Does 5 Avenue deserve a subway line?

[JubaionBx12+SBS]

5 Avenue is the busiest street in New York City. It has Central Park on one side, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a famous shopping district, office buildings including the famous Empire State Building ans also leads into Union Square and NYU. Transit wise it is home to several bus routes which if combined as one would have the highest ridership in the United States beating out the M15 not to mention all of the express buses as well. Question is does this major throughfare deserve a subway line or will idoits continue to believe that streets like Avenue of the Americas and 7 Avenue are more developed than 5 Avenue?

[Grand Concourse]

If you are talking about fantasy, then sure: you can replace a majority of bus service with subway service. By 23rd St, will it merge with the Broadway lines or terminate there?

 

Obviously if the SAS can't get past a few blocks, there's no chance a 5th Av line will ever happen.

[LRG]

Fifth Avenue parallels Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The subway that serves those streets are fine, rendering a 5th Avenue subway redundant.

[Eric B]

The reason why it never had any grade separated rail is because the merchants did not want the disruption of subway construction, or the blight of an el. So they would not want the disruption now either, and Second Ave. is what would be use to relieve the Lexington.

[Forest Glen]

5th Avenue (particularly between 42nd and 59th street) is a high real estate district. A subway can't be built on 5th Avenue. NIMBY's would oppose it.

[Joe]

A subway can't be built on 5th Avenue.

 

You're right, a subway would have to be under 5 Ave.

[LRG]

You're right, a subway would have to be under 5 Ave.

 

Lol! :tup:

[CenSin]

It would make sense to make the 5 Avenue line turn somewhere around 34 Street since andwhere below that the lines start coverging. In my famtasy map, the line merges with the 34 Street crosstown line giving the 5 Avenue line some connections to other lines to feed.

[Trainmaster5]

Since when is 5th Ave the busiest street in the city? The whole premise of the OP is wrong. 5th Ave isn't even the busiest street in Manhattan. I can think of 3 avenues, 1st,2nd and Lexington that have more foot and auto traffic than 5th avenue. I'd venture that Broadway, Grand Concourse in the Bronx, and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn dwarf even the 3 Manhattan streets that I named. 5th avenue may be more famous than the others,( to tourists), but it's relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of rapid transit.

[Eric B]

 

You're right, a subway would have to be under 5 Ave.

That's still very disruptive. Look at Second Avenue!

[E Local]

To me if they were going to build a subway under 5th avenue, i would build a 5th avenue , from 59th street to 14 street-union square/ making a curve to stop right under union square & 14th street.

 

Stops:

59 street-

53 street-

48 street

42 street-(

34 street

28 street

23 street-

14 street-union square-

[Joe]

That's still very disruptive. Look at Second Avenue!

 

They need to stop dragging their asses on 2 Ave and get that shit done. Tell the NIMBYs to go **** themselves and hold contractors accountable for their lack of progress.

 

Edit: the City has to quit dragging their ass on the matter as well.

[MTR Admiralty]

Originally, actually, I planned a 5th Avenue line to be IRT. The rationale is, to demolish the IRT 5th Avenue Station and build a flying junction from there on to the 5th Avenue line and have some trains continue to the far West Side, and some along the new route. The 5th Avenue line woul have merged with the Lexington and 7th Avenue lines along some point. It's fairly complicated, but the point was to allow the Flushing Line a physical connection with the rest of the IRT so that equipment moves won't be so costly and time consuming. But like what lrg said, there's really no point considering how the Lexington Avenue parallels it in the north, the 6th Avenue line parallels it to the south, and the Broadway line cuts across midtown and runs parallel to it in lower Broadway.

[CenSin]

Originally, actually, I planned a 5th Avenue line to be IRT. The rationale is, to demolish the IRT 5th Avenue Station and build a flying junction from there on to the 5th Avenue line and have some trains continue to the far West Side, and some along the new route. The 5th Avenue line woul have merged with the Lexington and 7th Avenue lines along some point. It's fairly complicated, but the point was to allow the Flushing Line a physical connection with the rest of the IRT so that equipment moves won't be so costly and time consuming. But like what lrg said, there's really no point considering how the Lexington Avenue parallels it in the north, the 6th Avenue line parallels it to the south, and the Broadway line cuts across midtown and runs parallel to it in lower Broadway.

It's obviously not justified south of 34 Street because all the north/south lines start coming together leaving little room for another trunk line but I don't think it's correct to point out that the 5 Avenue line should not be built because it's parallel to the Lexington Avenue line. In fact, that alone justifies not building many lines (e.g., the Second Avenue line). I'm not arguing for anything, but pointing out that 5 Avenue is three avenues to the west of Lexington Avenue and that distance may warrant further thought than building a line along Park or 3 Avenue.

[MTR Admiralty]

It's obviously not justified south of 34 Street because all the north/south lines start coming together leaving little room for another trunk line but I don't think it's correct to point out that the 5 Avenue line should not be built because it's parallel to the Lexington Avenue line. In fact, that alone justifies not building many lines (e.g., the Second Avenue line). I'm not arguing for anything, but pointing out that 5 Avenue is three avenues to the west of Lexington Avenue and that distance may warrant further thought than building a line along Park or 3 Avenue.

Well the fact of the matter is, yes, it is THREE avenues to the west of Lexington and museum goers complain of the sometimes arduous walk to Fifth Avenue from Lexington. But I'm just saying, even though of the distance between Lexington and Fifth, the Lexington line is sufficient enough for this area (between Fifth and Lex). The only people that would be using the 5th Avenue Line in this area would only be the museum goers. Plus, if the line is actually planned, it would receive an unnerving backlash from the property owners along Fifth and possibly the Central Park Conservacy.

 

Things south of 34th Street would just be complicated because the geography of the island starts to force the lines to converge (actually this takes place at 14th Street), but also you have the Broadway line which cuts diagonally.

[Fresh Pond]

Between 14 St & 33 St, its pretty redundant since the is about a block or 2 away, and between 34 St & 57 St, the is 1 block away. Above 59 St, the is like 2 blocks away so this would also make it more redundant. There's nothing on 5 Av that justifies for a subway except for Museum Mile and you can take the M1-M4 for that PLUS the . Before we even talk about another subway line built, lets wait until the SAS is AT LEAST halfway built.

[MTR Admiralty]

I believe the BEST transit improvement it should get is simply BRT

[Grand Concourse]

Agreed. Give the buses their own lane and that would pretty much be 'good enough'. No need for any LRT.

 

They need to stop dragging their asses on 2 Ave and get that shit done. Tell the NIMBYs to go **** themselves and hold contractors accountable for their lack of progress.

 

Edit: the City has to quit dragging their ass on the matter as well.

 

Amen! They should've just told the residents there to f off and went to cut and cover and save themselves the hassle of this TBM. Turn 1st and 3rd avs into two-way roads to divert 2nd Av in the segments affected. That's the real solution.

[NX Express]

I believe the BEST transit improvement it should get is simply BRT

 

I always thought there should be an SBS making the following stops:

West Side Highway/96 Street

Broadway/96 Street

CPW/96 Street ( (I wish )

Met Museum of Art/5 Avenue

Lexington Avenue/86 Street

2 Avenue/86 Street (Tentative )

[MTR Admiralty]

I always thought there should be an SBS making the following stops:

West Side Highway/96 Street

Broadway/96 Street

CPW/96 Street ( (I wish )

Met Museum of Art/5 Avenue

Lexington Avenue/86 Street

2 Avenue/86 Street (Tentative )

That too, although I meant a 5th/Madison BRT line

[LRG]

Amen! They should've just told the residents there to f off and went to cut and cover and save themselves the hassle of this TBM. Turn 1st and 3rd avs into two-way roads to divert 2nd Av in the segments affected. That's the real solution.

 

Stop making sense!

But I couldn't agree with you any more man....

[error46146]

5 Avenue is the busiest street in New York City. It has Central Park on one side, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a famous shopping district, office buildings including the famous Empire State Building ans also leads into Union Square and NYU. Transit wise it is home to several bus routes which if combined as one would have the highest ridership in the United States beating out the M15 not to mention all of the express buses as well. Question is does this major throughfare deserve a subway line or will idoits continue to believe that streets like Avenue of the Americas and 7 Avenue are more developed than 5 Avenue?

they shoulda kept the 3rd ave el...

[MTR Admiralty]

Agreed. Give the buses their own lane and that would pretty much be 'good enough'. No need for any LRT.

 

 

 

Amen! They should've just told the residents there to f off and went to cut and cover and save themselves the hassle of this TBM. Turn 1st and 3rd avs into two-way roads to divert 2nd Av in the segments affected. That's the real solution.

TBM is also very costly and time consuming. It took 3 years for crews to dig out most of the original system, but in that same time we are still digging out the ditch called the launch box.

[R32 3348]

they shoulda kept the 3rd ave el...

Nah, we should've kept the SECOND Ave. el. The Third Ave. el would have been nice too...

[E Local]

Hey guys how did the conversation go from "A 5th avenue subway" to the 3rd, 2nd & the 1st avenue subway??