Future of Southern Brooklyn/IRT Nostrand

[BrooklynIRT]

what is ARC?

 

and is the ground in southeastern BK any easier to cut than that in the UES? what is its composition?

[bobtehpanda]

At Utica Avenue we are presented with the same problems. The plans in the 30's and the 50's also called for an elevated line in the southern section of Utica Avenue, because the ground caused the same problems. You can't really navigate out of this problem.

 

It seems like the only way out of this problem would be to use Flatbush Avenue. It's wider, and due to that it seems easier to build an elevated line.

 

Flatbush still doesn't give you a lot of clearance.

 

Sidewalks - 10 x 2 feet

Road lanes - 10 x 6 feet

Total space: 80 feet

 

Two tracks: 10 x 2 feet

Two platforms: 10 x 2 feet

Remaining space on each side: 20 feet

 

20 feet is still really, really close to any properties fronting the street, and the vast majority of New Yorkers would not support building a new train line that close to their windows. Not to mention, according to the neighborhood map view on the MTA's own Weekender website, Flatbush Avenue neatly bisects the Flatbush Av station, so you'd either need to demolish the station and move it farther back, or build a portal on Nostrand (which has already been acknowledged as too narrow to support a portal) and then build an El that skips over to Flatbush either by making tight -style curves on narrow streets, or through eminent domain, neither of which is going to make building such an el any easier.

 

what is ARC?

 

and is the ground in southeastern BK any easier to cut than that in the UES? what is its composition?

 

ARC was an old project that would've built two new tunnels for NJT and a giant new station cavern - basically NJT's own East Side Access. It died when Chris Christie pulled the plug on it (and to be honest, it wasn't exactly the best, most cost-effective way to do the job).

 

I wouldn't know about ground conditions there, but given its proximity to the water I'd say the water table would be pretty high over there.

[Grand Concourse]

In my other posts here, I would just abandon the current FB stop to allow for the line to curve right under to head down FB av and build the new station at av H. That said FB would be tight for an el, but still better than one on Nostrand.

 

I guess you have a good point about the tbm and that if they were to drill here, it wouldn't be too bad as I'm sure the ground is softer than manhattan. Maybe they could keep the tbm for the Utica av line if they could build either one or both.

[Roadcruiser1]

This little article here explains it. A majority of the soil in the Brooklyn/Queens area especially around the waterfront mostly composes of clay, sand, gravel, and conglomerate. These are mostly rocks that were deposited from the glaciers that were around the area 10-15 thousand years ago in the last ice age. When the ice retreated it left most of the sand and rocks around in what is today Long Island. Technically it would mean that a majority of Long Island was built by the glacier that retreated. The good news is that because of the glacier we have an island to live on in the first place, but the bad news is this soil is poor for construction especially for tunnels. If you try digging a tunnel in sand I am going to just say this, "You won't be going too far".

 

http://www.farlang.com/gemstones/gratacap-geology-new-york/page_182

[checkmatechamp13]

what is ARC?

 

and is the ground in southeastern BK any easier to cut than that in the UES? what is its composition?

 

Access to the Region's Core. It was that second tunnel they wanted to build for NJT trains into Penn Station (It would allow for a one-seat ride to Penn from all the diesel branches in the system, except the Atlantic City Line of course)

[Roadcruiser1]

ARC is mostly being replaced by the Gateway project from Amtrak however.

[checkmatechamp13]

what is ARC?

 

and is the ground in southeastern BK any easier to cut than that in the UES? what is its composition?

 

Access to the Region's Core. It was that second tunnel they wanted to build for NJT trains into Penn Station (It would allow for a one-seat ride to Penn from all the diesel branches in the system, except the Atlantic City Line of course)

[B35 via Church]

Access to the Region's Core. It was that second tunnel they wanted to build for NJT trains into Penn Station (It would allow for a one-seat ride to Penn from all the diesel branches in the system, except the Atlantic City Line of course)

double posted again (same post was made before & after roadcruiser's post)....

-----------------

 

Anyway, so that's what the acronym stands for...

I knew what the plan entailed, but I never gave any second thought to what the actual letters stood for....

[bobtehpanda]

This little article here explains it. A majority of the soil in the Brooklyn/Queens area especially around the waterfront mostly composes of clay, sand, gravel, and conglomerate. These are mostly rocks that were deposited from the glaciers that were around the area 10-15 thousand years ago in the last ice age. When the ice retreated it left most of the sand and rocks around in what is today Long Island. Technically it would mean that a majority of Long Island was built by the glacier that retreated. The good news is that because of the glacier we have an island to live on in the first place, but the bad news is this soil is poor for construction especially for tunnels. If you try digging a tunnel in sand I am going to just say this, "You won't be going too far".

 

http://www.farlang.com/gemstones/gratacap-geology-new-york/page_182

 

According to the source, it sounds like a majority of it is clay, or at least the soil is a mixture of clay, sand, gravel, and conglomerate. It is possible to dig tunnels in clay and sand mixtures: Exhibit A would be pretty much all of London Underground.

[Roadcruiser1]

According to the source, it sounds like a majority of it is clay, or at least the soil is a mixture of clay, sand, gravel, and conglomerate. It is possible to dig tunnels in clay and sand mixtures: Exhibit A would be pretty much all of London Underground.

 

Take in consideration the water table though.

[Vistausss]

Take in consideration the water table though.

 

The water table in combination with sand+clay ground wasn't a problem for the Amsterdam subway and The Hague street car tunnel. Also wasn't a problem for Schiphol Airport train station. And not mention London Underground that bobtehpanda already mentioned. And I'm pretty sure that NYC has even more talented people than The Netherlands and London when it comes to building tunnels. So I don't see why it shouldn't be possible.

 

 

 

 

 

[Roadcruiser1]

 

The water table in combination with sand+clay ground wasn't a problem for the Amsterdam subway and The Hague street car tunnel. Also wasn't a problem for Schiphol Airport train station. And not mention London Underground that bobtehpanda already mentioned. And I'm pretty sure that NYC has even more talented people than The Netherlands and London when it comes to building tunnels. So I don't see why it shouldn't be possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the we are talking about. Look at what happened to South Ferry.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

 

The water table in combination with sand+clay ground wasn't a problem for the Amsterdam subway and The Hague street car tunnel. Also wasn't a problem for Schiphol Airport train station. And not mention London Underground that bobtehpanda already mentioned. And I'm pretty sure that NYC has even more talented people than The Netherlands and London when it comes to building tunnels. So I don't see why it shouldn't be possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOL... It's called being CHEAP...  The Europeans SPEND MONEY on infrastructure.  Here we look to cut corners unless it's really high end.. 

[Grand Concourse]

Well Europe's countries are the size of some of our largest states. The US puts more emphasis on air travel than rail because who'd want to take '1 day' getting from NY to LA by train when you can get there by plane in a few hours? We are also a car driven culture than one of mass transit and of course there's the perception that mass transit is 'filthy'. So you can't win with attitudes like these.

[realizm]

Well Europe's countries are the size of some of our largest states. The US puts more emphasis on air travel than rail because who'd want to take '1 day' getting from NY to LA by train when you can get there by plane in a few hours? We are also a car driven culture than one of mass transit and of course there's the perception that mass transit is 'filthy'. So you can't win with attitudes like these.

 

To break it down even further from your point made, there was a number of additional factors that contibuted to the ongoing shift from commuter rail travel to air travel, sad as it is, in the United States. Part of the reason was because of the advent of the automobile particularly in the 1930s. According to many, automobiles proved to be more reliable in many ways (I'm neutral on this as this is a transit forums). Many highway projects actually killed much of the rail networks up to that time and further down the line inj the 20th century as a result. (We can see that here in NYC with the advent on the auto and how that affected subway transportation projects during that time aside from the political factors.

 

Another prominent factor has to do with many who theroetically concluded that planes are more cost and energy efficient than maintaining railroads. However I don't think this is actually the case in other areas of the world such as France, Korea and Germany. My theory is that their economies, also their policies in place as to what is considered eco-friendly in terms of transportation played a part. But not here in the states.

[Roadcruiser1]

Face it. America is the country that starts complaining when they see $4-$5 gas prices per gallon at the pump, and never look for alternative solutions. All they want is for gas prices to go down and to continue filling their cars with an energy supply that won't last forever, and damages the environment.

[bobtehpanda]

LOL... It's called being CHEAP...  The Europeans SPEND MONEY on infrastructure.  Here we look to cut corners unless it's really high end.. 

 

 

Face it. America is the country that starts complaining when they see $4-$5 gas prices per gallon at the pump, and never look for alternative solutions. All they want is for gas prices to go down and to continue filling their cars with an energy supply that won't last forever, and damages the environment.

 

Every single New York project costs over $1B per km, while most European and Asian projects don't even hit $300M per km. I'm pretty sure that if Europe and Asia had our transit construction costs, then they wouldn't want to build transit either.

[Vistausss]

Wow, why are we suddenly talking about USA projects? I was talking about NYC projects like a tunnel at Fulton St, not projects that affect the whole country. That's a different discussion.

 

 

 

 

 

[Quill Depot]

Wow, why are we suddenly talking about USA projects? I was talking about NYC projects like a tunnel at Fulton St, not projects that affect the whole country. That's a different discussion.

 

They are making comparisons between the two. 

[Drag0nflamez]

Every single New York project costs over $1B per km, while most European and Asian projects don't even hit $300M per km. I'm pretty sure that if Europe and Asia had our transit construction costs, then they wouldn't want to build transit either.

American transit construction costs have a tendency to get quite high due to political mismanagement...

[BrooklynIRT]

I think you misunderstood the point - yes, in areas outside of Japan, elevated heavy rail is making a resurgence, but it's almost always either in a private ROW with a sizable land buffer, or in the 10-foot wide median of a six-eight lane arterial, not counting parking lanes and sidewalks. Even the AirTrain was built on a wide highway without frontage from residential properties.

 

Nostrand definitely does not have room for an El, and even squeezing one into Flatbush is tricky, unless you want to make the platforms narrower than a sidewalk. This is not the early 1900s - not even today's working class people would be comfortable with trains running every few minutes less than fourty feet away from their windows from 5AM-7PM five days a week.

 

(Not to mention, the IRT in Brooklyn is also at capacity, and any sort of service expansion would be impossible without rebuilding the flat junction at Nostrand.)

 

what would be wrong with just diverting some west side trains from New Lots to Flatbush to increase service on the Nostrand line and having more trains continue beyond Utica to New Lots to maintain the current level of service on the Livonia line? the same amount of trains would be going thru X-410 (the switch that the west side trains and the Flatbush trains all have to pass to continue east/south)

[Wallyhorse]

The Nostrand Avenue Elevated would look something like this. This is the Vancouver Skytrain Canada Line. It won't look anything like the elevated lines of the past.

 

This is exactly what I had in mind for rebuilding the 3rd Avenue El as well, most likely as a double-decked, four-track structure with limited exceptions to allow for crossovers where needed.  As said before, the lesson learned from Sandy in my view is that everything needs to be re-evaluated, and aside from noise reduction, these Els would likely be able to better withstand a storm like Sandy than its predecessors (which all held up just fine other than the stretch over Jamaica Bay for obvious reasons).

[Minato ku]

This may look good in wide boulevard but I not sure that it will work in more narrow space.

The space under the station is very dark, now imagine if it takes the whole space above the avenue like it would on Nostrand av.

[CenSin]

with limited exceptions

That exception is the entire stretch from 125 Street to the 3 Avenue line's terminal.

[bobtehpanda]

This may look good in wide boulevard but I not sure that it will work in more narrow space.

The space under the station is very dark, now imagine if it takes the whole space above the avenue like it would on Nostrand av.

 

 

This is Roosevelt Av in Queens. Two lanes of traffic, two parking lanes, and two sidewalks - just like Nostrand.

 

Yes, concrete median supports instead of concrete curb supports would reduce visual impact and horizontal width. The fact remains, however, that you are going to have (at the very least) a station structure, with trains passing through, passing very closely to windows, even if it's just two tracks and side platforms with no crossunder, and stairs straight to the street. This is impossible to build (you need TVMs, turnstiles, a station booth, elevator access, etc.), so a modern el station is almost certainly going to take up any remaining air space above the street.

 

Look closely at the Vancouver picture. From the photographer's side of the street, it is at least four travel lanes and a sidewalk from where the person is standing. The other side of the tracks does not have any property directly fronting it, either - the apartments in the background are set back quite far away from the tracks.

 

As I have said before, no modern, rich country has built a heavy-rail el in anything as tight and densely populated a corridor as Nostrand Av. (BTW, Vancouver is not heavy rail, and its Expo and Millennium lines use the proprietary SkyTrain technology, which is quieter than anything NYCT has or ever will operate.)