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4 hours ago, RR503 said:

I explained above how LIE could be elevated -- a fact which, in my opinion, makes it infinitely more attractive for cost reasons. 

So I took a few minutes to look at the merits of all these proposals being thrown around from a density perspective, and made a map. I apologize for the lack of labeling -- I trust you all know what's what.

If I may make a plug for the LIE, the route hits significant density before the park, and does a decent job after -- though, I concede, not as good as 73rd. 

Kissena skirts most areas of density, it seems. This, when combined with the complexities of park-based routings, makes it unattractive to me, but I can see how a similar line would be able to pull bus riders out from Flushing. 

What tool is that? That looks pretty good.

To clarify, when I said Kissena, I meant Kissena Blvd, not Kissena Park; a route the same as the Q25 today. So it's actually that entire north-south medium density band parallel to Corona Park. (The giant white spot in the middle is actually Queens College, so that's also a major ridership generator.

The problem I have with the LIE is that on paper it looks very good; however, for obvious reasons, most of the dense, ridership generating things on the LIE do not actually have good walking access to the LIE. (The LIE is not an ideal pedestrian environment, and businesses and residences generally do not want to face onto a giant noise and air polluting highway.) The other issue is that I would like to put subway lines in areas where the most speed improvement for transit passengers can be gained, and the Q17 and Q88 are not particularly slow on their Horace Harding segments; during the PM peak hour, the Q88 is scheduled to make a trip from Rego Park to Utopia/LIE in 25 minutes. At 10MPH, that's pretty fantastic for a local bus with stops every two blocks.

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9 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

What tool is that? That looks pretty good.

It’s called Social Explorer — one of those demographic mapping tools. You can get mapped census data all the way back to 1790 on it — pretty damn great if you can convince a boss/teacher to get it for ya!

10 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

To clarify, when I said Kissena, I meant Kissena Blvd, not Kissena Park; a route the same as the Q25 today. So it's actually that entire north-south medium density band parallel to Corona Park. (The giant white spot in the middle is actually Queens College, so that's also a major ridership generator.

I think we are once again getting our hairs crossed — I was responding to Coney Island Av’s proposal to use the park to extend the (N)(W) — you will see no disagreement from me regarding Kissena Blvd’s utility. That said, I don’t think Kissena and the LIE are comparable investments — one is a crosstown type play, while the other is much more core-centric. Put differently, I see few riders south of the LIE using this for direct Manhattan travel. 

11 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

The problem I have with the LIE is that on paper it looks very good; however, for obvious reasons, most of the dense, ridership generating things on the LIE do not actually have good walking access to the LIE. (The LIE is not an ideal pedestrian environment, and businesses and residences generally do not want to face onto a giant noise and air polluting highway.) The other issue is that I would like to put subway lines in areas where the most speed improvement for transit passengers can be gained, and the Q17 and Q88 are not particularly slow on their Horace Harding segments; during the PM peak hour, the Q88 is scheduled to make a trip from Rego Park to Utopia/LIE in 25 minutes. At 10MPH, that's pretty fantastic for a local bus with stops every two blocks.

While the LIE is no pleasure to walk along, I think you’re exaggerating the level of pedestrian disuse it faces. Both sides of the LIE — the north especially — actually have quite a number of businesses along them. Moreover, many of the ridership generators you speak of don’t access the LIE directly, but certainly don’t bar access either — QCC, for example, feeds largely onto Kissena which is a north/south street. And while bus speeds along Harding may be decent, the north/south routes that LIE would intersect are on the whole tediously slow, so shorter distances to the nearest subway stop must be taken into account when doing impact calcs. 

I think what this really comes down to is a simple cost benefit analysis. The LIE allows you to build out a new route relatively cheaply while striking into the heart of the ‘vast unserved’ of northeast Queens. I will never claim it’s perfect, but I think that given its financial advantages, its case is hard to challenge — especially given the success other cities have seen with similar development on even more heinous highways (Dan Ryan, anyone?)

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11 hours ago, RR503 said:

I think what this really comes down to is a simple cost benefit analysis. The LIE allows you to build out a new route relatively cheaply while striking into the heart of the ‘vast unserved’ of northeast Queens. I will never claim it’s perfect, but I think that given its financial advantages, its case is hard to challenge — especially given the success other cities have seen with similar development on even more heinous highways (Dan Ryan, anyone?)

That's the thing; I don't believe, given the very constrained ROW, that it's very cheap at all. There's barely any room for elevated pillars, let alone the foundation work required. In contrast, the Van Wyck is much less constrained.

The Dan Ryan line worked because they built it at the same time as the highway, so it wasn't very expensive at all. An after-the-fact retrofit is very expensive given the constraints; we lost our chances for a cheap Horace Harding line when the LIE got built.

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2 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

That's the thing; I don't believe, given the very constrained ROW, that it's very cheap at all. There's barely any room for elevated pillars, let alone the foundation work required. In contrast, the Van Wyck is much less constrained.

The Dan Ryan line worked because they built it at the same time as the highway, so it wasn't very expensive at all. An after-the-fact retrofit is very expensive given the constraints; we lost our chances for a cheap Horace Harding line when the LIE got built.

Disagree. This site here has aerial views of the Van Wyck in 1980. An example:

FjOEZkn.png 

Not too dissimilar to the LIE, IMO. 

Of course, LIE routings face the challenge of the Van Wyck interchange, but then again, relatively comparable (3-level interchange) situations exist along the AirTrain -- and it does fine. Yes, this would have all been easier if it was properly provisioned, but given the above, I'd wager it's still significantly cheaper/easier than the 'deep bore and mine' solution the MTA would push for the other alternatives under consideration.  

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2 hours ago, RR503 said:

Disagree. This site here has aerial views of the Van Wyck in 1980. An example:

FjOEZkn.png 

Not too dissimilar to the LIE, IMO. 

Of course, LIE routings face the challenge of the Van Wyck interchange, but then again, relatively comparable (3-level interchange) situations exist along the AirTrain -- and it does fine. Yes, this would have all been easier if it was properly provisioned, but given the above, I'd wager it's still significantly cheaper/easier than the 'deep bore and mine' solution the MTA would push for the other alternatives under consideration.  

The other fun thing about that is you could build it as a four-track trunk out to Hewlett St (Queens/Nassau border) because the LIE ROW is something like 250 feet wide; you could build it out with 15' track centers and 30' platforms without any problems. In fact, you could probably build it elevated over the LIE, pop a portal over the block bounded by the LIE, 57 Dr, 69 Ln, and Mazeau St, then run it under Flushing Av, Metropolitan Av, Grand St, and South 4th St before connecting to a four-track Second Avenue mainline at Chrystie and Houston,

From 2 Av/Houston I'd pick stops below (express stops in bold):

Rivington St/Pitt St

S 4 St/Kent St

S 4 St/Havemeyer St (Williamsburg Terminal, connection to (J)(M)(Z) )

Grand St/Union Av

Grand St/Bushwick Av (connection to (L) )

Grand St/Morgan Av

Flushing Av/Metropolitan Av

Flushing Av/Fresh Pond Rd

Flushing Av/69 St

(Portal just past 69 St)

LIE/80 St

LIE/Woodhaven Blvd (connection to (E)(F)(M)(R) , QBL Woodhaven converted to express)

LIE/97 Pl

LIE/108 St

LIE/College Point Blvd

LIE/Main St

LIE/Kissena Blvd

LIE/164 St

LIE/Utopia Pkwy

LIE/188 St

LIE/Francis Lewis Blvd

LIE/211 St

LIE/Springfield Blvd

LIE/Alley Rd

LIE/Douglaston Pkwy

LIE/Marathon Pkwy

LIE/Little Neck Pkwy

That's eight stops to downtown from eastern Queens on the express, and 24 stops on the local. The stop spacing is mostly around every half mile for the local service and 1.5-2.5 miles for the express service. At that point, if you work in lower Manhattan you're better off taking the LIE express to Williamsburg and grabbing the (J)(Z) there than just about anything else; if you're east of Flushing then the express competes with the Port Washington Branch on time if you work below 34 St. If you're near 14th on the west side, just take the express to the (L), and if you're at any of the hospitals on the far east side (Bellevue, Tisch, VA Harbor, Mt. Sinai Beth Israel) you can just take the express to 2 Av/14 St and then grab the local up to 23rd or 34th. 

The only annoying infrastructure thing would be the yard; I doubt we'd be able to put a yard in Alley Pond Park. If we couldn't buy out a chunk of the Lake Success Golf Club I'd just build the terminal like 179 St; build Little Neck Parkway as a through station, then build two levels of relay tracks out from the station to Horizon Rd in Lake Success to turn trains. I don't know if we'd need 60tph out that far but better to build the infrastructure for it than find ourselves capacity constrained 30-40 years later, especially if doing so would result in new North Shore Towers-type development on the eastern end.

At the very least I'd keep the express service out to at least 188 St; east of that point you could turn the local south along 295, pop a portal near the bottom of Cunningham Park, and then run under Hollis Ct Blvd/Hempstead Av to Belmont Park.

Edited by engineerboy6561
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10 minutes ago, engineerboy6561 said:

The other fun thing about that is you could build it as a four-track trunk out to Hewlett St (Queens/Nassau border) because the LIE ROW is something like 250 feet wide; you could build it out with 15' track centers and 30' platforms without any problems. In fact, you could probably build it elevated over the LIE, pop a portal over the block bounded by the LIE, 57 Dr, 69 Ln, and Mazeau St, then run it under Flushing Av, Metropolitan Av, Grand St, and South 4th St before connecting to a four-track Second Avenue mainline at Chrystie and Houston,

From 2 Av/Houston I'd pick stops below (express stops in bold):

Rivington St/Pitt St

S 4 St/Kent St

S 4 St/Havemeyer St (Williamsburg Terminal, connection to (J)(M)(Z) )

Grand St/Union Av

Grand St/Bushwick Av (connection to (L) )

Grand St/Morgan Av

Flushing Av/Metropolitan Av

Flushing Av/Fresh Pond Rd

Flushing Av/69 St

(Portal just past 69 St)

LIE/80 St

LIE/Woodhaven Blvd (connection to (E)(F)(M)(R) , QBL Woodhaven converted to express)

LIE/97 Pl

LIE/108 St

LIE/College Point Blvd

LIE/Main St

LIE/Kissena Blvd

LIE/164 St

LIE/Utopia Pkwy

LIE/188 St

LIE/211 St

LIE/Springfield Blvd

LIE/Alley Rd

LIE/Douglaston Pkwy

LIE/Marathon Pkwy

LIE/Little Neck Pkwy

That's eight stops to downtown from eastern Queens on the express, and 24 stops on the local. The stop spacing is mostly around every half mile for the local service and 1.5-2.5 miles for the express service. At that point, if you work in lower Manhattan you're better off taking the LIE express to Williamsburg and grabbing the (J)(Z) there than just about anything else; if you're east of Flushing then the express competes with the Port Washington Branch on time if you work below 34 St. If you're near 14th on the west side, just take the express to the (L), and if you're at any of the hospitals on the far east side (Bellevue, Tisch, VA Harbor, Mt. Sinai Beth Israel) you can just take the express to 2 Av/14 St and then grab the local up to 23rd or 34th. 

The only annoying infrastructure thing would be the yard; I doubt we'd be able to put a yard in Alley Pond Park. If we couldn't buy out a chunk of the Lake Success Golf Club I'd just build the terminal like 179 St; build Little Neck Parkway as a through station, then build two levels of relay tracks out from the station to Horizon Rd in Lake Success to turn trains. I don't know if we'd need 60tph out that far but better to build the infrastructure for it than find ourselves capacity constrained 30-40 years later, especially if doing so would result in new North Shore Towers-type development on the eastern end.

Maybe by the time this actually were to be built, you could extend it into Nassau County, which would allow for greater use if so.

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3 hours ago, Wallyhorse said:

Maybe by the time this actually were to be built, you could extend it into Nassau County, which would allow for greater use if so.

I  seriously doubt that Nassau County ,( North Shore or Belmont Park), will welcome NYCT trackage across the county line. Ditto Westchester ( Getty Square or Dyre extension ). There are neighborhoods within NYC that don't want subway service anywhere near them. It may look good to railfans but NIMBY and $$$ concerns and politics always determine the outcome around here.

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1 hour ago, Trainmaster5 said:

I  seriously doubt that Nassau County ,( North Shore or Belmont Park), will welcome NYCT trackage across the county line. Ditto Westchester ( Getty Square or Dyre extension ). There are neighborhoods within NYC that don't want subway service anywhere near them. It may look good to railfans but NIMBY and $$$ concerns and politics always determine the outcome around here.

I was thinking the same—such factors effectively prohibit the creation of a subway line within the realm of suburbia. There are cryptic messages hidden in plain sight behind where certain lines go and don't go that can be recognized by simply taking a look at today's subway map. Consider A Division (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(S) routings. The (1) functions at the 7th Avenue Local, but recall it's termini: South Ferry and Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street. The northern terminal of the (1) is located in the affluent neighborhood of Riverdale in The Bronx—the interest there is to keep passengers from Crown Heights, Brownsville, and East New York off their trains, which is why the (1) does not continue into Brooklyn alongside the (3) and (4). The same logic applies to the (6). Apart from it being the Lexington Avenue Local, it's termini are instrumental in shaping where it's route is situated. Pelham Bay Park—the northern terminal of the (6), is another wealthy neighborhood in The Bronx. Residents there, who are well off like those from Riverdale, will cry NIMBY if the (6) were extended into Brooklyn permanently to a neighborhood of lower socioeconomic class, say Crown Heights, or East New York where the (3) terminates at New Lots Avenue. If you compare the terminals of the (2), (3), (4), (5), and (7), you'll see a simple pattern emerge. The (2) starts it's trip at Flatbush Avenue–Brooklyn College, traveling to Wakefield–241st Street, where the median income level is comparable to that in Flatbush. With the (3), you wrap the controller out of East New York, travel into the heart of Brownsville through the projects, and end your trip in the projects in Harlem. See? The system is designed to transport those within a certain socioeconomic class while keeping them separated and contained. It's no different with B Division (A)(B)(C)(D)(E)(F)(G)(J)(L)(M)(N)(Q)(R)(W)(Z)(S) routings. You know how it goes. Choose a line, look at its termini and it's pretty simple from there on out. The (C) starts at Euclid Avenue, makes its way through a few neglected areas in Brooklyn, and ends at 168th Street in Washington Heights, where the residents are hardworking and productive like those who live near Euclid Avenue, but live a struggle in trying to make ends meet.  By far the most obvious line that speaks for itself in this regard is the (R). Not only is it the only 3-borough local we have access to, but it makes its way from the expensive streets of Forest Hills to the elite properties of Bay Ridge. Come on now, this all can't be merely coincidental—this is all deliberate. Like I've said before, where there's money, there's power, which is why our system is the very way it is today.

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12 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

I  seriously doubt that Nassau County ,( North Shore or Belmont Park), will welcome NYCT trackage across the county line. Ditto Westchester ( Getty Square or Dyre extension ). There are neighborhoods within NYC that don't want subway service anywhere near them. It may look good to railfans but NIMBY and $$$ concerns and politics always determine the outcome around here.

And yet, Evanston, Skokie and Oak Park, Illinois, haven’t said boo about CTA ‘L’ trains operating in their communities. For decades, too. Makes you wonder...

It was politics that kept NYCT tracks out of Westchester and possibly Nassau - New York City politics. When rail service ended on the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway and on the Getty Square branch in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was not interested in running NYC Subway trains past the City line. That was why the City purchased the Westchester only up to the City line, a few hundred yards past Dyre Avenue. Yonkers residents actually attempted to save the Getty Square branch from abandonment, but the Courts sided with the New York Central, which wanted to abandon it (and the rest of the Putnam Line in the mid 1950s). Perhaps if LaGuardia and Yonkers’ mayor had a bit more foresight, the Getty Square branch would have become a branch off of the IND Concourse Line and be part of today’s (B) train, much like the Bronx portion of the Westchester line is part of today’s (5) train. Unfortunately, that ship sailed more than half a century ago, when lower Westchester County began to suburbanize in earnest. Same with Nassau County, and their attitudes about the City haven’t changed either since they left. In their book, the City is still the same “crime and drug-infested shithole” they moved out of in the 60s through the 80s.

10 hours ago, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

I was thinking the same—such factors effectively prohibit the creation of a subway line within the realm of suburbia. There are cryptic messages hidden in plain sight behind where certain lines go and don't go that can be recognized by simply taking a look at today's subway map. Consider A Division (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(S) routings. The (1) functions at the 7th Avenue Local, but recall it's termini: South Ferry and Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street. The northern terminal of the (1) is located in the affluent neighborhood of Riverdale in The Bronx—the interest there is to keep passengers from Crown Heights, Brownsville, and East New York off their trains, which is why the (1) does not continue into Brooklyn alongside the (3) and (4). The same logic applies to the (6). Apart from it being the Lexington Avenue Local, it's termini are instrumental in shaping where it's route is situated. Pelham Bay Park—the northern terminal of the (6), is another wealthy neighborhood in The Bronx. Residents there, who are well off like those from Riverdale, will cry NIMBY if the (6) were extended into Brooklyn permanently to a neighborhood of lower socioeconomic class, say Crown Heights, or East New York where the (3) terminates at New Lots Avenue. If you compare the terminals of the (2), (3), (4), (5), and (7), you'll see a simple pattern emerge. The (2) starts it's trip at Flatbush Avenue–Brooklyn College, traveling to Wakefield–241st Street, where the median income level is comparable to that in Flatbush. With the (3), you wrap the controller out of East New York, travel into the heart of Brownsville through the projects, and end your trip in the projects in Harlem. See? The system is designed to transport those within a certain socioeconomic class while keeping them separated and contained. It's no different with B Division (A)(B)(C)(D)(E)(F)(G)(J)(L)(M)(N)(Q)(R)(W)(Z)(S) routings. You know how it goes. Choose a line, look at its termini and it's pretty simple from there on out. The (C) starts at Euclid Avenue, makes its way through a few neglected areas in Brooklyn, and ends at 168th Street in Washington Heights, where the residents are hardworking and productive like those who live near Euclid Avenue, but live a struggle in trying to make ends meet.  By far the most obvious line that speaks for itself in this regard is the (R). Not only is it the only 3-borough local we have access to, but it makes its way from the expensive streets of Forest Hills to the elite properties of Bay Ridge. Come on now, this all can't be merely coincidental—this is all deliberate. Like I've said before, where there's money, there's power, which is why our system is the very way it is today.

I don’t agree with this at all. Riverdale residents wanting to keep out people from Crown Heights or East New York, Brooklyn? When there are much closer neighborhoods in the Bronx that can give East New York a run for its money? Just trace the routes of the Bx3 and Bx9 buses. And those routes haven’t changed a lot over the years, so the rough areas of the Bronx were one bus ride away from Riverdale even in the 70s and 80s, when they were much worse areas than they are today. In fact, Inwood and Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan, were (and still are) one bus ride away on the Bx7...not to mention the (1) train. The (1) also has a pretty sizable group of projects literally just a couple of stops away from 242 in Marble Hill. And what about the (6) train, which has Castle Hill, Soundview and Hunts Point Avenue not so far away? Not to mention the giant clusters of projects in East Harlem. Much closer than anywhere in eastern Brooklyn. The (C) also runs through affluent Central Park West and Greenwich Village in addition to serving Washington Heights and East New York. And virtually no one on CPW or living in the Village is calling for the removal of the subway, like they did in LaGuardia’s day with the els. The Museum of Natural History hasn’t decamped to “the other Greenwich” (the one in Connecticut). So your theory holds very little (if any) substance, with the possible exception of the (R), although I wouldn’t call Jackson Heights or Elmhurst “expensive” or “elite” neighborhoods. And 20+ years ago, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, was a “no-go” area too, like much of eastern Brooklyn and the South Bronx.

Edited by T to Dyre Avenue
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8 hours ago, Wallyhorse said:

Though it's also true some of those areas were quite different when those lines were first built. 

 

That's important to note Brownsville was very Jewish and East NewYork still very Italian. Quite a few years before urban flight With these lines opening.

Edited by RailRunRob
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On 8/10/2018 at 9:58 PM, Trainmaster5 said:

I  seriously doubt that Nassau County ,( North Shore or Belmont Park), will welcome NYCT trackage across the county line. Ditto Westchester ( Getty Square or Dyre extension ). There are neighborhoods within NYC that don't want subway service anywhere near them. It may look good to railfans but NIMBY and $$$ concerns and politics always determine the outcome around here.

The grandstand side of Belmont Park is actually within the city limits.  It's been noted to me many times over the years the where the Grandstand ends and clubhouse at Belmont starts is also the border between NYC and Nassau County.   Assuming that is the case, you could have the line go to Belmont Park and end right at the Grandstand entrance inside the grounds.

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16 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

And yet, Evanston, Skokie and Oak Park, Illinois, haven’t said boo about CTA ‘L’ trains operating in their communities. For decades, too. Makes you wonder...

It was politics that kept NYCT tracks out of Westchester and possibly Nassau - New York City politics. When rail service ended on the New York, Westchester & Boston Railway and on the Getty Square branch in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was not interested in running NYC Subway trains past the City line. That was why the City purchased the Westchester only up to the City line, a few hundred yards past Dyre Avenue. Yonkers residents actually attempted to save the Getty Square branch from abandonment, but the Courts sided with the New York Central, which wanted to abandon it (and the rest of the Putnam Line in the mid 1950s). Perhaps if LaGuardia and Yonkers’ mayor had a bit more foresight, the Getty Square branch would have become a branch off of the IND Concourse Line and be part of today’s (B) train, much like the Bronx portion of the Westchester line is part of today’s (5) train. Unfortunately, that ship sailed more than half a century ago, when lower Westchester County began to suburbanize in earnest. Same with Nassau County, and their attitudes about the City haven’t changed either since they left. In their book, the City is still the same “crime and drug-infested shithole” they moved out of in the 60s through the 80s.

I don’t agree with this at all. Riverdale residents wanting to keep out people from Crown Heights or East New York, Brooklyn? When there are much closer neighborhoods in the Bronx that can give East New York a run for its money? Just trace the routes of the Bx3 and Bx9 buses. And those routes haven’t changed a lot over the years, so the rough areas of the Bronx were one bus ride away from Riverdale even in the 70s and 80s, when they were much worse areas than they are today. In fact, Inwood and Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan, were (and still are) one bus ride away on the Bx7...not to mention the (1) train. The (1) also has a pretty sizable group of projects literally just a couple of stops away from 242 in Marble Hill. And what about the (6) train, which has Castle Hill, Soundview and Hunts Point Avenue not so far away? Not to mention the giant clusters of projects in East Harlem. Much closer than anywhere in eastern Brooklyn. The (C) also runs through affluent Central Park West and Greenwich Village in addition to serving Washington Heights and East New York. And virtually no one on CPW or living in the Village is calling for the removal of the subway, like they did in LaGuardia’s day with the els. The Museum of Natural History hasn’t decamped to “the other Greenwich” (the one in Connecticut). So your theory holds very little (if any) substance, with the possible exception of the (R), although I wouldn’t call Jackson Heights or Elmhurst “expensive” or “elite” neighborhoods. And 20+ years ago, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, was a “no-go” area too, like much of eastern Brooklyn and the South Bronx.

Absolutely.  Some fail to or simply refuse to realize how much NYC has changed since the rapid deterioration of many areas in the 1960's and '70s, especially large chunks of midtown when the drug trade wound up taking over many parts of Manhattan at the time, especially many who fled when NYC was at its worst.  Sunset Park was also a very bad part of Brooklyn back then.   They are stubborn and refuse to see how much NYC has changed. 

The subways go through many areas that never deteriorated in the first place and as noted in another post were built in many instances long before "white flight" ever took place.  

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On August 11, 2018 at 12:00 AM, AlgorithmOfTruth said:

 By far the most obvious line that speaks for itself in this regard is the (R). Not only is it the only 3-borough local we have access to, but it makes its way from the expensive streets of Forest Hills to the elite properties of Bay Ridge. Come on now, this all can't be merely coincidental—this is all deliberate. Like I've said before, where there's money, there's power, which is why our system is the very way it is today.

I'm sorry but Bay Ridge elite? The wealthy people in the area avoid 4th Avenue and the (R) like the plague. They wouldn't give two shits about where the (R) terminates, they just avoid it right off the bat because its a subway. The area around the (R) train is working class and mostly immigrant. If you want to find the elites, go ride the X27. As a matter of fact, if you want to invoke their wrath, propose changes to the X27 and see how that turns out. 

I'm sorry but i just can't believe this argument. Now if you want to argue the (R) ends in Bay Ridge because of Staten Island elites you might have a point (even though it was mostly Mayor Hylan's hatred for the BMT, but thats a whole other discussion) 

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30 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

I'm sorry but Bay Ridge elite? The wealthy people in the area avoid 4th Avenue and the (R) like the plague. They wouldn't give two shits about where the (R) terminates, they just avoid it right off the bat because its a subway. The area around the (R) train is working class and mostly immigrant. If you want to find the elites, go ride the X27. As a matter of fact, if you want to invoke their wrath, propose changes to the X27 and see how that turns out. 

I'm sorry but i just can't believe this argument. Now if you want to argue the (R) ends in Bay Ridge because of Staten Island elites you might have a point (even though it was mostly Mayor Hylan's hatred for the BMT, but thats a whole other discussion) 

LOL! You can say that again. Had the X27 not been cut on weekends back years ago, I would likely be living on Shore Road now. I saw a nice place there too, but no express bus 7 days a week was a deal breaker. Shore Road is the best and all of that west of 3rd Avenue. Still may consider it if I move back to Brooklyn.

Big fan of the area. I convinced my old boss to buy an apartment there and he takes the X27 from Shore Road to the office. Chose that over Brooklyn Heights...

Edited by Via Garibaldi 8
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 8/10/2018 at 9:58 PM, Trainmaster5 said:

I  seriously doubt that Nassau County ,( North Shore or Belmont Park), will welcome NYCT trackage across the county line. Ditto Westchester ( Getty Square or Dyre extension ). There are neighborhoods within NYC that don't want subway service anywhere near them. It may look good to railfans but NIMBY and $$$ concerns and politics always determine the outcome around here.

Unfortunately your right yet they are NIMBY on subways but are YIMBY for condos and then once you build up the area etc they are gonna scream for transit

Edited by BreeddekalbL
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On 8/10/2018 at 6:58 PM, Trainmaster5 said:

I  seriously doubt that Nassau County ,( North Shore or Belmont Park), will welcome NYCT trackage across the county line. Ditto Westchester ( Getty Square or Dyre extension ). There are neighborhoods within NYC that don't want subway service anywhere near them. It may look good to railfans but NIMBY and $$$ concerns and politics always determine the outcome around here.

Indeed.

It's also worth noting that there isn't really much to go to. SE Queens has Valley Stream/Green Acres (probably the most doable politically since it's surrounded by highway and parking lots from residential areas). Eastern Queens has LIJ, which would be kind of nice if you were to build a light rail down Union Turnpike. But that's about it.

The best thing I have heard for Belmont Park is either a stadium that gets used not even half the year, or a glorified park and ride. How hot is that Meadowlands stadium doing?

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Something I don't think was posted here:

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/07/26/what-went-wrong-with-second-avenue-subway-construction-the-mta-doesnt-want-you-to-know/

Last year, Brian Rosenthal from the New York Times (who contributed to the exposé on construction costs late last year) submitted FOIL requests to the MTA for evaluations of the contractors used for construction of Phase 1. A few weeks ago, the MTA rejected the FOIL request, arguing the reports contain opinions and evaluations that would affect the bidding process for current and future contracts. 

Sounds like business as usual, and seemingly speaks to the relatively small number of contractors that are able to bid for MTA projects under the law. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
16 hours ago, trainfanrod17 said:

Is it possible to run the (T) to williamsburg S4th st

Physically, I think so. I'd assume that you could do it. If you put the 2 Av/Houston St station between Houston and 2nd Sts, then you could do a 1000' radius curve that would end you between Rivington and Delancey; follow it around a little longer and you could slide the line onto Rivington and then drop it down below the Hudson. If you use the existing provisions at 2 Av to build the (T) over the (F) you should be fine because the F drops down further to serve the Delancey St lower level. Just start the descent into the tube a little after Pitt St and you should be fine. According to the NOAA chart for that part of the East River a line from Rivington St to South Fourth St would max out around 60' deep. If you assume the line is about 10' deep when it goes over the (F) near Rivington and Essex, then you can have a station at Pitt St serving the LES/Alphabet City area, and then an 0.4% grade gets you 80' deep on the Manhattan side. On the Brooklyn side, a 1% grade would get you up to probably around 20' below the surface in time to have a Wythe Av stop that could then be followed up with further stops in Brooklyn.

If you're below the (F) at 2 Av then this may get more complicated and a stop at Pitt St might be much more difficult and expensive because of how deep you'd need to go.

Edited by engineerboy6561
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I'd go even further and argue that the whole damn thing should have been a four-track trunk line from 125 St to at least 2 Av/Houston St, with twin four-track trunks branching out to serve 3 Av in the Bronx and Astoria Bl in Queens on the north end and some combination of Jamaica (replacement for Jamaica El), Williamsburg/LIE (as I outlined in the post below) and Utica Av down to Kings Plaza on the south end. I still really feel like the city is shooting itself in the foot really badly by building this as an extremely deep two-track line instead of a shallower four-track trunk.

 

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