, it crawls north of 49th Street as the gets in front of it. Poorly timed, and I bet it's done like that to save up from running an extra trainset that they otherwise would have to provide to not bunch. 

This is such a lousy setup? Whoever approved this should be fired. At least they’re not also running the downtown  express. Because that would make this even worse.

3 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

When the  gets the lineup to leave Whitehall St, they turn all the signals on the  track red so an  train won’t barrel into the station and potentially overrun. This also happens at Essex St (or at least used to) when the  trains pull into the station and don’t allow the other train to pull in. 
 

other places this happens I’ve seen is at 57 St-7 Av northbound if a train needs to switch from the express track to the 60 St tunnel track north of the station. The uptown train coming in on the local track is held outside 57 St. If it weren’t for the timer entering 34 St Herald Square northbound we’d see the same thing happening there with the uptown locals whenever an  train crosses over 

I seem to remember northbound  trains being delayed by a  train leaving 2nd Avenue. Probably for the same reasons and procedures used at Whitehall done with the when a  leaves for Astoria. 

11 hours ago, BreeddekalbL said:

If you send the R to Astoria what would be their yard since that was the problem that pulled them off astoria the first time

3 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

Coney Island Yard likely

Coney Island is where the  was based when it ran to/from Astoria. Lots of  /  trains deadheading over the Sea Beach Line in those days. It would make the most sense to base any future Bay Ridge-Astoria  service at CI.

55 minutes ago, 1998NewFlyer said:

So Concourse's yard capacity and if it can hold the B fleet is related to the r211 how? 

Shop capacity has nothing to do with what lines are based (not necessarily stored) in which yards?

17 hours ago, 1998NewFlyer said:

Can we please get back to r211 talk .... thank you

This is very much related to R211 talk. Yard shops have a major role to play with where lines and equipment are based. 

12 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

seriously… what’s it take for a girl to get listened to..? When do I get my employee account badge? Is that what it takes for my queer behind to get taken seriously around here?

To put this in simple terms: train cars and train lines are assigned to specific inspection and maintenance shops.

the number of lines and trains is decided by how many trains can be processed in a given amount of time in the inspection shop to meet the line’s daily needs plus spare factors.
 

Concourse shop is the smallest in service, with only 3 bays, each of which can hold 1 train Full length train.

 

East New York and Jamaica can both hold 8 trains.

Coney Island can hold 7.

 

these yards can easily deal with more than one line at a time.

Concourse, with only three tracks, can not. So it doesn’t matter how many storage tracks a yard has, but it’s shop tracks decide what line is based where.

 

if the B were made a concourse based line along with the D, it would overwhelm the people working in the barn. The only way to make that change is to spend the money to build a bigger shop building.

Kamen, thank you for your insight on why the shops can only base so many lines in the B Division. It’s most unfortunate that there are buffs who are acting like they know better, because they don’t. Even walking over the yard on the Bedford Park Blvd bridge many times, I could see clearly that Concourse had a very small shop. And I can’t see the bigwigs spending money any time soon on a new, larger shop on the other side of Bedford Park Blvd in order to service more than one line.

On 1/14/2023 at 6:18 AM, bobtehpanda said:

It's worth noting the very specific case of "off the shelf". Off the shelf means that they're going to be pretty much exactly the same as all the other units in the country (which makes me thinks Siemens S70/700 is the obvious choice) and it means that parts are cheap. Also, all those agencies around the country using those vehicles already have spares, already have people trained, etc. so it's clearly not very hard. On the other hand we don't really have off-the-shelf high floor cars; LA Metro has been off doing its own thing for a while now, and the high-floor S200 has exactly two operators.

The NTTs are notable in that they are actually fairly expensive per car, and a good deal of that is because no one else really operates trains like NTT.

If this forum about Ohio’s cities and this blog are any indication, then the S200 may have a third operator in the not-so-distant future. So why not have a fourth? 

https://forum.urbanohio.com/topic/705-greater-cleveland-rta-news-amp-discussion/page/287/#comments

https://neo-trans.blog/2023/01/20/sneak-peek-at-gcrtas-new-trains/

But if they choose to go with low-floor LRVs, then I won’t lose sleep over it. After all there are more of them to choose from. 

23 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Yeah, sending the  up SAS would help de-interline Broadway so it can be higher capacity. Ig the real constrain here would be that Whitehall Street would not be able to terminate a  every 4 minutes.

Perhaps this means ending Forest Hills  trains at Whitehall Street (basically the old ) and instead the  serving as the 4th Av local in Brooklyn. If it were a service running with 4-ish minute headways, perhaps it could split between Bay Ridge 95th street and serving as a rush hour express for either Sea Beach or West End.

I think in this scenario though, I think the MTA would call the Forest Hills-Whitehall Broadway local the  and the Astoria to Bay Ridge Broadway local would be , but now the  would be a distinct entity from the  train and may run on weekends.

Regardless, this seems really poorly thought out on the MTA's part since Broadway needs to provide 2 key services north of 59th Street - 2nd Av and Astoria, plus supplementing QLBVD local.

The other option is a complete de-interline. All Broadway Express up SAS, all local to Astoria, all QBLVD local go via 53rd and to 8th av, and all QBLVD express go express via 63rd and down 6th avenue.

Think something like this (credit to fbfree)

http://www.transportnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/NYC_deinterline_map.pdf

It’s true that you’d be unable to terminate a more frequent  at Whitehall and that’s why I’ve suggested extending the  to Brooklyn in place of the , while running the  like the old . This would actually facilitate extending the  onto the old Rockaway Beach Branch, because then it wouldn’t be that long of a route. And with fewer merges that the , which is Queenslink’s proposal. But you’d still have to have a heavily interlined Queens Blvd line for that to be possible.

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Speaking of a crosstown service, I had an idea that I presented in another subforum that involved the G and reintroducing the V but into a crosstown line. 

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It's not geographically accurate obviously, but it's the best I could do. Essentially, what's happening here is the V makes a return in the form of a Crosstown 34 St line. Railroad lines operate underneath 32nd and 33rd Sts and with 34 St avaliable, I decided to run them there. This is merely just a proposal as a way to bring in more crosstown service in Manhattan, especially in some of the densest parts of Manhattan.

The G would reroute from Greenpoint Av to a new stop somewhere in Queens to at least give riders direct service into LIC, albeit not as close to the development of the area, but close enough. A new wye would be created keeping the existing tunnels for redundancy purposes like the F via Crosstown which occasionally happens. Since under this scenario, service wouldn't normally run through those tunnels anymore, it's fine to create an at-grade junction. 

The V would take over Queens portion of the 's old route that would also run along QBL. Riders in this scenario wouldn't object to this new version of the V as it not only brings them to Queens Plaza, but also into Manhattan.

I'm not as crazy about it as I used to be when I first created this, however I do see a lot of potential with this idea. I did also have another unorthodox idea that involved rerouting the G, but this time along 21 St in Queens from the 21 St station (which is renamed to Jackson Av) to then run into Randalls Island making one stop, then into the Bronx along St. Ann's Av. I would show a mockup map of it, but I'm lazy to show the link, it's in the proposals subforum if you want more details.

I really like the proposal to send the  and a revived ( V ) in a new tunnel to 34th Street (or to some other crosstown street in Midtown Manhattan). I really think a new rail tunnel between Queens and Manhattan is needed and this one also has the potential to be a relief line for the  depending on how many riders transfer to go uptown from the  at 14th Street. Though I do think it should continue further west in Manhattan (like to 10th/11th Ave). I prefer this over the Bronx  proposal because I'm not sure how much of a demand there is from that corridor in The Bronx for Astoria/LIC. But given how busy the  gets, even in these post-Covid times, it certainly could use some relief. And the ( V ) service would likely be a more reliable service than the current  because it wouldn't be merging with the  in LIC and would likely be able to run more frequently than the .

20 hours ago, Vulturious said:

I'll go first, one dumb idea that has already been presented by Vanshnook himself was creating a new tunnel connection from Montague St tunnel to the old Court St station, the SAS is still way too far from anywhere it should be right now. Digging a new tunnel is going to be very costly which I completely understand isn't really cost effective, however it allows for a new kind of redundancy. Obviously, the  under this proposal would stick to being with the  in this scenario all the way into Queens while another service, say the  runs to Euclid Av as the replacement. There are a lot of pros here with obviously one big con being the issue with the NYTM and where to relocate it. However, there isn't really any other options outside of having to de-interline and move around some services, unfortunately Fulton St would still operate under the current service with  branching in Queens and the  to Euclid.

There really is no other solution to fixing the issue along Fulton and in Queens at the moment, we just have to wait until some grand opportunity presents itself or the MTA decides to take the inititive to bring in a better solution. 

To be fair, if the  did connect to the Fulton St local tracks somewhere near Hoyt-Schermerhorn, it would solve two problems. One is the issue of having a bifurcated  in Queens (and tri-furcated during peak direction rush). Because then the  can get the Rockaways and the  can get Lefferts (or vice versa; it doesn't really matter since both would be express). The other would be the lack of a storage/maintenance yard for Astoria trains. Because the  could then be stabled at Pitkin Yard (which I'm sure is large enough to stable more than just the ). I understand the MTA not wanting to build a yard, given that Montague has plenty of capacity to spare with only the  running there now. Maybe some sort of connection can be built between the DeKalb and Lafayette Ave stations. Can't see how it would cost more than a brand-new parallel Schermerhorn tunnel through Court St would (one that would also be running well below capacity).

22 hours ago, TMC said:

Going off of data, the stations south of Rockaway Blvd towards and in the Rockaways are the least used in the entire system. I’m not saying the train is hurting the area, I’m saying it’s hurting capacity systemwide (combined with my views elsewhere on how service should be run). 
 

My pitch is re-establishing LIRR service along the peninsula, as an extension of the Far Rockaway Branch so that they get something at least, not stranding them entirely. It would be run like an S-Bahn type of service. And travel times would be comparable to the A into Midtown and major locations in Brooklyn. 

Maybe so, but there is a not-small swath of area above Rockaway Blvd that hasn't had any train service in over 60 years. An area that could benefit from a faster link to North Queens than the Q21 and the Q52/53 SBS, all of which are at the mercy of the car and truck traffic on Woodhaven Blvd that's both heavy and insane. With connections to the  (at 104th St, which used to have a mezzanine at 102nd St) and the LIRR Atlantic Branch (reopened Woodhaven station), that could make for some new and faster connections within Queens and between Queens and Brooklyn that either don't currently exist or take long.