Second Avenue Subway Discussion

[engineerboy6561]

9 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

https://new.mta.info/2023-SASP2-hearing

Looks like the MTA is having a hearing about SAS Phase II soon. I hope to attend.

Main things I want to emphasize are:

1. How will the MTA provide adequate service up SAS for phase II?  alone won't be enough, and increasing service would be hard cause of train crossover, but sending  train up SAS leads to dominoes of getting adequate service to Astoria ect.

2. The MTA better do provisions for Bronx extension. Usually, MTA is pretty good about doing provisions, but there have been some obvious misses in recent projects (mainly Phase I making express tracks out of the cards).

3. Glad MTA is looking into crosstown extension

I could shame them about the cost and the problems, but they probably won't listen, and I want to be constructive where I can.

 

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.

Edited February 23, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

13 hours ago, 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 like your analogy of making SAS comparable to CPW. Honestly in theory, pairing 2nd Av and Broadway in a similar way to 6th and 8th avenue or Lexington and 7th avenue is a good idea

However, in practice I'm a bit more skeptical. Firstly as you state MTA only making SAS 2 tracks so far without clear provisions to allow for express service complicates things. Secondly, Broadway would just be way more favored than any service down 2nd Avenue not only because Broadway more directly serves midtown, but just because any 2nd Avenue service is going to lack direct connections to other lines whereas Broadway has many connections to the other trunks. As I've said before, the  train as proposed by the MTA doesn't serve much of a purpose except for commuters who happen to be staying only on the east side of Manhattan.

This would be my recommendation for the MTA going forwards in reguards to SAS:

Phase II: Basically construct as is, but ensure there are provisions for a connection to the Bronx and that 116th Street is built in a way to allow for a lower level to be constructed in the future. Now both  and  (or more generally all Broadway expresses) would go up SAS, and there'd be other service adjustments as you suggest compensating for service loss in Astoria.

Phase III: 125th Street Crosstown with both  and  being extended. The MTA has said they'll be looking into several options and I trust them to choose the best. No need to include provisions for express tracks or anything for the crosstown. This also gives them time to research and decide what they want to do with the .

Phase IV: This is basically the MTA's current Phase III proposal, except the  would get a lower level at 72nd Street and run through an express set of tubes under the  to terminate at 116th Street. The line below 72nd Street would have provisions for quad-track.

Phase V: Extend the  into the Bronx to serve the transit desert the 3rd Avenue El left. This could be a subway line under 3rd Avenue, or a line that somehow uses the metro north ROW.

After this, there are many things that can be done, but this would be my phases. I really hope the MTA gets less stuck on some arbitrary things such as all the stations having to have these huge cavern mezzanines (given stations further up SAS will prolly have lower ridership). I also hope that going forwards, the MTA looks into starting the next phase before the previous phase is actually finished cause we may end up having a nearly 10 year gap between Phase I finishing and Phase II starting and at that rate nothing will ever get finished.

Edited February 24, 2023 by ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ

[engineerboy6561]

11 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

I like your analogy of making SAS comparable to CPW. Honestly in theory, pairing 2nd Av and Broadway in a similar way to 6th and 8th avenue or Lexington and 7th avenue is a good idea

However, in practice I'm a bit more skeptical. Firstly as you state MTA only making SAS 2 tracks so far without clear provisions to allow for express service complicates things. Secondly, Broadway would just be way more favored than any service down 2nd Avenue not only because Broadway more directly serves midtown, but just because any 2nd Avenue service is going to lack direct connections to other lines whereas Broadway has many connections to the other trunks. As I've said before, the  train as proposed by the MTA doesn't serve much of a purpose except for commuters who happen to be staying only on the east side of Manhattan.

This would be my recommendation for the MTA going forwards in reguards to SAS:

Phase II: Basically construct as is, but ensure there are provisions for a connection to the Bronx and that 116th Street is built in a way to allow for a lower level to be constructed in the future. Now both  and  (or more generally all Broadway expresses) would go up SAS, and there'd be other service adjustments as you suggest compensating for service loss in Astoria.

Phase III: 125th Street Crosstown with both  and  being extended. The MTA has said they'll be looking into several options and I trust them to choose the best. No need to include provisions for express tracks or anything for the crosstown. This also gives them time to research and decide what they want to do with the .

Phase IV: This is basically the MTA's current Phase III proposal, except the  would get a lower level at 72nd Street and run through an express set of tubes under the  to terminate at 116th Street. The line below 72nd Street would have provisions for quad-track.

Phase V: Extend the  into the Bronx to serve the transit desert the 3rd Avenue El left. This could be a subway line under 3rd Avenue, or a line that somehow uses the metro north ROW.

After this, there are many things that can be done, but this would be my phases. I really hope the MTA gets less stuck on some arbitrary things such as all the stations having to have these huge cavern mezzanines (given stations further up SAS will prolly have lower ridership). I also hope that going forwards, the MTA looks into starting the next phase before the previous phase is actually finished cause we may end up having a nearly 10 year gap between Phase I finishing and Phase II starting and at that rate nothing will ever get finished.

Going forward I would agree with most of this, except I'm not happy about having the  serving as crosstowns to 125 St instead of serving the Bronx; 125 St would be served just fine with 15tph rather than the full 30, and I'd rather see 30tph go to the Bronx and 15 to 125 St. IRL the problem with this is that the MTA really painted themselves into a corner by connecting the tracks up the way they did; short-term it made a lot of sense but long-term they should have just built four tracks on the same level using the Milan method (which is basically a variant of cut-and-cover where you deck over the road as soon as you get your retaining wall sunk, so the road is closed to traffic for significantly less time and so you get the price tag of regular cut and cover but with much less disruption), or if they were truly insistent on using tunnel-boring to do the work they should have gone with a 60' inner diameter tunnel; that would have allowed for two levels of two tubes each constructed CPW-style with stations inside the tunnel bore.

To elaborate on that second method, with a 60' tunnel inner diameter, assuming each level has 15' total clearance from floor of tunnel to roof of tunnel, with 2' thick concrete slabs between the two tunnel layers you could comfortably fit two 12' wide trackways and a 30' wide platform on each level. For local stations the platforms would be on the west side of 2 Av, while express stations would have island platforms to enable cross-platform transfers. If they'd done that and then used conventional station box mezzanines (instead of a full-length mezzanine just have two 75' x 75' mezzanines spaced at 1/4 and 3/4 the length of the platform raised about 10' above the top of the tunnel bore) they probably could have saved a pile of money. Because the tunnel would be that wide it would also be possible to have tail tracks and turnaround ramps situated on either tunnel level between stations to allow for operational flexibility, short turns, etc. That structure would also have connected to the 63 St tracks reasonably easily.

As far as the 2 Av line being isolated I'd argue it's not great but a bit more complicated than that. I would like to see the downtown portion run under 3 Av from about 67 St to 37 St or so; that would allow for an easy connection at 59 St-Lex Av via the Broadway local platforms as well as connections to the  at 53 St and the  at Grand Central; south of there you'd have connections to the  at 14 St, and the  at Lower East Side-2 Av. That would basically resolve a lot of issues around people only being able to use the 2 Av line for service on the far east side; a 2 Av line with a routing along 3 Av in the upper core and 3 Av in the Bronx (especially one with express service) would actually be able to fulfill its stated purpose of decongesting the Lex because it would share basically all the same major transfer points as the Lex from Houston St to 59 St.

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

4 hours ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Going forward I would agree with most of this, except I'm not happy about having the  serving as crosstowns to 125 St instead of serving the Bronx; 125 St would be served just fine with 15tph rather than the full 30, and I'd rather see 30tph go to the Bronx and 15 to 125 St. IRL the problem with this is that the MTA really painted themselves into a corner by connecting the tracks up the way they did; short-term it made a lot of sense but long-term they should have just built four tracks on the same level using the Milan method (which is basically a variant of cut-and-cover where you deck over the road as soon as you get your retaining wall sunk, so the road is closed to traffic for significantly less time and so you get the price tag of regular cut and cover but with much less disruption), or if they were truly insistent on using tunnel-boring to do the work they should have gone with a 60' inner diameter tunnel; that would have allowed for two levels of two tubes each constructed CPW-style with stations inside the tunnel bore.

To elaborate on that second method, with a 60' tunnel inner diameter, assuming each level has 15' total clearance from floor of tunnel to roof of tunnel, with 2' thick concrete slabs between the two tunnel layers you could comfortably fit two 12' wide trackways and a 30' wide platform on each level. For local stations the platforms would be on the west side of 2 Av, while express stations would have island platforms to enable cross-platform transfers. If they'd done that and then used conventional station box mezzanines (instead of a full-length mezzanine just have two 75' x 75' mezzanines spaced at 1/4 and 3/4 the length of the platform raised about 10' above the top of the tunnel bore) they probably could have saved a pile of money. Because the tunnel would be that wide it would also be possible to have tail tracks and turnaround ramps situated on either tunnel level between stations to allow for operational flexibility, short turns, etc. That structure would also have connected to the 63 St tracks reasonably easily.

As far as the 2 Av line being isolated I'd argue it's not great but a bit more complicated than that. I would like to see the downtown portion run under 3 Av from about 67 St to 37 St or so; that would allow for an easy connection at 59 St-Lex Av via the Broadway local platforms as well as connections to the  at 53 St and the  at Grand Central; south of there you'd have connections to the  at 14 St, and the  at Lower East Side-2 Av. That would basically resolve a lot of issues around people only being able to use the 2 Av line for service on the far east side; a 2 Av line with a routing along 3 Av in the upper core and 3 Av in the Bronx (especially one with express service) would actually be able to fulfill its stated purpose of decongesting the Lex because it would share basically all the same major transfer points as the Lex from Houston St to 59 St.

 

Yeah, it's really frustrating how little foresight went into the planning with Phase I. I agree with you that if it were possible, the ideal config would be to have the  and  run express and into the Bronx while the  runs all local and via the 125th Street Crosstown, but the way it's constructed would make it difficult to connect Broadway express tracks to theoretical SAS express tracks. From what I've heard on this forum, it'd be logistically difficult but not impossible to add express tracks under the existing SAS tracks, but at that point it might be worth it to do a super-express bypass via 3rd Avenue or something.

I think the best way to go forwards from here is for the MTA to really look at SAS as two separate projects: One project is already partially complete which is just a northern extension of the Broadway express services, and the second project is actually building a full length SAS, that may run under 3rd Avenue in many parts. While there may be a track connection between these 2 projects, the  and  never actually share tracks with the  (think of it as a similar set up to the Archer Line which is technically 2 separate lines).

From what I understand right now, there is a genuine want by the MTA to build at least Phase II of SAS and maybe the crosstown, but they don't really care as much about Phases III and IV because they see the primary goal of SAS is to alleviate crowding on Lexington Avenue and they believe that Phase I and II do the most in that regard cause Lexington Avenue line tends to be the busiest between 125th Street and 59th Street. This is why I think stuff like the 125th crosstown or even a Bronx Extension via 3rd Avenue have more willpower behind them and are more likely to be built before SAS south of 72nd street, even if they don't have any official plans yet.

I honestly don't think phases III and IV are serious proposals by the MTA but merely just a general snapshot of a line that would be nice to have one day. I guarantee you that when Phase II is finished, the 125th Street Crosstown or even 3rd Avenue in the Bronx will be discussed as the next logical extensions and not Phase III or IV. Infact I don't have much confidence there will be a full-length SAS in my lifetime which is sad given I'm not even in college yet; I have a feeling SAS is going to drag on for a very long time because the MTA seems dead-set on doing Independent Phases where the next phase can't even be seriously discussed and readied for before the pervious phase is finished.

[engineerboy6561]

1 hour ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Yeah, it's really frustrating how little foresight went into the planning with Phase I. I agree with you that if it were possible, the ideal config would be to have the  and  run express and into the Bronx while the  runs all local and via the 125th Street Crosstown, but the way it's constructed would make it difficult to connect Broadway express tracks to theoretical SAS express tracks. From what I've heard on this forum, it'd be logistically difficult but not impossible to add express tracks under the existing SAS tracks, but at that point it might be worth it to do a super-express bypass via 3rd Avenue or something.

I think the best way to go forwards from here is for the MTA to really look at SAS as two separate projects: One project is already partially complete which is just a northern extension of the Broadway express services, and the second project is actually building a full length SAS, that may run under 3rd Avenue in many parts. While there may be a track connection between these 2 projects, the  and  never actually share tracks with the  (think of it as a similar set up to the Archer Line which is technically 2 separate lines).

From what I understand right now, there is a genuine want by the MTA to build at least Phase II of SAS and maybe the crosstown, but they don't really care as much about Phases III and IV because they see the primary goal of SAS is to alleviate crowding on Lexington Avenue and they believe that Phase I and II do the most in that regard cause Lexington Avenue line tends to be the busiest between 125th Street and 59th Street. This is why I think stuff like the 125th crosstown or even a Bronx Extension via 3rd Avenue have more willpower behind them and are more likely to be built before SAS south of 72nd street, even if they don't have any official plans yet.

I honestly don't think phases III and IV are serious proposals by the MTA but merely just a general snapshot of a line that would be nice to have one day. I guarantee you that when Phase II is finished, the 125th Street Crosstown or even 3rd Avenue in the Bronx will be discussed as the next logical extensions and not Phase III or IV. Infact I don't have much confidence there will be a full-length SAS in my lifetime which is sad given I'm not even in college yet; I have a feeling SAS is going to drag on for a very long time because the MTA seems dead-set on doing Independent Phases where the next phase can't even be seriously discussed and readied for before the pervious phase is finished.

Honestly you're right; I think they really shot themselves in the foot there, and I think they also didn't really bother to think through what decongesting the Lex would actually require (namely that you offer a time-competitive alternative that runs from the area where Lex users live and where they work/shop/etc.) As it stands now, SAS is useful for people who live on the UES and want to go into the core of Midtown, and for people downtown and in Brooklyn who have jobs and doctor's appointments at the hospitals on the UES and that's about it; the current setup eliminates the forced transfer at Atlantic-Barclays/Canal/Union Sq for people who are coming from neighborhoods on the Brighton Line, and adds 34 St-Herald Sq and 63 St-Lexington Avenue as possible transfer points for folks coming from other parts of South Brooklyn; extending the up with it provides a one-seat ride to those areas from Sea Beach and would basically give all of Brooklyn south of Atlantic/Pacific and west of Utica Av a cross-platform transfer to those areas, which is great from a network access perspective.

That said, a huge portion of the crowding on the Lex is Jerome and WPR folks trying to get down to the east side, and the existing plans don't do anything to address that. It's possible I'm overestimating how much crowding that is; I only ever lived in the Bronx when I lived in NYC, so I know from years of riding experience that the  are absolutely slammed in the mornings coming from the Bronx while I don't have similar experience with trains coming from Brooklyn, and a 125 St crosstown does absolutely nothing for those folks, while a 3 Av trunk in the Bronx (especially one offering express service on 3 Av with an extension on Gun Hill Rd) would be well-positioned to capture folks who currently take the  or  from the Bronx (South of East Tremont Av, 3 Av is about equidistant between Southern Blvd and the Concourse, so folks south of there who would normally take the  into the core would see similar-ish travel times on the , folks along that run who currently use the  would see better travel times on the 2 Av express, folks north of Allerton Av who normally take the  would either walk down to Gun Hill for the  or transfer at Williamsbridge, and folks north of Allerton who currently take the would either walk to Gun Hill for the 2 Av/3 Av express or transfer at Gun Hill Rd/Seymour Av. Add in the fact that other than Hunter College a lot of the bigger employers on the East Side are hospitals/research institutions/etc. over near the water, and the 2 Av line becomes a no-brainer for folks in the Bronx who work there.

The down side is that building out a system that would effectively use the 2 Av subway and additional trunks to relieve crowding and congestion across the system would be a project about the size of the core of the Second System as proposed, and if we wanted it built sometime before the 2090s a lot of things at the MTA need fixing on an organizational level.

Edited February 24, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

20 minutes ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Honestly you're right; I think they really shot themselves in the foot there, and I think they also didn't really bother to think through what decongesting the Lex would actually require (namely that you offer a time-competitive alternative that runs from the area where Lex users live and where they work/shop/etc.) As it stands now, SAS is useful for people who live on the UES and want to go into the core of Midtown, and for people downtown and in Brooklyn who have jobs and doctor's appointments at the hospitals on the UES and that's about it; the current setup eliminates the forced transfer at Atlantic-Barclays/Canal/Union Sq for people who are coming from neighborhoods on the Brighton Line, and adds 34 St-Herald Sq and 63 St-Lexington Avenue as possible transfer points for folks coming from other parts of South Brooklyn; extending the up with it provides a one-seat ride to those areas from Sea Beach and would basically give all of Brooklyn south of Atlantic/Pacific and west of Utica Av a cross-platform transfer to those areas, which is great from a network access perspective.

That said, a huge portion of the crowding on the Lex is Jerome and WPR folks trying to get down to the east side, and the existing plans don't do anything to address that. It's possible I'm overestimating how much crowding that is; I only ever lived in the Bronx when I lived in NYC, so I know from years of riding experience that the  are absolutely slammed in the mornings coming from the Bronx while I don't have similar experience with trains coming from Brooklyn, and a 125 St crosstown does absolutely nothing for those folks, while a 3 Av trunk in the Bronx (especially one offering express service on 3 Av with an extension on Gun Hill Rd) would be well-positioned to capture folks who currently take the  or  from the Bronx (South of East Tremont Av, 3 Av is about equidistant between Southern Blvd and the Concourse, so folks south of there who would normally take the  into the core would see similar-ish travel times on the , folks north of Allerton Av who normally take the  would either walk down to Gun Hill for the  or transfer at Williamsbridge, and folks north of Allerton who currently take the would either walk to Gun Hill for the 2 Av/3 Av express or transfer at Gun Hill Rd/Seymour Av. Add in the fact that other than Hunter College a lot of the bigger employers on the East Side are hospitals/research institutions/etc. over near the water, and the 2 Av line becomes a no-brainer for folks in the Bronx who work there.

The down side is that building out a system that would effectively use the 2 Av subway and additional trunks to relieve crowding and congestion across the system would be a project about the size of the core of the Second System as proposed, and if we wanted it built sometime before the 2090s a lot of things at the MTA need fixing on an organizational level.

I think you make a very important point; the MTA seems to believe that the Lexington Avenue Line is overcrowded because it's the only real trunk line on the East Side of Manhattan, and while I believe that's in part true, another huge reason everyone seems to ignore is that the Bronx is very heavily dependent on the Lexington Avenue branches. On the White Plains ride, the  def seems favored over the  just by nature of being more direct and faster, and the Jerome and Pelham lines as is have to be served by Lexington Avenue trains. Another consequence of that is if the Lexington Avenue line has a problem, the Bronx basically becomes a huge transit desert.

From looking at ridership numbers, headways, and just personal experience, it seems like the  and  have a slightly worse crowding problem than the  coming from the Bronx because at least with the , you get a train on Pelham every 2-3 minutes during rush hours, and a lot of people begin de-boarding the  once it enters Manhattan, plus a lot of Pelham stations are very low ridership. Phase I and Phase II of SAS don't do much to help the  and  which are overcrowded mostly because they're serving pretty high ridership lines in the Bronx on 4-5 minute headways. I think the most powerful thing that could be done with a SAS extension into the Bronx along 3rd Avenue would be to make the station spacing further apart than the current els, especially since the SAS lacks express tracks going into the city, which would make the line especially desirable to those who would otherwise use the northern parts of the Jermone or White Plains Road lines.

Basically do smtg like this before worrying about the  and SAS South of 72nd Street. You'd have to be careful though cause if this SAS alternative proves to be "too popular", you could have a situation where SAS ends up overcrowded which would be ironic, and then the MTA has to build a reliever or at least express tracks for SAS for capacity reasons.

(Also here's a NYC subway ridership map on 2021 numbers)

[engineerboy6561]

4 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

I think you make a very important point; the MTA seems to believe that the Lexington Avenue Line is overcrowded because it's the only real trunk line on the East Side of Manhattan, and while I believe that's in part true, another huge reason everyone seems to ignore is that the Bronx is very heavily dependent on the Lexington Avenue branches. On the White Plains ride, the  def seems favored over the  just by nature of being more direct and faster, and the Jerome and Pelham lines as is have to be served by Lexington Avenue trains. Another consequence of that is if the Lexington Avenue line has a problem, the Bronx basically becomes a huge transit desert.

From looking at ridership numbers, headways, and just personal experience, it seems like the  and  have a slightly worse crowding problem than the  coming from the Bronx because at least with the , you get a train on Pelham every 2-3 minutes during rush hours, and a lot of people begin de-boarding the  once it enters Manhattan, plus a lot of Pelham stations are very low ridership. Phase I and Phase II of SAS don't do much to help the  and  which are overcrowded mostly because they're serving pretty high ridership lines in the Bronx on 4-5 minute headways. I think the most powerful thing that could be done with a SAS extension into the Bronx along 3rd Avenue would be to make the station spacing further apart than the current els, especially since the SAS lacks express tracks going into the city, which would make the line especially desirable to those who would otherwise use the northern parts of the Jermone or White Plains Road lines.

Basically do smtg like this before worrying about the  and SAS South of 72nd Street. You'd have to be careful though cause if this SAS alternative proves to be "too popular", you could have a situation where SAS ends up overcrowded which would be ironic, and then the MTA has to build a reliever or at least express tracks for SAS for capacity reasons.

(Also here's a NYC subway ridership map on 2021 numbers)

Exactly; I honestly think that the long term goal would be to pull enough ridership that express tracks are required, and the tracks above 96 St and in the Bronx should be built in a way that makes express tracks and extensions east to Bay Plaza easy to add later.

Here's my proposal:

Phase II would be four tracks to 116 St followed by a Columbus Circle-style junction that would enable express or local trains to turn to serve 125 St, followed by two tracks to St Nicholas Av (or even Broadway if desired, but St. Nicholas Av works). Ideally add track connections that would allow trains coming from 135 St/CPW to turn onto the 125 St crosstown line; that would mean than an issue on CPW could be routed around by sending D trains via 2 Av local, 63 St, and then the old switches for the  to the 6 Av express tracks; if that's too much extra work that would be understandable but redundancy is nice. At that point, trains get extended to 9 Av and Bay Ridge, trains get truncated to Whitehall St and 9 Av, and the  run together to 125 St/St. Nicholas Av. Add an east/west station shell under 125 St-2 Av, but don't worry about populating it right away.

Phase III would be local tracks via 3 Av up to Norwood-205 St, with express trackways provided but not necessarily finished. I'd put stops at 138 St/3 Av  (express), 144 St (local), 149 St/3 Av  (express), 156 St (local), 161-163 Sts (express), 169 St (local) Claremont Parkway (local), 174 St (local), Tremont Av (express), 180 St (local), 183 St (local), Fordham Plaza (express), Bedford Park Blvd/Botanical Garden (local), and Norwood-205 St (express); I'd also add provisions for a junction and lower level at 161-163 Sts to allow for a future extension under Boston Rd and onto the Amtrak ROW. At this point, the would run local from Norwood to Coney Island, and the would stay on 125 St. I'd estimate that the  in this configuration would be faster than the  and local , and maybe about even with the  in terms of travel time and travel speed, so you'd likely pull a decent number of passengers off both the  and , but not quite enough to start crowding 2 Av yet.

Phase IV would be an extension of the and  to Bay Plaza via Gun Hill Rd, with stops at White Plains Rd/Gun Hill Rd , Bronxwood Av, Boston Rd, Seymour Av/Gun Hill Rd, Bartow/Edson Avs, and Bay Plaza. That would then start heavily relieving WPR and Jerome passengers (for trips into the eastern core the  would be about on par timewise with the , and have similar frequency, while the  would be much faster than the  for trips into Midtown); this would likely unbalance the load a bit farther in favor of the and , especially for passengers coming from the far northern and northeastern Bronx.

If it turns out that 2 Av is now starting to overload, you have a fair number of options. The simplest thing to do would be to finish out that station shell under 125 St-2 Av, and convert the 125 St segment into a shuttle. Run the  both into the Bronx via 3 Av; now you have 30 IND tph on the 3 Av corridor, which is good for about 60k pax/hr comfortably, 75k pax/hr crushloaded.

That also leaves you a fair amount of freedom for what to do with the bottom half of 2 Av; my personal dream would be to see four-track trunks under Northern Blvd ( relief) and Broadway/Jamaica Av (QBL express relief) followed by the addition of express tracks under the 72 St-96 St portion of 2 Av, and in the new express trackways you built through the Bronx back in Phase III, but that's just one of many possible options.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

24 minutes ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Exactly; I honestly think that the long term goal would be to pull enough ridership that express tracks are required, and the tracks above 96 St and in the Bronx should be built in a way that makes express tracks and extensions east to Bay Plaza easy to add later.

Here's my proposal:

Phase II would be four tracks to 116 St followed by a Columbus Circle-style junction that would enable express or local trains to turn to serve 125 St, followed by two tracks to St Nicholas Av (or even Broadway if desired, but St. Nicholas Av works). Ideally add track connections that would allow trains coming from 135 St/CPW to turn onto the 125 St crosstown line; that would mean than an issue on CPW could be routed around by sending D trains via 2 Av local, 63 St, and then the old switches for the  to the 6 Av express tracks; if that's too much extra work that would be understandable but redundancy is nice. At that point, trains get extended to 9 Av and Bay Ridge, trains get truncated to Whitehall St and 9 Av, and the  run together to 125 St/St. Nicholas Av. Add an east/west station shell under 125 St-2 Av, but don't worry about populating it right away.

Phase III would be local tracks via 3 Av up to Norwood-205 St, with express trackways provided but not necessarily finished. I'd put stops at 138 St/3 Av  (express), 144 St (local), 149 St/3 Av  (express), 156 St (local), 161-163 Sts (express), 169 St (local) Claremont Parkway (local), 174 St (local), Tremont Av (express), 180 St (local), 183 St (local), Fordham Plaza (express), Bedford Park Blvd/Botanical Garden (local), and Norwood-205 St (express); I'd also add provisions for a junction and lower level at 161-163 Sts to allow for a future extension under Boston Rd and onto the Amtrak ROW. At this point, the would run local from Norwood to Coney Island, and the would stay on 125 St. I'd estimate that the  in this configuration would be faster than the  and local , and maybe about even with the  in terms of travel time and travel speed, so you'd likely pull a decent number of passengers off both the  and , but not quite enough to start crowding 2 Av yet.

Phase IV would be an extension of the and  to Bay Plaza via Gun Hill Rd, with stops at White Plains Rd/Gun Hill Rd , Bronxwood Av, Boston Rd, Seymour Av/Gun Hill Rd, Bartow/Edson Avs, and Bay Plaza. That would then start heavily relieving WPR and Jerome passengers (for trips into the eastern core the  would be about on par timewise with the , and have similar frequency, while the  would be much faster than the  for trips into Midtown); this would likely unbalance the load a bit farther in favor of the and , especially for passengers coming from the far northern and northeastern Bronx.

If it turns out that 2 Av is now starting to overload, you have a fair number of options. The simplest thing to do would be to finish out that station shell under 125 St-2 Av, and convert the 125 St segment into a shuttle. Run the  both into the Bronx via 3 Av; now you have 30 IND tph on the 3 Av corridor, which is good for about 60k pax/hr comfortably, 75k pax/hr crushloaded.

That also leaves you a fair amount of freedom for what to do with the bottom half of 2 Av; my personal dream would be to see four-track trunks under Northern Blvd ( relief) and Broadway/Jamaica Av (QBL express relief) followed by the addition of express tracks under the 72 St-96 St portion of 2 Av, and in the new express trackways you built through the Bronx back in Phase III, but that's just one of many possible options.

Phase II: I largely agree, and honestly Phase II and the Crosstown should be merged as the Crosstown only adds 2 new stations (3 if you think it should go all the way over to the 1). I feel like in no world would the MTA build the express tracks outright unless they would be directly used upon opening, but there's probably ways they can do it so it wouldn't be that hard to add express tracks either next to or under the line. One of the things I wish I knew more about is how hard/possible it would be to make a lower set of express tubes under the existing Phase I as built. I see the argument it might actually be easier to build that set of tubes because the subway above has already dealt with most structural and eminent domain issues, but it could also be harder cause you're deeper underground, and certain infrastructures may have already been re-wired to go beneath the current tubes.

Phase III: I like this idea, but I think there's a debate to be had with station spacing; some of those stations are quite close together which would make it a slightly less desirable alternative to existing services. At the same time, if you add provisions for express tracks, then having the stations spaced further apart kind of makes the express service moot. Do you believe the service demand will ever be high enough that adding the express tracks would become a priority?

Phase IV: Extending the  and  across the Bronx is an idea I haven't really thought about, because in a lot of my plans I create a whole other branch going to CO-OP City via the Metro North ROW. Now that I think about it, the  "crosstown" is prolly better, especially since it avoids the need to create a whole new branch and provides a bit of needed east-west service that the Bronx lacks. The one potential problem would be reverse branching, but one could make it so some trains could terminate at 205th street.

Also one other question; can Broadway express down to DeKalb theoretically handle 30 tph with CBTC? You might have to de-interline DeKalb junction, idk though.

 

[engineerboy6561]

2 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Phase II: I largely agree, and honestly Phase II and the Crosstown should be merged as the Crosstown only adds 2 new stations (3 if you think it should go all the way over to the 1). I feel like in no world would the MTA build the express tracks outright unless they would be directly used upon opening, but there's probably ways they can do it so it wouldn't be that hard to add express tracks either next to or under the line. One of the things I wish I knew more about is how hard/possible it would be to make a lower set of express tubes under the existing Phase I as built. I see the argument it might actually be easier to build that set of tubes because the subway above has already dealt with most structural and eminent domain issues, but it could also be harder cause you're deeper underground, and certain infrastructures may have already been re-wired to go beneath the current tubes.

Phase III: I like this idea, but I think there's a debate to be had with station spacing; some of those stations are quite close together which would make it a slightly less desirable alternative to existing services. At the same time, if you add provisions for express tracks, then having the stations spaced further apart kind of makes the express service moot. Do you believe the service demand will ever be high enough that adding the express tracks would become a priority?

Phase IV: Extending the  and  across the Bronx is an idea I haven't really thought about, because in a lot of my plans I create a whole other branch going to CO-OP City via the Metro North ROW. Now that I think about it, the  "crosstown" is prolly better, especially since it avoids the need to create a whole new branch and provides a bit of needed east-west service that the Bronx lacks. The one potential problem would be reverse branching, but one could make it so some trains could terminate at 205th street.

Also one other question; can Broadway express down to DeKalb theoretically handle 30 tph with CBTC? You might have to de-interline DeKalb junction, idk though.

 

About Phase III:

I think it could go either way, and I'm also somewhat biased when it comes to station spacing; my personal belief is that for maximal integration with the bus network you want a stop on basically every major cross street where there's bus service, because otherwise you either wind up missing a lot of connections (which significantly reduce ridership) or you wind up distorting the bus network rather significantly to make connections possible. My thoughts here primarily come from living in the Boston area since 2018, where the subway station spacing is fairly far (14 stations over 11.5 miles of track on the Ashmont branch of the Red Line, or 20 stations over 11 miles of track on the Orange Line), and so the bus network is very hub-and-spoke around train stations. That sort of network works really well for getting people to and from the subway for bus-subway trips, but a lot of trips that would be one-seat rides on a well-designed grid-based network get turned into bus-bus trips (which don't work well in Boston because a lot of our bus frequencies are piss poor) or three-legged bus-subway-bus trips (which cost two fares) as a result.

Making good connections on 3 Av in the Bronx means at a minimum you'd need stops at 138 St ( transfer to the ), 149 St (transfers to the ), 163 St (transfer to the Bx6, Bx13, and Bx21), 169 St (transfer to the Bx35), Claremont Parkway (transfer to the Bx11), Tremont Av (transfer to the Bx36), 180 St (transfer to the Bx40 and Bx42), Fordham Plaza (transfer to the Bx9, Bx12, Bx17, Bx22, Bx34, and Bx41), Bedford Park Blvd (transfer to the Bx25 and Bx26), and Norwood-205 St (transfer to the , but also the Bx10, Bx16, Bx28, Bx34, and Bx38). Adding those stops massively expands the catchment area of the new subway; at this point basically anyone on 3 Av can walk easily to one or two of the stations. Furthermore, doing it that way would make the new line the default choice for most people in the box bounded by Fordham Rd, Southern Blvd, Webster Av, and E 180 St, as well as everyone heading to the east side northwest of Westchester Av and Southern Blvd during rush when the skips all those stops. From there, I added 183 St because St. Barnabas Hospital is a decent-sized trip generator and employer that's right on the way, and then 156 St and 144 St because I'm using a guideline for local service of about 3-4 stops per mile in dense areas, and that inner bit of Mott Haven and lower Melrose is dense as f**k.

By the time you add those stops in, you're probably looking at travel times on the being about on par with travel times on the . You'd still see some time savings because WPR has a few tight curves that slow things down, while being underground the new 3 Av line I'm proposing could have those curves smoothed out somewhat to allow for higher running speeds. Still, if you want to really pull folks off Jerome and WPR you need to offer meaningfully faster travel times (which is where express train service comes in). Express trains would basically only stop at a few key transfer points (Norwood, Fordham Plaza, East Tremont, 161-163, 149, and 138), and would offer all-day time savings of around 10-15 minutes over WPR and Jerome, which would be a huge draw (and would likely pull enough demand to justify the service).

Phase IV:

I don't have a problem with a Boston Rd/Amtrak ROW branch, and I suggested leaving bellmouths and provisions for a lower level to 161-163 Sts to accommodate such a branch. However, I'd argue that the Gun Hill Rd crosstown and Boston Rd/Amtrak ROW branch would serve two very different purposes, and it would make sense to do Gun Hill Rd first. Because Manhattan is so narrow compared to the Bronx, the subway network mostly enters the Bronx from the southwest corner and then fans out from there carving the Bronx into slices (ignoring Broadway). The western slice (ignoring Broadway and the ) is served by the , and , the central slice is served by the up to 180 St, and then the above that; the northeastern slice is served by the above 180 St, and the southeastern slice is served by the . By building the 3 Av line and extending the out to Bay Plaza you add a new central-west slice, and connect up all the slices on the north end, and so you're able to offer improved travel times to everyone across the northern Bronx fairly easily. By contrast, the Boston Rd/Amtrak ROW version misses the East 180 St connection to the during rush, so it's slightly worse on that front. On the other hand, that line would also take a load off the and focus more heavily on pulling pax off the lower WPR, so it might be worth adding later on and I definitely wouldn't foreclose it.

DeKalb:

That I don't know; I have a larger plan for pulling the out of DeKalb, but that's a longer-term thing that would come with the Jamaica Av rebuilding proposal I'm playing with. The idea would be to swap the and on Brighton, then instead of elevating the tracks north of Park Pl, send them into a tunnel under the existing ROW and under Franklin Av before connecting with the just southeast of Bedford/Nostrand Avs. From there, the and would run together as far as Hewes St station, then the would run under Harrison Av to Marcy Av where it would join a rebuilt underground Jamaica line and eventually rejoin 6 Av on the express tracks at Lower East Side-2 Av. There are pros and cons to doing that; the biggest one being the merges, and the need to run six tracks under the East River to accommodate the to avoid burning capacity for services to Jamaica and Middle Village. That said, doing that would leave the only merge at DeKalb being between the switching from 4 Av to Canal St lower level. That's still not great, but it's better than having the all rearranging themselves there, because it makes it far less likely that a single issue somewhere at the interlocking will propagate into a self-sustaining cycle of chaos and delays. It's probably also worth upgrading the interlocking to allow trains making diverging moves to operate at 20-25mph, and in general thinning out the timers around the interlocking.

Edited February 25, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

44 minutes ago, engineerboy6561 said:

About Phase III:

I think it could go either way, and I'm also somewhat biased when it comes to station spacing; my personal belief is that for maximal integration with the bus network you want a stop on basically every major cross street where there's bus service, because otherwise you either wind up missing a lot of connections (which significantly reduce ridership) or you wind up distorting the bus network rather significantly to make connections possible. My thoughts here primarily come from living in the Boston area since 2018, where the subway station spacing is fairly far (14 stations over 11.5 miles of track on the Ashmont branch of the Red Line, or 20 stations over 11 miles of track on the Orange Line), and so the bus network is very hub-and-spoke around train stations. That sort of network works really well for getting people to and from the subway for bus-subway trips, but a lot of trips that would be one-seat rides on a well-designed grid-based network get turned into bus-bus trips (which don't work well in Boston because a lot of our bus frequencies are piss poor) or three-legged bus-subway-bus trips (which cost two fares) as a result.

Making good connections on 3 Av in the Bronx means at a minimum you'd need stops at 138 St ( transfer to the ), 149 St (transfers to the ), 163 St (transfer to the Bx6, Bx13, and Bx21), 169 St (transfer to the Bx35), Claremont Parkway (transfer to the Bx11), Tremont Av (transfer to the Bx36), 180 St (transfer to the Bx40 and Bx42), Fordham Plaza (transfer to the Bx9, Bx12, Bx17, Bx22, Bx34, and Bx41), Bedford Park Blvd (transfer to the Bx25 and Bx26), and Norwood-205 St (transfer to the , but also the Bx10, Bx16, Bx28, Bx34, and Bx38). Adding those stops massively expands the catchment area of the new subway; at this point basically anyone on 3 Av can walk easily to one or two of the stations. Furthermore, doing it that way would make the new line the default choice for most people in the box bounded by Fordham Rd, Southern Blvd, Webster Av, and E 180 St, as well as everyone heading to the east side northwest of Westchester Av and Southern Blvd during rush when the skips all those stops. From there, I added 183 St because St. Barnabas Hospital is a decent-sized trip generator and employer that's right on the way, and then 156 St and 144 St because I'm using a guideline for local service of about 3-4 stops per mile in dense areas, and that inner bit of Mott Haven and lower Melrose is dense as f**k.

By the time you add those stops in, you're probably looking at travel times on the being about on par with travel times on the . You'd still see some time savings because WPR has a few tight curves that slow things down, while being underground the new 3 Av line I'm proposing could have those curves smoothed out somewhat to allow for higher running speeds. Still, if you want to really pull folks off Jerome and WPR you need to offer meaningfully faster travel times (which is where express train service comes in). Express trains would basically only stop at a few key transfer points (Norwood, Fordham Plaza, East Tremont, 161-163, 149, and 138), and would offer all-day time savings of around 10-15 minutes over WPR and Jerome, which would be a huge draw (and would likely pull enough demand to justify the service).

Phase IV:

I don't have a problem with a Boston Rd/Amtrak ROW branch, and I suggested leaving bellmouths and provisions for a lower level to 161-163 Sts to accommodate such a branch. However, I'd argue that the Gun Hill Rd crosstown and Boston Rd/Amtrak ROW branch would serve two very different purposes, and it would make sense to do Gun Hill Rd first. Because Manhattan is so narrow compared to the Bronx, the subway network mostly enters the Bronx from the southwest corner and then fans out from there carving the Bronx into slices (ignoring Broadway). The western slice (ignoring Broadway and the ) is served by the , and , the central slice is served by the up to 180 St, and then the above that; the northeastern slice is served by the above 180 St, and the southeastern slice is served by the . By building the 3 Av line and extending the out to Bay Plaza you add a new central-west slice, and connect up all the slices on the north end, and so you're able to offer improved travel times to everyone across the northern Bronx fairly easily. By contrast, the Boston Rd/Amtrak ROW version misses the East 180 St connection to the during rush, so it's slightly worse on that front. On the other hand, that line would also take a load off the and focus more heavily on pulling pax off the lower WPR, so it might be worth adding later on and I definitely wouldn't foreclose it.

DeKalb:

That I don't know; I have a larger plan for pulling the out of DeKalb, but that's a longer-term thing that would come with the Jamaica Av rebuilding proposal I'm playing with. The idea would be to swap the and on Brighton, then instead of elevating the tracks north of Park Pl, send them into a tunnel under the existing ROW and under Franklin Av before connecting with the just southeast of Bedford/Nostrand Avs. From there, the and would run together as far as Hewes St station, then the would run under Harrison Av to Marcy Av where it would join a rebuilt underground Jamaica line and eventually rejoin 6 Av on the express tracks at Lower East Side-2 Av. There are pros and cons to doing that; the biggest one being the merges, and the need to run six tracks under the East River to accommodate the to avoid burning capacity for services to Jamaica and Middle Village. That said, doing that would leave the only merge at DeKalb being between the switching from 4 Av to Canal St lower level. That's still not great, but it's better than having the all rearranging themselves there, because it makes it far less likely that a single issue somewhere at the interlocking will propagate into a self-sustaining cycle of chaos and delays. It's probably also worth upgrading the interlocking to allow trains making diverging moves to operate at 20-25mph, and in general thinning out the timers around the interlocking.

As for Phase III and stop spacing, I'm also a bit biased; I've lived in NYC my whole life, am young, and am in very good physical health. Having to walk 7 or 10 city blocks is not only easy, but doesn't take much time as I tend to walk fast. I think what I forgot as you pointed out is that Bronx is very bus-heavy, and unlike Manhattan, the major crosstown corridors aren't always as nicely spaced. The Southern Part of the Bronx is extremely dense though. Right now, it seems like the MTA tend to be doing pretty far station spacing on their newer lines; on SAS phase I, a 14 block gap between 72nd and 86th street was unheard of in Manhattan (technically it's not quite 14 blocks but you get the point). I think there'd need to be a study done to determine to what extent the various crosstown Bronx busses would feed the new subway line, and try to aim for about 5-8 stations between Norwood and 3Av-149st.

As for Phase IV, I agree the Gun Hill Road crosstown and Amtrack ROW line would serve very different purposes. If you were to build both Bronx branches and the Crosstown, you'd have 3 branches to deal with (2 if you build your 125th shuttle), so I think if the Boston ROW line should only be built once there are express tracks or somewhere else to help balance the load. 3rd Avenue Subway is and will likely continue to be objectively higher priority than amy amtrack ROW service.

Ngl, I suck really bad with junctions; trying to comprehend even simple junctions and direction has always been a challenge for me, but new signaling and switches would def help.

[engineerboy6561]

2 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

As for Phase III and stop spacing, I'm also a bit biased; I've lived in NYC my whole life, am young, and am in very good physical health. Having to walk 7 or 10 city blocks is not only easy, but doesn't take much time as I tend to walk fast. I think what I forgot as you pointed out is that Bronx is very bus-heavy, and unlike Manhattan, the major crosstown corridors aren't always as nicely spaced. The Southern Part of the Bronx is extremely dense though. Right now, it seems like the MTA tend to be doing pretty far station spacing on their newer lines; on SAS phase I, a 14 block gap between 72nd and 86th street was unheard of in Manhattan (technically it's not quite 14 blocks but you get the point). I think there'd need to be a study done to determine to what extent the various crosstown Bronx busses would feed the new subway line, and try to aim for about 5-8 stations between Norwood and 3Av-149st.

As for Phase IV, I agree the Gun Hill Road crosstown and Amtrack ROW line would serve very different purposes. If you were to build both Bronx branches and the Crosstown, you'd have 3 branches to deal with (2 if you build your 125th shuttle), so I think if the Boston ROW line should only be built once there are express tracks or somewhere else to help balance the load. 3rd Avenue Subway is and will likely continue to be objectively higher priority than amy amtrack ROW service.

Ngl, I suck really bad with junctions; trying to comprehend even simple junctions and direction has always been a challenge for me, but new signaling and switches would def help.

That's fair; I'd honestly aim for the high end of that estimate (I believe my current proposal is for 8 stations on that stretch, including 156 St); you and I both don't mind walking 7-10 blocks to get to the train, but for older folks and disabled folks it's better to space things closer, and in really dense areas where you're likely to get very high ridership close station spacing lets you save some money per station because you can shrink mezzanines and related structures without having to worry about overcrowding. I think we're basically in agreement about 3 Av and Gun Hill, and don't worry about the junctions; you'll learn with time

[Wallyhorse]

On 2/21/2023 at 8:21 PM, T to Dyre Avenue said:

 

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.

The time to do that with the  was likely 1966 when everything was torn down or after 9/11 before everything got built back up.  That said, it may be a short enough stretch the Oculus might not have to be touched at all or very little. 

[Wallyhorse]

On 2/23/2023 at 12:40 AM, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

https://new.mta.info/2023-SASP2-hearing

Looks like the MTA is having a hearing about SAS Phase II soon. I hope to attend.

Main things I want to emphasize are:

1. How will the MTA provide adequate service up SAS for phase II?  alone won't be enough, and increasing service would be hard cause of train crossover, but sending  train up SAS leads to dominoes of getting adequate service to Astoria ect.

2. The MTA better do provisions for Bronx extension. Usually, MTA is pretty good about doing provisions, but there have been some obvious misses in recent projects (mainly Phase I making express tracks out of the cards).

3. Glad MTA is looking into crosstown extension

I could shame them about the cost and the problems, but they probably won't listen, and I want to be constructive where I can.

 

Hopefully if they do an SAS crosstown extension, they make it so it also connects to the 8th Avenue line at St. Nicholas as that would potentially allow for an SAS Concourse line and so forth. 

[Wallyhorse]

15 hours ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Going forward I would agree with most of this, except I'm not happy about having the  serving as crosstowns to 125 St instead of serving the Bronx; 125 St would be served just fine with 15tph rather than the full 30, and I'd rather see 30tph go to the Bronx and 15 to 125 St. IRL the problem with this is that the MTA really painted themselves into a corner by connecting the tracks up the way they did; short-term it made a lot of sense but long-term they should have just built four tracks on the same level using the Milan method (which is basically a variant of cut-and-cover where you deck over the road as soon as you get your retaining wall sunk, so the road is closed to traffic for significantly less time and so you get the price tag of regular cut and cover but with much less disruption), or if they were truly insistent on using tunnel-boring to do the work they should have gone with a 60' inner diameter tunnel; that would have allowed for two levels of two tubes each constructed CPW-style with stations inside the tunnel bore.

To elaborate on that second method, with a 60' tunnel inner diameter, assuming each level has 15' total clearance from floor of tunnel to roof of tunnel, with 2' thick concrete slabs between the two tunnel layers you could comfortably fit two 12' wide trackways and a 30' wide platform on each level. For local stations the platforms would be on the west side of 2 Av, while express stations would have island platforms to enable cross-platform transfers. If they'd done that and then used conventional station box mezzanines (instead of a full-length mezzanine just have two 75' x 75' mezzanines spaced at 1/4 and 3/4 the length of the platform raised about 10' above the top of the tunnel bore) they probably could have saved a pile of money. Because the tunnel would be that wide it would also be possible to have tail tracks and turnaround ramps situated on either tunnel level between stations to allow for operational flexibility, short turns, etc. That structure would also have connected to the 63 St tracks reasonably easily.

As far as the 2 Av line being isolated I'd argue it's not great but a bit more complicated than that. I would like to see the downtown portion run under 3 Av from about 67 St to 37 St or so; that would allow for an easy connection at 59 St-Lex Av via the Broadway local platforms as well as connections to the  at 53 St and the  at Grand Central; south of there you'd have connections to the  at 14 St, and the  at Lower East Side-2 Av. That would basically resolve a lot of issues around people only being able to use the 2 Av line for service on the far east side; a 2 Av line with a routing along 3 Av in the upper core and 3 Av in the Bronx (especially one with express service) would actually be able to fulfill its stated purpose of decongesting the Lex because it would share basically all the same major transfer points as the Lex from Houston St to 59 St.

 

You could do The Bronx by connecting the SAS to the 8th Avenue line at St. Nicholas/125 and use the additional tracks that run between 125 and 145 (where its six tracks across) to do that.  Also would come in handy if the and  had to use the SAS because of CPW being FUBAR. 

[engineerboy6561]

5 minutes ago, Wallyhorse said:

You could do The Bronx by connecting the SAS to the 8th Avenue line at St. Nicholas/125 and use the additional tracks that run between 125 and 145 (where its six tracks across) to do that.  Also would come in handy if the and  had to use the SAS because of CPW being FUBAR. 

I don't have a problem with having the track connection there in case CPW falls apart, but I don't think it makes sense to try to fit a third service onto the Concourse as a way of boosting service to the Bronx; we'd be better off running 125 St as a shuttle and having 2 Av trains all continue north via 3 Av.

Edited February 25, 2023 by engineerboy6561

[T to Dyre Avenue]

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. 

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

3 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

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. 

I feel like eventually, the  may become obsolete if the Jamacia el just becomes a branch of 6th and/or 2nd Avenue, and SAS uses the Nassau St line from Chambers to Broad St. I like your proposal of just terminating the  at Chambers St though.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

Does anyone know the current status of SAS and if it's actually on the move?

About a year ago Hochul and other leaders had that press conference in the tunnel talking about how they hoped to get federal funding from the bipartisan infrastructure package soon. Since then, it's been dead silent, and I haven't seen anything that confirms the funding has been approved, denied, or is still pending. The silence around SAS Phase II at the East Side Access grand opening was also a bit concerning.

However, the MTA holding a public hearing suggests they genuinely see the project on the move and something that should start fairly soon (as in the next year).

Either way, I'm pretty sure SAS Phase II is the next megaproject in line, and will be completed relatively "soon" (like next 20 years); the MTA seems genuinely motivated to make it happen. The thing I worry about is after Phase II, SAS falls out of favor because as I said before the MTA seems less interested in Phases III and IV, and Phase III in particularly is going to be insanely expensive/complex because you're running under midtown with big 50 story buildings on either side. I also don't trust them to find the 125th Crosstown or Bronx extensions "worthy" of construction after they inflated the Rockaway Branch report to undershoot the estimated ridership and overshoot the cost, but tbh those seem more likely than Phase III.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

17 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Does anyone know the current status of SAS and if it's actually on the move?

About a year ago Hochul and other leaders had that press conference in the tunnel talking about how they hoped to get federal funding from the bipartisan infrastructure package soon. Since then, it's been dead silent, and I haven't seen anything that confirms the funding has been approved, denied, or is still pending. The silence around SAS Phase II at the East Side Access grand opening was also a bit concerning.

However, the MTA holding a public hearing suggests they genuinely see the project on the move and something that should start fairly soon (as in the next year).

Either way, I'm pretty sure SAS Phase II is the next megaproject in line, and will be completed relatively "soon" (like next 20 years); the MTA seems genuinely motivated to make it happen. The thing I worry about is after Phase II, SAS falls out of favor because as I said before the MTA seems less interested in Phases III and IV, and Phase III in particularly is going to be insanely expensive/complex because you're running under midtown with big 50 story buildings on either side. I also don't trust them to find the 125th Crosstown or Bronx extensions "worthy" of construction after they inflated the Rockaway Branch report to undershoot the estimated ridership and overshoot the cost, but tbh those seem more likely than Phase III.

This is the latest...

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-and-mta-announce-second-avenue-subway-phase-2-moves-forward

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

1 hour ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

This is the latest...

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-and-mta-announce-second-avenue-subway-phase-2-moves-forward

Thank you; it seems like that's a good sign but the Governor and her office might be trying to puff it up a bit to make it sound like there's more progress than they're actually is. Glad they talked to Pete directly too.

[engineerboy6561]

15 hours ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Thank you; it seems like that's a good sign but the Governor and her office might be trying to puff it up a bit to make it sound like there's more progress than they're actually is. Glad they talked to Pete directly too.

That's a good sign in some ways (that they're at least trying to keep the ball rolling), and in others (namely the single-minded focus on turning under 125 St) not so great.

[Wallyhorse]

On 2/25/2023 at 2:13 AM, engineerboy6561 said:

I don't have a problem with having the track connection there in case CPW falls apart, but I don't think it makes sense to try to fit a third service onto the Concourse as a way of boosting service to the Bronx; we'd be better off running 125 St as a shuttle and having 2 Av trains all continue north via 3 Av.

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). 

[Wallyhorse]

1 minute ago, 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 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). 

The quote simply corrects what I wrote concerning 205th Street since I can't edit posts.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

9 hours ago, engineerboy6561 said:

That's a good sign in some ways (that they're at least trying to keep the ball rolling), and in others (namely the single-minded focus on turning under 125 St) not so great.

If they actually are seriously interested in an 125th street crosstown, then it makes sense to do the curve, however, if they never end up building the crosstown it's a massive waste.

[ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ]

7 hours ago, 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 don't think connecting SAS to CPW is a bad idea, but outside of offering an alternative re-route idk how helpful it'd be; CPW still has excess capacity and doesn't face overcrowding issues. Furthermore, I image the  would be very heavily favored over the  on Concourse because it's faster and actually goes directly through the CBD. I would def investigate a connection, but if it would jack up the pricetag like 2 billion dollars and make things super complex not worth it (though def leave provisions).