T to Dyre Avenue

Not quite. While Queens does have significantly more rail service than Staten Island, there are vast areas of Queens that are far from the nearest railroad or subway station. Those areas deserve to have better, more convenient transit options just as much as SI does. There are no plans to turn the Rockaway Line into a High Line type of park. There is only a proposal from Queens Community Board 9 to do that. So there is no guarantee that will happen either. Restoring rail to the Rockaway Line is not just about providing another transit option to a casino, convention center and Kennedy Airport. It is also about providing better connectivity within Queens. Given the borough's significant increase in population over the years, much of it made up of transit-riding people, better connectivity is something that is sorely needed. You won't have any disagreement from me that SI needs more rail service. But that's for another topic...

@ CenSin - Right. I meant Astoria riders. Any Midtown-bound riders to/from Astoria are the ones who have local service only because the and are both on the local tracks until the switches to the express. Of course 2nd Ave riders will have a full Broadway Express from 57th to Canal once the 2nd Ave stations open. At that time, if the stays at Astoria and the is revived and joins it there, Astoria line riders are likely to still have both of their lines running local until 34th St. I guess it's really not that huge of a deal since there's only one local stop above 34th.

Haven't seen so many different B-Division cars in the Bronx, well, since 1988. And all cleaned up or repainted too.

I hope they don't have those wide single side doors that the M7s and M8s have. Those damn things take forever to open, close and secure. What idiot at the MTA thought that was a good idea? I hope the M9s have double doors that meet in the middle of the doorway, like the M1/2/3/4/6 series had.

Express service only benefits those headed to 14th, Canal or Brooklyn. If you're headed to Midtown, you only have local service because the doesn't start running express until after 34th. The pre-July 2010 and 2001-2004 operated the same way.

I agree with your post. Express trains should stay on the express tracks and and local trains should stay on the local tracks. It keeps the trains moving with minimal delays and allows more trains per hour to be run on the tracks. That's why I've suggested and agreed with others who have suggested sending the to 2nd Avenue with the rather than keeping it at Astoria and having it switch from the local to the express tracks between 42nd and 34th as it used to before the June 2010 service cuts (and as the currently does).

The 60th St tunnels probably do drop further east of the Lexington Ave station. It sure seems that way when I look out into the tunnels at the east end of the station. I think between the at Lex/63rd and the at Lex/60th, both with entrances on 3rd Ave, the lower east 60s will be covered. Bear in mind that these stations will not have only one entrance on the street they're named after. They will have additional entrances a block or two away from the main entrances. That will help to make up for the lack of additional stops that the older subway lines have.

I take the almost every day. It always gets held up at 34th waiting for the on the local track to leave. Sometimes an will come into 34th, then leave, all while my is still sitting there. If that's what passes for "it works," then the NYC subways got real problems. Then there's the waiting at Prince St junction, which I'm not so sure more "competent" dispatching alone can solve. The ultimate solution is to not have Broadway trains constantly switching from local to express at various points along the Broadway Line. That's why I suggested running the to 2nd Avenue with the , so that there will be no more hybrid local/expresses; no more switching from from local to express or vice versa. What's wrong with having just one local? The is the sole local on 7th Avenue and upper Broadway and the is the sole local on Lexington Avenue. The got away with being the sole 6th Avenue local from 1989 to 2001.

Combined (F)/(M)/(V) service in your place would be 29 tph (15 + 8 + 6 = 29 total). Better hope that no one ever gets sick on a train, no signals ever go dark and no switches ever malfunction or you're looking at total meltdown on the 6th Avenue Local.

Really? I thought the increased, extended was just being tossed around here and on "the other message board." Not sure I like the idea of the West End Line being referred to as "the (D)/(J) line" (you know somebody's going to ).

I was always under the impression that the West End Line had higher ridership than the Sea Beach Line and that's why from 1986 to 2010 the West End had two lines - ( B )/(Mx) (1986-1988); (:P/(Mx) (1988-2001); (W)/(Mx) (2001-2004) and finally (D)/(Mx) from 2004 to 2010, when the (Mx) and became the current service. During that 24-year period the Sea Beach Line had just the , except for the seven weeks after 9/11/01 when the was suspended and the (Mx) replaced it in Brooklyn and the three trains that ran to/from Kings Highway in the 2004-2010 period. No need to send a full second service to the Sea Beach, but there may be a good reason to send one to the West End. "May" is the key word here as I've read that the seems to be handling the West End decently on its own. The local is not a great solution. It is that bad. It ties up the junction at Prince Street and holds up both and service in that area. It was made local because the doesn't run frequently enough to serve 49th, 28th, 23rd, 8th and Prince on its own. The MTA could just run more trains, but they claim they don't have the money to do so. But then again, they could have done that all along (i.e. back in 2004) before they got hit with that huge funding crisis, courtesy of our friends in the State Legislature.

Running the between Astoria and Bay Ridge will cause the to have the same issue that the had when it ran between Astoria and Bay Ridge prior to May 1987. The issue was that the lacked a yard anywhere along its route while had two. You don't want that to be the case again. So how about this: - 96th & 2nd to Coney Island via Broadway Express, Manhattan Bridge and 4th Ave Express all times except nights. Nights shuttle between 36th & CI. - 96th & 2nd to CI via Broadway Express, Bridge and Brighton Local. All times. - Same as now, except no night service. See below for substitute service. - Astoria to Whitehall via Broadway Local. All times. During rush hours, every other would turn at Canal to avoid backups from (W)s turning at Whitehall's center track. The would replace the to Bay Ridge late nights.

The r.o.w. over the Hell Gate Bridge is four tracks wide. So at that point, there is indeed only room for one more track. But get closer to Hunts Point and the r.o.w. gets wider. A or service via the NEC would not use the Hell Gate Bridge or its approaches. It would peel off from the NEC roughly around 132nd Street and run parallel to it, then dive down and curve south to tunnel under the Harlem River to run below 2nd Avenue. There are already existing tracks on the Corridor that ramp down to ground level and turn west just before the Amtrak route turns toward the bridge. I'm not sure if those tracks are still active or not.

If they went up 3rd, I get the feeling the MTA might try not to go further than 149th Street. I do agree that the 3rd Avenue corridor is also an excellent place for the (or ) to go - should we ever get that far.

What they really should do is put in a provision to facilitate an extension into the Bronx. Construct a flyover junction where the tracks duck under partially built trackways that continue just a short distance north of 125th Street. It shouldn't be too hard to do this thanks to the lack of a station at 125th and 2nd. As for where in the Bronx the line should go, I definitely think running via the Northeast Corridor would be the best choice. I wanted it to terminate at Dyre Avenue, as proposed in the MTA's 1968 plan (that's why my handle is "(T) to Dyre Avenue" ). Unfortunately, that's not possible with the West Farms Bus Depot that was built in the path of the old NYW&B viaduct. But I'd be OK if it continued on the NE Corridor to Co-op City.

I think it looks better than the current interior paint scheme. I like it.

The only way the could come back now is if the were to be made into a split service south of Jay St. Similar to the (Q)/<Q> service that ran on the Brighton Line from 2001 to 2004. But that won't happen because it would result in a loss of service to the busiest stations, which are the local stops between Jay and Church Ave.

There's not enough R62As at Corona to fully equip the and (6)/<6> lines. It's either the or the (6)/<6>. Can't be both.

Exactly! Now, if they had configured the R143s, 160s in married pairs, like the cars they replaced were, then the reasoning that going back to 60-foot cars creates more flexibility would have some merit. But since they decided to order them in completely inflexible permanently linked 4- and 5-car sets, 5-car R160 sets are restricted from the Eastern Division just like the 75-foot cars are. Now the MTA is set to make the same mistake again with the R179s. Way to go for flexibility, MTA!

Will there be enough R142As left at Westchester Yard left to have a setup like that once the goes all-R142A/188?

Well, as long as they don't break down all the time, are cool in the summer and warm in the winter and have front route signs that are easily readable (like they did before they got GOH'ed in 1989 and 1990), then I have no problem with the R32s staying around for six more years. But I find it hard to believe that they will.

Why is having a "uniform car fleet" on the Lex such a big deal? There is no other trunk line anywhere in the system that has one. What is so different about the , and trains that they must have a "uniform car fleet?" And please don't say the crowds and/or tourists because other trunk lines get very crowded and see lots of tourists. So what if the has different cars from the and trains? So what if the has different cars from the and trains? And so what if the has different cars from the and trains? This is not Boston, Philadelphia or Stockholm where every subway line is a self-contained line with no track connections to the other lines. This is New York, where trains interline extensively and have multiple track connections. Unless the MTA ever decides to buy a 6000-car fleet for the whole system and replace everything currently on the rails in one shot, you will NEVER see a uniform car fleet in the system. And they will never do that because it's too expensive and impractical to do so.

You just answered your own question. Money is the important factor right now. It would cost more to retrofit the older R62As with CBTC technology than it is to retrofit the R142As. It would also be more difficult to put that equipment in the smaller R62A cabs. Furthermore, the MTA doesn't have the money to buy a 400+ car fleet for the line, so retrofitting existing NTT cars is the way they're going. It's not a bad idea to do that. UES riders rode R62As on the for many years. They didn't complain about them then. Why would they now? The R62As are good cars that are holding up well. They don't look much worse than they did 10 years ago. And before the R62As, UES riders rode R17s, R29s and R36s that were rolling wrecks on steel wheels. I'm sure there were riders who complained about the hot, graffiti-covered trains that greeted them every day, but those same complaints were echoed system wide. Be glad we're not dealing with that right now. And you won't be dealing with that when R62As return to the , which they will.

Putting R62As on a Lexington Avenue line is not a stupid decision, as long as that line is not the . That's because the shares a significant amount of track and southern terminal with the and often both lines use each other's trains. And that's why it would be a stupid decision to put R62As on the . Only if R62As are assigned to both the and would it not be such a stupid decision. Except that there aren't enough R62As currently based in Corona to fully equip both lines, so that's just not happening. Meanwhile, the MTA is sending R142As to Kawasaki to be equipped with CBTC technology. Most of those cars are based out of Westchester Yard, home of the train, a line that's not getting CBTC any time soon. By having the and swap fleets, it's an almost even swap. And the can use the same LED circle/diamond markers currently used on the (7)/<7> because it also has a similar local/<6> express setup. Makes perfect sense to me.

I think the ( and ran less frequently when the (Q6Av) ran there. The and would likely have to run less frequently to make room for a express. That's not going to go over well with riders in the Bronx and Harlem. Then there would be the issue of what to do with the south of Chambers.