Rockaway Residents Rally For Return Of Abandoned Subway Line

[bobtehpanda]

But why are we creating a to go through an extremely congested set of tunnels in the first place? We can just extend the Rockaway or divert the .

 

Those same amount of trains used to bring back the can be used to beef up and trains. The can have 2 north terminals, I mean the has been doing it for decades and people make it work. With these new trains out here with automated announcements and clear legible signs, there really shouldn't be a problem with people confusing the 2. Ever since they proposed the going up 2 Av, everyone is assuming the is automatically coming back. With beefed up service on the , that can take over the Bway express on its own with 2 north terminals (trains would alternate terminals, much like what the does), and just have the stay as the full-time Bway local.

but then the question becomes, do Brighton and Sea Beach need/have the ability to accomodate more service?

[Mysterious2train]

Sure keeping the C at 8cars is cheaper, but it limits flexibility. At least with R32s you can cut or add 2 cars to the train for either line. With sets, it's one line only unless A riders don't mind a 480' long train.

Sure being new train, they won't have much issues at first, but down the line, I wouldn't be surprised if they need to do the summer swaps again with ENY so the trains don't overheat. I think that by now we could do without the stairway to platform dash to the closest car.

Sure the Brooklyn end probably doesn't see as much service demand compared to Manhattan, so maybe they could short turn some C trains at WTC (longer trains, but fewer trains running = same total number of cars total).

 

Hey, I agree the C should be full-length, but the MTA's gone cheap on us.

 

The point is, something has to be done if you have the   go via QB to the old LIRR Rockaway branch to Rockaway Park. 

Sure, you could have the   go back to being 95th-Astoria at all times (as I would do with the   supplementing the   to Astoria on weekdays and other times the   supplementing the   on the SAS), but that goes back to the same problems the   had in that incarnation prior to 1987 in having no direct yard access.  That was specifically why I would also have the   and the   swap southern terminals, with the   running Bay Ridge-205th Street and the   running via West End from Coney Island to Astoria at all times since the   has Concourse Yard and the   would have Coney Island this way. 

 

I see what you're trying to do here, but I don't think the W to the Rockaways is such a great option. 

 

This plan would leave the M as the only line at 67 Av, which would be problematic assuming it would still run on Queens Blvd weekdays only. In addition, it would probably increase delays on the Brooklyn lines, since the D would have to end up on the local tracks to get to Bay Ridge, and would have to merge with other lines, whereas right now it only merges with the N. Having a second line run up 2 Av on the weekend and late nights only seems kind of unnecessary, doesn't it?

 

Right now during the rush a special A train takes 22 or 23 minutes to go from Rockaway Blvd and B 116 St. Let's say that an average trip from 63 Drive down to Rockaway Park would take 30 minutes. For any line that terminates at 71 Av, going down to B 116 St instead would mean an extra 27 or so minutes of run time. 

 

Sample runtime comparisons:

 

This is for an average rush hour, so give or take a few minutes. Off-peak is a few minutes less.

 

from Church Av to B 116 St: 83 mins

Whitehall St to B 116 St: 85 mins

from Met Av to B 116 St: 95 mins 

from Bay Ridge to B 116 St: 112 mins

[next person to suggest extending the R gets banned]

 

Our holy quarter for comparison:

207 to Far Rock: 109 mins at night, 96 mins during the rush

: 95-100 mins at its worst; around 97 mins at night

: At worst, about 94 mins

: about 90 mins during rush hour 

 

 

[m7zanr160s]

I'm all for either the or on this line.

[Mysterious2train]

Sample runtime comparisons:

 

Whitehall St to B 116 St: 85 mins

 

Random nitpick, this should probably be 81 or so minutes for an average trip instead. I guess this now makes all of my times suspect.   

[T J Trainman]

Send the M to rock park via LIRR Rockaway beach branch problem solved

[T to Dyre Avenue]

Agreed. I really think the is the best option. Every other existing service is left alone and 67th Ave continues to have the same service seven days a week that it has now, the .

[AndrewJC]

What about the people that just want to go to that part of Queens from Far Rock? Or, what if someone wants to go to northern Queens...? And please no one say bus. Buses are slow(er than trains, especially)! This line reactivation is a no-brainer that's staring everyone in the face. Even the naysayers will use it once they find out how convenient it will be. We don't even have to do much digging. Everything is already there for the refurbishing. It's certainly not a Second Avenue Subway or West Side Extension. I'm all for making it a subway line so it can be integrated with the rest of the system. Maybe extend the for an excuse to make it a full-length and frequent line...making crosstowners happy in the process. If your transit system doesn't look like a nervous system covering the landscape of the city, it's not complete. We have poor circulation in a few areas, especially Queens.

 

Yes, the proposed line would be convenient for people traveling between the Rockaways and Queens Blvd. - but do you really think there are enough people making such a trip (by transit) to warrant a new subway line? A single subway train has a carrying capacity of over 1,000 - if trains run every 10 minutes, that's an hourly capacity of 6,000. Do you seriously suggest that a line in this area would attract anywhere near 6,000 riders in the peak hour?

 

The Rockaways are a narrow, largely low density strip of land, with high auto ownership rates. Its subway stations are among the lowest used stations in the entire system. It's unlikely that a new rail connection to Queens Blvd. would prove particularly busy.

 

All that's "there" is the ROW itself. Anything else that still remains from 1962 would have to be replaced from scratch. "Refurbishing" is not the right word. Building a new rail line, even on an existing ROW, is quite expensive - as is operating a rail line. If you want to make the case that one should be built here, you need to establish that it would attract high ridership.

 

The G, as a short line, is quite reliable, and it's far more frequent than anything that serves the Rockaways. Extending the G to the Rockaways would significantly hurt G service.

 

The buses on Woodhaven carry a combined 26.3K riders a day over a 4 mile shared corridor, which pencils out to 6.5K potential subway riders per mile. This is better than all light rail systems in the US except the Boston Green Line. This does not include people using east-west buses that don't currently use the Q11/21/52/53 due to longer travel times and a two-bus ride to the subway.

 

Also, this is not a particularly thorough view of the situation on the ground, but a cursory view of Woodhaven Blvd on Google Earth shows very little commercial activity on the street itself, compared to other Queens thoroughfares such as Northern, Union, Hillside, Main, and Merrick. The only major benefit of tunneling on Woodhaven itself rather than the LIRR ROW is the bigger space available for a station footprint, and the relative ease of connecting to the east-west train lines south of Forest Park (connecting to the from the old LIRR ROW would be tricky, similar to the Broadway-Hewes/Lorimer situation on the ). Normally, subway construction on major arterials is great, but in the specific case of Woodhaven it's not that much better unless Woodhaven Blvd gets upzoned.

 

Including the Q11 and Q21 in your count is quite misleading - most Q11 and Q21 riders wouldn't benefit from a rail line, since either they're traveling between minor local stops that would be nowhere near train stations or they're using the neighborhood segments off of Cross Bay. Many Q52/Q53 riders would, but many wouldn't - in particular, there are plenty of Q52/Q53 riders entirely south of Liberty, who already have rail service yet still ride the bus. If your count is based on 2012, don't forget that that includes a two-month period when the A wasn't running south of Howard Beach!

 

In 2011, when the Q53 was the only limited, it had nearly 15,000 riders per weekday. That's not particularly impressive. As a point of comparison, the 63rd Drive subway station alone has more weekday riders than the entire Q53.

 

Q52/Q53 service, combined, peaks at about 15 buses per hour. If each of those buses is loaded to the maximum guideline load of 54, that's 810 riders per hour passing through the peak load point. A train running every 10 minutes, per NYCT guidelines, would provide capacity for 6,720 riders per hour - and, for many, it would be less attractive than the bus, since it would be a longer walk from most of the commercial activity and the waits would be significantly longer. A single subway train has a much greater capacity than the peak hour's worth of Q52/Q53 peak load.

 

I'd love to see a reactivation of the line, but the numbers simply don't support it.

 

I'm certainly not suggesting tunneling under Woodhaven. I'm suggesting enhancing the existing bus service on Woodhaven.

 

Rockaway residents have wanted-and needed this-for decades. A subway line to northern queens has many benefits. The option of NOT taking a bus up Woodhaven or even Brewer. Local or express, saying this as a former 20-year rockaway resident, would be a huge improvement over going thru brooklyn and lower manhattan for trips to midtown and north. Then theres those who also travel just to Qns Bl, Jackson Heights and even Flushing. Its not just about getting to Manhattan, its about traveling to northern queens without multiple buses and traffic. And who says the line would have to run local on the QBL? The bellmouths at 63rd can be used like the way they connected the 63rd St line to QBL- use the bellmouths to move the local tracks to the outside so the current local tracks can be used as the spurs to the RoW, allowing trains to access either the local or express tracks. Something like that will increase service flexibility especially during blocks. An LIRR will fail. It was abandoned once before for a reason. If Rockaway residents wanted to use the LIRR, its right there on Namoke St. A subway is what's wanted and needed. As far as what line, I see it easier to make a new service line. Maybe during overnights and weekends, the line will see some sort of Shuttle service from QB to the Rock, With Thru service to and from Rockaway during peak hour unless there is a demand for more service. Although I do agree with the SBS alternative-which not to long ago I was told here was ridiculous-A long term solution is to indeed bring in a line from the rockaways to the northern part of queens. 

 

No doubt you've wanted it, but the money simply doesn't exist to build more than a small fraction of the items that anybody wants. If your goal is a faster trip to Manhattan, it's unlikely the QBL would be of much help, and even if it would, the low ridership in the Rockaways certainly doesn't support two alternative subway routes to Manhattan. (If a shorter trip to Manhattan is important to you, have you considered moving somewhere closer?)

 

Rearranging active tracks underground would be phenomenally expensive and disruptive, and the express tracks are currently maxxed out with trains carrying tens of thousands of riders in the peak hour from Jamaica.

 

SBS would serve the area right, but it would be much slower unless you really wanna seperate the bus lanes from other traffic (and the current traffic light setup) in Manhattan but theres no room for that. So either way you end up with nice, fast SBS service within the Rockaways but to Manhattan it would be no faster than the .

 

As I've said, the Rockaways don't have the traffic to support two distinct subway lines to Manhattan - if that's your justification for proposing it, I suggest you find a new justification. It also makes no sense to funnel people away from a line that has plenty of room for its riders and into a line that's bordering on overcrowded and has no track capacity for more trains.

 

Very few have mentioned making this a second crosstown service. The , being the only Brooklyn–Queens service is kind of poor. The Rockaway right-of-way, from its unique route gets to be a crosstown line and connect to Manhattan.

 

The A and J/Z also run between Brooklyn and Queens, and connect to Manhattan. This proposed line is entirely in Queens.

 

Speaking of the (G)eorge: 

 

If you sent the or even the down the rockaway line, connected to QBL, this would free terminal capacity at Forest Hills. 

 

That would allow you to extend the back into queens making it truly a crosstown line once again. As has been discussed - the Queens Blvd Local tracks have plenty of spare capacity, it's the Forest Hills terminal that prevents extra local service from being added to the line. 

 

I'm not sure there would be any benefit, but you could even send the down the re-opened ROW to the Rockaways - Especially considering most passengers would transfer to other, express lines for service into manhattan. . 

 

The demand for the G on the QBL is tiny. The only reason it ran there before 2001 was to provide more local service than the R alone could provide. The G, for Crosstown riders, is more frequent and more reliable than it was when it ran on the QBL.

 

It's been mentioned before in some of the other similar threads. But yes, Queens does need another north south line to connect the 2 parts together. The buses are just too slow. The Q53 used to be a good line, but it's been horribly neutered with all the extra stops (when they should've added just the subway transfers).

 

The Q53 has doubled in ridership since 2007, thanks largely to the added stops. The Triboro Coach Q53 ran every 20-30 minutes, except in the summer, when it ran every 15. No, it's not as much fun to ride as it was when it ran nonstop, but buses don't run for fun, and the Q53 as it exists today is serving a lot more riders than the old Q53.

 

You're reading too much into the wording. An improvement in subway service raises the standard of living just like improved rail service raises the standard of living. [The irony is that a Highline-like park would probably improve the quality of life there the most of all by attracting tourists and new businesses, but I guess that's out of the question for some people.]

 

I don't understand why everybody's jumping to High Line comparisons, as if the High Line is the only existing linear park on a former railroad ROW. There are plenty of others, including the former Vanderbilt Motor Parkway right in Queens, the planned Bloomingdale line in Chicago, the Parkland Walk in London, and the Promenade plantée in Paris. All but the last are in outlying parts of the city. I've been to the Parkland Walk and it's quite similar in character to the proposed QueensWay.

 

Another poster brought up the Putnam Trail - another good example.

 

Sure keeping the C at 8cars is cheaper, but it limits flexibility. At least with R32s you can cut or add 2 cars to the train for either line. With sets, it's one line only unless A riders don't mind a 480' long train.

 

At $2 million per car, and 18 trains on the C, you're talking $72 million extra, not including spares, for a slight gain in flexibility. Better to purchase enough spares so that both the A and the C can reliably run their scheduled service.

 

Those same amount of trains used to bring back the can be used to beef up and trains. 

 

Mathematically impossible. For a given frequency in Astoria, it requires more trains if they all go to Brooklyn than if some of them terminate at Whitehall. Once the demand for Broadway line service is higher at the north end than at the south end, running the W saves cars and money.

[Wallyhorse]

I see what you're trying to do here, but I don't think the W to the Rockaways is such a great option. 

 

 

This plan would leave the M as the only line at 67 Av, which would be problematic assuming it would still run on Queens Blvd weekdays only. In addition, it would probably increase delays on the Brooklyn lines, since the D would have to end up on the local tracks to get to Bay Ridge, and would have to merge with other lines, whereas right now it only merges with the N. Having a second line run up 2 Av on the weekend and late nights only seems kind of unnecessary, doesn't it?

 

Keep in mind, by the time this happens (which would be 2018 at the earliest), the could very well be 24/7 to 71st-Continental due to the needs of the along the Broadway-Brooklyn line and elsewhere demanding such be done anyway (the area around the old Domino Sugar plant is expected to explode with new people in the next several years, which would require the join the at all times along Broadway-Brooklyn to take pressure off the and in late nights ( then is already at rush hour-level capacities to where more service is needed in the overnights).  That would eliminate the problem of 67th.  If needed, the on weekends could be shifted to QB if necessary should the not be 24/7 (or more likely 19/7).

 

The could also return to operating to 71st-Continental when the isn't running to fill that gap.

[m7zanr160s]

Yes, the proposed line would be convenient for people traveling between the Rockaways and Queens Blvd. - but do you really think there are enough people making such a trip (by transit) to warrant a new subway line? A single subway train has a carrying capacity of over 1,000 - if trains run every 10 minutes, that's an hourly capacity of 6,000. Do you seriously suggest that a line in this area would attract anywhere near 6,000 riders in the peak hour?

 

The Rockaways are a narrow, largely low density strip of land, with high auto ownership rates. Its subway stations are among the lowest used stations in the entire system. It's unlikely that a new rail connection to Queens Blvd. would prove particularly busy.

 

All that's "there" is the ROW itself. Anything else that still remains from 1962 would have to be replaced from scratch. "Refurbishing" is not the right word. Building a new rail line, even on an existing ROW, is quite expensive - as is operating a rail line. If you want to make the case that one should be built here, you need to establish that it would attract high ridership.

 

The G, as a short line, is quite reliable, and it's far more frequent than anything that serves the Rockaways. Extending the G to the Rockaways would significantly hurt G service.

 

 

Including the Q11 and Q21 in your count is quite misleading - most Q11 and Q21 riders wouldn't benefit from a rail line, since either they're traveling between minor local stops that would be nowhere near train stations or they're using the neighborhood segments off of Cross Bay. Many Q52/Q53 riders would, but many wouldn't - in particular, there are plenty of Q52/Q53 riders entirely south of Liberty, who already have rail service yet still ride the bus. If your count is based on 2012, don't forget that that includes a two-month period when the A wasn't running south of Howard Beach!

 

In 2011, when the Q53 was the only limited, it had nearly 15,000 riders per weekday. That's not particularly impressive. As a point of comparison, the 63rd Drive subway station alone has more weekday riders than the entire Q53.

 

Q52/Q53 service, combined, peaks at about 15 buses per hour. If each of those buses is loaded to the maximum guideline load of 54, that's 810 riders per hour passing through the peak load point. A train running every 10 minutes, per NYCT guidelines, would provide capacity for 6,720 riders per hour - and, for many, it would be less attractive than the bus, since it would be a longer walk from most of the commercial activity and the waits would be significantly longer. A single subway train has a much greater capacity than the peak hour's worth of Q52/Q53 peak load.

 

I'd love to see a reactivation of the line, but the numbers simply don't support it.

 

I'm certainly not suggesting tunneling under Woodhaven. I'm suggesting enhancing the existing bus service on Woodhaven.

 

 

No doubt you've wanted it, but the money simply doesn't exist to build more than a small fraction of the items that anybody wants. If your goal is a faster trip to Manhattan, it's unlikely the QBL would be of much help, and even if it would, the low ridership in the Rockaways certainly doesn't support two alternative subway routes to Manhattan. (If a shorter trip to Manhattan is important to you, have you considered moving somewhere closer?)

 

Rearranging active tracks underground would be phenomenally expensive and disruptive, and the express tracks are currently maxxed out with trains carrying tens of thousands of riders in the peak hour from Jamaica.

 

 

As I've said, the Rockaways don't have the traffic to support two distinct subway lines to Manhattan - if that's your justification for proposing it, I suggest you find a new justification. It also makes no sense to funnel people away from a line that has plenty of room for its riders and into a line that's bordering on overcrowded and has no track capacity for more trains.

 

 

The A and J/Z also run between Brooklyn and Queens, and connect to Manhattan. This proposed line is entirely in Queens.

 

 

The demand for the G on the QBL is tiny. The only reason it ran there before 2001 was to provide more local service than the R alone could provide. The G, for Crosstown riders, is more frequent and more reliable than it was when it ran on the QBL.

 

 

The Q53 has doubled in ridership since 2007, thanks largely to the added stops. The Triboro Coach Q53 ran every 20-30 minutes, except in the summer, when it ran every 15. No, it's not as much fun to ride as it was when it ran nonstop, but buses don't run for fun, and the Q53 as it exists today is serving a lot more riders than the old Q53.

 

 

I don't understand why everybody's jumping to High Line comparisons, as if the High Line is the only existing linear park on a former railroad ROW. There are plenty of others, including the former Vanderbilt Motor Parkway right in Queens, the planned Bloomingdale line in Chicago, the Parkland Walk in London, and the Promenade plantée in Paris. All but the last are in outlying parts of the city. I've been to the Parkland Walk and it's quite similar in character to the proposed QueensWay.

 

Another poster brought up the Putnam Trail - another good example.

 

 

At $2 million per car, and 18 trains on the C, you're talking $72 million extra, not including spares, for a slight gain in flexibility. Better to purchase enough spares so that both the A and the C can reliably run their scheduled service.

 

 

Mathematically impossible. For a given frequency in Astoria, it requires more trains if they all go to Brooklyn than if some of them terminate at Whitehall. Once the demand for Broadway line service is higher at the north end than at the south end, running the W saves cars and money.

 

Our outer-borough transportation is lacking, and It's not all about the Rockaways, either. It's also about intermediate travel. If I'm on Queens Boulevard and I want to go to East New York or South Ozone Park that would be kind of difficult. It's not really about end to end travel. Not many people do that. Sometimes there's low ridership because of travel time or destination options. I've heard of people avoiding the train because of it's sheduled intervals.

 

Why do we have to wait for "demand"? We're not waiting for demand where the Extension is concerned. Last I checked, it wasn't exactly Times Square over there by the Javits Center. The Flushing Line was built before any thing else and look at the area now. It's already too late if you're waiting for a bunch of people to be like, "We need this"! These things take time to build. You make access to parts of the city easier, and people will use it. I don't know...maybe we're waiting for dang near every road in the city to be packed with cars and buses before we realize we need to take advantage of these transit options that are staring us right in the face. This line reactivation does not compare with the  Second Avenue Subway project. How hard can reactivation be? Certainly not as hard as tunneling under buildings and relocating utilities that I've heard aren't exactly mapped out perfectly.

 

Subways make it easy to travel a long distance in a short amount of time. I don't know why people think that more buses are the answer to our problems. I shouldn't have to go through Manhattan to get to the Bronx via mass transit. Nor should it take 2 hours and change to get to south Brooklyn from eastern Queens. I don't know what all the debating is about. It should be, "We're thinking about reactivating the Roc--" "YESSSSSS!!! We'll take it!" "Also, the Tribo--" "Say no more; build it!!!" Instead it's: "Well, we don't know if anybody's going to ride a train from Staten Island into Brooklyn or Manhattan, that'll take to long. Plus, you're gonna bring crime to our beautiful neighborhoods...but heres a plan for a 3 hour Tri-borough RX SBS." Whatever...

[Roadcruiser1]

First of all the is very likely to come back. However it's going to run the same route it ran before the 2010 budget cuts. This is only because the has to be moved to the Second Avenue Subway. Any idea of running the on the IND Queens Boulevard Line is stupid. It will jam the and the which is both running local. So there isn't a purpose to this and it won't happen.

 

Second of all it's not that difficult to fix the problems on the Queens Boulevard Line. All you need to do is look into the old ideas from the 1960's. Do you guys remember the IND Queens Boulevard Super Express? Well it needs to be constructed. This will allow the to take over the line's job on the express tracks and to free up room for the . The will then run local all the way to Woodhaven Boulevard. Then it will turn and serve Rockaway Beach including the Rockaway Beach Branch. This will eliminate the as it has been replaced by the line, This is probably the most workable idea out there that probably dates back 50 years..........

[T J Trainman]

Hmmmm let's see here how about......No!!!!

[Wallyhorse]

First of all the W is very likely to come back. However it's going to run the same route it ran before the 2010 budget cuts. This is only because the Q has to be moved to the Second Avenue Subway. Any idea of running the W on the IND Queens Boulevard Line is stupid. It will jam the M and the R which is both running local. So there isn't a purpose to this and it won't happen.

 

Second of all it's not that difficult to fix the problems on the Queens Boulevard Line. All you need to do is look into the MTA old ideas from the 1960's. Do you guys remember the IND Queens Boulevard Super Express? Well it needs to be constructed. This will allow the M to take over the F line's job on the express tracks and to free up room for the . The will then run local all the way to Woodhaven Boulevard. Then it will turn and serve Rockaway Beach including the Rockaway Beach Branch. This will eliminate the as it has been replaced by the line, This is probably the most workable idea out there that probably dates back 50 years..........

Remember, in my version:

 

The is on QB, running from Whitehall-Rockaway Park.  This to me works best since the could if necessary share Rockaway Park with the as a yard.

 

is back on its old route to Astoria BUT because of this runs Coney Island via West End to Astoria at all times (so the has a yard at Coney Island).

 

switches Brooklyn terminals with the and runs 95th/Bay Ridge-205th Street (since the has Concourse yard).

 

takes over what the has done, and in this case runs to Astoria weekdays (5:30 AM-10:30 PM) and other times EITHER supplements the SAS by going with the to 96th Street-2nd Avenue OR if necessary runs on QB with the , going back to its pre-1987 terminal of 71st-Continental weekends and overnights if that were needed OR also if necessary the can be extended weekends and overnights to 71st-Continental.

 

My plan actually also calls for the to be at least a 19/7 line to 71st-Continental to solve the problem with 67th Street, however, that would be more of a by-product of the area of the former Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg to where the is needed on the Brooklyn end to go to at least midtown Manhattan at all times, possibly by the time this took effect the being 24/7 to 71st-Continental.

[Threxx]

Remember, in my version:

 

The is on QB, running from Whitehall-Rockaway Park.  This to me works best since the could if necessary share Rockaway Park with the as a yard.

 

is back on its old route to Astoria BUT because of this runs Coney Island via West End to Astoria at all times (so the has a yard at Coney Island).

 

switches Brooklyn terminals with the and runs 95th/Bay Ridge-205th Street (since the has Concourse yard).

 

takes over what the has done, and in this case runs to Astoria weekdays (5:30 AM-10:30 PM) and other times EITHER supplements the SAS by going with the to 96th Street-2nd Avenue OR if necessary runs on QB with the , going back to its pre-1987 terminal of 71st-Continental weekends and overnights if that were needed OR also if necessary the can be extended weekends and overnights to 71st-Continental.

 

My plan actually also calls for the to be at least a 19/7 line to 71st-Continental to solve the problem with 67th Street, however, that would be more of a by-product of the area of the former Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg to where the is needed on the Brooklyn end to go to at least midtown Manhattan at all times, possibly by the time this took effect the being 24/7 to 71st-Continental.

 

Ok, how many times have people told you this can't work?

 

The idea is novel, and INDIVIDUALLY, makes sense, but combined with the current geography of the system can't work.

 

The has to stay on Queens Blvd. There isn't anything you can do about that. The Montague tracks lead into the 4th Avenue Local tracks, and the Manhattan Bridge tracks lead into the West End Line. All this is going to cause is a bottleneck with and trains stepping over each other to get to the express and local tracks, respectively.

 

And the should be a 19/7 line regardless of what happens, but that's for another thread.

[T J Trainman]

M would go to ROCKAWAY no W needed nothing else END IT!

[NewFlyer 230]

The should run on Queens Blvd everyday. Forget about the it doesn't serve Manhattan where many want to go. The way the subway was created it makes it very hard to go within the outer boroughs without first going into Manhattan. The Rockaway ROW will take a long time to create because the whole line from around Jamaica Ave has to be rebuilt and the is not an option. It does not even serve Manhattan and will make the line useless. Besides the Q52/Q53 is good enough as it doesn't make that many stops. Just throw some Artics on the line and its good.

[Guest Lance]

I don't mean to be that guy, but why is everyone already designating letters to a line that will likely not see any service anytime soon (or ever if residents in the area have their way)?

[bobtehpanda]

Remember, in my version:

 

The is on QB, running from Whitehall-Rockaway Park.  This to me works best since the could if necessary share Rockaway Park with the as a yard.

 

is back on its old route to Astoria BUT because of this runs Coney Island via West End to Astoria at all times (so the has a yard at Coney Island).

 

switches Brooklyn terminals with the and runs 95th/Bay Ridge-205th Street (since the has Concourse yard).

 

takes over what the has done, and in this case runs to Astoria weekdays (5:30 AM-10:30 PM) and other times EITHER supplements the SAS by going with the to 96th Street-2nd Avenue OR if necessary runs on QB with the , going back to its pre-1987 terminal of 71st-Continental weekends and overnights if that were needed OR also if necessary the can be extended weekends and overnights to 71st-Continental.

 

My plan actually also calls for the to be at least a 19/7 line to 71st-Continental to solve the problem with 67th Street, however, that would be more of a by-product of the area of the former Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg to where the is needed on the Brooklyn end to go to at least midtown Manhattan at all times, possibly by the time this took effect the being 24/7 to 71st-Continental.

 

I can answer this with a big flat no. This shuffle would greatly inconvenience Brooklyn riders - there are a lot of riders on the line looking for a quick ride into 6th Av and Grand St. Not only that, but three Broadway services into Coney Island would be overkill.

 

Again, extending the or the Rockaway are both much better options than a Broadway service through the congested 60th St tunnels and completely rearranging four services. In fact, extending the Rockaway would probably be better in the event of a reactivation since ridership levels would probably not warrant a large amount of service.

[bobtehpanda]

Yes, the proposed line would be convenient for people traveling between the Rockaways and Queens Blvd. - but do you really think there are enough people making such a trip (by transit) to warrant a new subway line? A single subway train has a carrying capacity of over 1,000 - if trains run every 10 minutes, that's an hourly capacity of 6,000. Do you seriously suggest that a line in this area would attract anywhere near 6,000 riders in the peak hour?

 

The Rockaways are a narrow, largely low density strip of land, with high auto ownership rates. Its subway stations are among the lowest used stations in the entire system. It's unlikely that a new rail connection to Queens Blvd. would prove particularly busy.

 

Woodhaven itself is the main attraction - the corridor is a heavily residential corridor that sees a lot of traffic (keep in mind that in Queens and parts of Brooklyn, crosstown trips are usually made by car due to the lack of train access or quick bus access between Brooklyn and Queens, so diverting some drivers off of Woodhaven is a certain possibility. Keep in mind that since Queens is more auto-oriented, it's more likely that you will see riders using the train for trips they would've otherwise done by car or bus, or not at all, than you would see if there was, say, a Third Av Line in the Bronx or a Nostrand Avenue Extension in Brooklyn.

 

The bus ridership figures were more to establish an idea of the already high ridership along the general corridor. There will at least be some people who will divert from Q11 and Q21 trips, as well as some people who will divert from the various east-west buses crossing Woodhaven. It's a well documented phenomenon where rail lines will have significantly higher ridership than the bus lines they replaced. On the extreme end, Vancouver's Canada Line saw ridership rise from 18,000 riders a day (similar to the Q52/53 ridership levels) to over 120,000 riders a day, which would be a better result than most transit projects in the works today.

 

The and are too far east for anyone on the Queens Blvd Line to reasonably use as a crosstown line, in any case.

[Mysterious2train]

Yes, the proposed line would be convenient for people traveling between the Rockaways and Queens Blvd. - but do you really think there are enough people making such a trip (by transit) to warrant a new subway line? A single subway train has a carrying capacity of over 1,000 - if trains run every 10 minutes, that's an hourly capacity of 6,000. Do you seriously suggest that a line in this area would attract anywhere near 6,000 riders in the peak hour?

 

The Rockaways are a narrow, largely low density strip of land, with high auto ownership rates. Its subway stations are among the lowest used stations in the entire system. It's unlikely that a new rail connection to Queens Blvd. would prove particularly busy.

 

Including the Q11 and Q21 in your count is quite misleading - most Q11 and Q21 riders wouldn't benefit from a rail line, since either they're traveling between minor local stops that would be nowhere near train stations or they're using the neighborhood segments off of Cross Bay. Many Q52/Q53 riders would, but many wouldn't - in particular, there are plenty of Q52/Q53 riders entirely south of Liberty, who already have rail service yet still ride the bus. If your count is based on 2012, don't forget that that includes a two-month period when the A wasn't running south of Howard Beach!

 

This seems like one of those ugly self-perpetuating cycles. People drive and take the bus because subway service is poor. Because many people take the bus or drive, subway ridership is poor and subsequently service is poor. If subway service was better, I think many more people would ride, but I have no way of knowing that, so I digress. The Q53 is more than twice as frequent than the train and takes and takes about the same time as Shuttle --> , so it's no surprising that people would prefer to ride it. Even the Q52 now is about as frequent as the . Granted, the clear downsides of living somewhere like the Rockaways doesn't inspire much confidence in the patronage of this potential subway line.

 

I don't mean to be that guy, but why is everyone already designating letters to a line that will likely not see any service anytime soon (or ever if residents in the area have their way)?

 

Because foam, and discussing what could be is more fun than looking at a likely bleak reality 

 

The would probably be the best candidate for through service down a revived Rockaway Beach line, but I'm kind of torn about it because that would make it really long (right up there with the and )

[Fresh Pond]

The should run on Queens Blvd everyday. Forget about the it doesn't serve Manhattan where many want to go. The way the subway was created it makes it very hard to go within the outer boroughs without first going into Manhattan. The Rockaway ROW will take a long time to create because the whole line from around Jamaica Ave has to be rebuilt and the is not an option. It does not even serve Manhattan and will make the line useless. Besides the Q52/Q53 is good enough as it doesn't make that many stops. Just throw some Artics on the line and its good.

Not everyone wants to go into Manhattan...

[AndrewJC]

Our outer-borough transportation is lacking, and It's not all about the Rockaways, either. It's also about intermediate travel. If I'm on Queens Boulevard and I want to go to East New York or South Ozone Park that would be kind of difficult. It's not really about end to end travel. Not many people do that. Sometimes there's low ridership because of travel time or destination options. I've heard of people avoiding the train because of it's sheduled intervals.

 

Why do we have to wait for "demand"? We're not waiting for demand where the Extension is concerned. Last I checked, it wasn't exactly Times Square over there by the Javits Center. The Flushing Line was built before any thing else and look at the area now. It's already too late if you're waiting for a bunch of people to be like, "We need this"! These things take time to build. You make access to parts of the city easier, and people will use it. I don't know...maybe we're waiting for dang near every road in the city to be packed with cars and buses before we realize we need to take advantage of these transit options that are staring us right in the face. This line reactivation does not compare with the  Second Avenue Subway project. How hard can reactivation be? Certainly not as hard as tunneling under buildings and relocating utilities that I've heard aren't exactly mapped out perfectly.

 

Subways make it easy to travel a long distance in a short amount of time. I don't know why people think that more buses are the answer to our problems. I shouldn't have to go through Manhattan to get to the Bronx via mass transit. Nor should it take 2 hours and change to get to south Brooklyn from eastern Queens. I don't know what all the debating is about. It should be, "We're thinking about reactivating the Roc--" "YESSSSSS!!! We'll take it!" "Also, the Tribo--" "Say no more; build it!!!" Instead it's: "Well, we don't know if anybody's going to ride a train from Staten Island into Brooklyn or Manhattan, that'll take to long. Plus, you're gonna bring crime to our beautiful neighborhoods...but heres a plan for a 3 hour Tri-borough RX SBS." Whatever...

 

Hold on a second. Nobody is offering to build or operate this line. There's no money set aside for it.

 

I'm not saying that it would be useless. I'm saying that I doubt that the ridership would be high enough to justify spending the very significant price tag attached to building it or to operate it.

 

The areas that the ROW runs through are already developed - this isn't the Flushing line in 1917. Are you proposing to upzone the areas near the line? I wouldn't object, but why not start by upzoning near existing subway lines that already have service? The 7 Line Extension is being built specifically to promote major development at one of the few underdeveloped parts of the Manhattan CBD.

 

Woodhaven itself is the main attraction - the corridor is a heavily residential corridor that sees a lot of traffic (keep in mind that in Queens and parts of Brooklyn, crosstown trips are usually made by car due to the lack of train access or quick bus access between Brooklyn and Queens, so diverting some drivers off of Woodhaven is a certain possibility. Keep in mind that since Queens is more auto-oriented, it's more likely that you will see riders using the train for trips they would've otherwise done by car or bus, or not at all, than you would see if there was, say, a Third Av Line in the Bronx or a Nostrand Avenue Extension in Brooklyn.

 

The bus ridership figures were more to establish an idea of the already high ridership along the general corridor. There will at least be some people who will divert from Q11 and Q21 trips, as well as some people who will divert from the various east-west buses crossing Woodhaven. It's a well documented phenomenon where rail lines will have significantly higher ridership than the bus lines they replaced. On the extreme end, Vancouver's Canada Line saw ridership rise from 18,000 riders a day (similar to the Q52/53 ridership levels) to over 120,000 riders a day, which would be a better result than most transit projects in the works today.

 

As a rough rule of thumb (and I'm definitely oversimplifying a lot), transit works extremely well for trips between two dense areas, somewhat well for trips between a dense area and a not-dense area, and not well at all for trips between not-dense areas. The Woodhaven corridor is, as you say, auto-oriented - and it will stay that way regardless of investments in rail infrastructure, for the simple reason that traffic isn't nightmarish and parking is easy to find. As long as that's the case, transit mode share will remain fairly low.

 

More than half the length of the Q52/Q53 is already closely paralleled by the A train (granted, much of that is across Jamaica Bay), and, as I said yesterday, most Q11/Q21 riders are making trips that wouldn't/couldn't be served by rail in any case.

 

Anyway, if the goal is to serve the Woodhaven corridor, then there's certainly no need to duplicate A service all the way to the Rockaways. If the line is built (which, again, I doubt will ever happen), trains could terminate at Howard Beach (for the airport connection) or, better yet, could curve east to Rockaway Blvd. (for the more frequent A train connection).

 

I'm not familiar with Vancouver, so I can't say much regarding that example, but a seven-fold increase in ridership is simply implausible without significant changes beyond rubber-on-asphalt becoming steel-on-steel.

 

This seems like one of those ugly self-perpetuating cycles. People drive and take the bus because subway service is poor. Because many people take the bus or drive, subway ridership is poor and subsequently service is poor. If subway service was better, I think many more people would ride, but I have no way of knowing that, so I digress. The Q53 is more than twice as frequent than the train and takes and takes about the same time as Shuttle --> , so it's no surprising that people would prefer to ride it. Even the Q52 now is about as frequent as the . Granted, the clear downsides of living somewhere like the Rockaways doesn't inspire much confidence in the patronage of this potential subway line.

 

But it's not cyclical. The market of transit riders in the Rockaways is simply very small in comparison with every other part of the city served by the subway. It's a mostly low-density, narrow strip of land. Subway service could run every 2 minutes and total ridership would still be extremely low.

[Wallyhorse]

I can answer this with a big flat no. This shuffle would greatly inconvenience Brooklyn riders - there are a lot of riders on the line looking for a quick ride into 6th Av and Grand St. Not only that, but three Broadway services into Coney Island would be overkill.

 

Again, extending the or the Rockaway are both much better options than a Broadway service through the congested 60th St tunnels and completely rearranging four services. In fact, extending the Rockaway would probably be better in the event of a reactivation since ridership levels would probably not warrant a large amount of service.

You forget of one little thing called Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct that is along the existing Rockaway line.  Having the as I would do it be the line going Whitehall-Rockaway Park is mainly because of that Casino.  If Genting (parent of Resorts World) helped fund a Rockaway line reactivation, I would think they would want to have a Manhattan line running from what likely to many of them (as they are mainly from Malaysia I believe) is still the Financial District (Whitehall, and even if we know better with all the residential buildings now there) to the Casino. That is also why I do it as I do, especially since the comes into Manhattan north of what is still considered to many the Financial District.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

I don't think anyone forgot about Resorts World Casino and I don't think Genting has any plans to help fund a Rockaway Line. Even if they did, they wouldn't want a slow local line running from Lower Manhattan to the casino. If their goal was to have a line running directly from the Financial District, they wouldn't go all the way up to Queens Blvd, through the 60th St tunnel, then all the way down Broadway to Whitehall St. Not to mention that MTA is not going to shift around four existing train lines just to accommodate this kind of service.

[bobtehpanda]

You forget of one little thing called Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct that is along the existing Rockaway line.  Having the as I would do it be the line going Whitehall-Rockaway Park is mainly because of that Casino.  If Genting (parent of Resorts World) helped fund a Rockaway line reactivation, I would think they would want to have a Manhattan line running from what likely to many of them (as they are mainly from Malaysia I believe) is still the Financial District (Whitehall, and even if we know better with all the residential buildings now there) to the Casino. That is also why I do it as I do, especially since the comes into Manhattan north of what is still considered to many the Financial District.

 

This talk of Resorts World Casino being the 'next big thing' reminds me way too much of other various projects that were the next big thing, such as Skyview Shopping Center in Flushing, The Shops at Atlas Park, etc. It's way overblown.

 

The Asian population that goes gambling a lot is mostly centered in Chinatown, Flushing, Bayside, and Sunset Park, and only one of those is being served by the subway time-efficiently to Aqueduct at this time (and is also rapidly gentrifying and shrinking).

 

Genting also indicated that the only service they were willing to fund would be an express train for their 'posh' casino gamblers, and then backtracked on that because no one wanted a repeat of 'Train to the Plane'.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

As a rough rule of thumb (and I'm definitely oversimplifying a lot), transit works extremely well for trips between two dense areas, somewhat well for trips between a dense area and a not-dense area, and not well at all for trips between not-dense areas. The Woodhaven corridor is, as you say, auto-oriented - and it will stay that way regardless of investments in rail infrastructure, for the simple reason that traffic isn't nightmarish and parking is easy to find. As long as that's the case, transit mode share will remain fairly low.

 

More than half the length of the Q52/Q53 is already closely paralleled by the A train (granted, much of that is across Jamaica Bay), and, as I said yesterday, most Q11/Q21 riders are making trips that wouldn't/couldn't be served by rail in any case.

 

Anyway, if the goal is to serve the Woodhaven corridor, then there's certainly no need to duplicate A service all the way to the Rockaways. If the line is built (which, again, I doubt will ever happen), trains could terminate at Howard Beach (for the airport connection) or, better yet, could curve east to Rockaway Blvd. (for the more frequent A train connection).

The north end of Woodhaven Blvd (where it intersects with Queens Blvd) is very busy and quite dense. It's a major transit hub with many bus routes converging on the Woodhaven Blvd subway station, two large shopping malls, some low-rise office buildings and plenty of apartment buildings. I'd safely say that a subway service on the Rockaway branch will, at the very least, get decent ridership.

 

If most Q11/Q21 riders are making trips that wouldn't or couldn't be served by rail, then where exactly are they going? Both routes (and the Q52 Limited) terminate right near the Woodhaven Blvd subway station. There must be a lot of people getting off there and transferring to the or . Unless they are transferring to another bus and headed to Maspeth, Middle Village, Richmond Hill, etc., I don't see a Rockaway branch subway as being a non-option for these riders. With potential stops at Liberty, Atlantic, Jamaica and Metropolitan Avenues, it would very much be possible to take the train to any of the bus routes that run on those streets and vice versa. If their destination is somewhere in between Metropolitan and Queens Blvd, then perhaps a potential station located at Yellowstone Blvd or 66th Ave/Fleet St can also be done.

 

Yes, the Rockaways stations are some of the lowest-used stations in the system. So maybe it would make sense to have the start/end at Howard Beach as the Q11 and Q21 currently do.

 

There is a need to link northern and southern Queens in a faster, more efficient way. A subway route on the Rockaway branch would help a great deal to accomplish that.