Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[JeremiahC99]

On 1/6/2023 at 12:43 AM, TMC said:

I know him from YouTube comments sections, that is precisely his proposal. I'm honestly very torn about how valuable such a project is, considering the amount of investment sunk into transfers, affording the same kind of access.

I will come forward to admit that the guy on YouTube with that plan is me, and that’s precisely my plan. Essentially a version of the 1931 Worth Street Line plans and what I consider the successor to the Chrystie Street connection, the intentions to my plan is to support additional deinterlining (beyond what can already be done) while retaining the Midtown connection for Williamsburg Bridge riders. Albeit this will be via 8th Avenue instead of 6th Avenue, which does increase capacity on both lines and clears the way on 6th Avenue for a proper Culver Express, providing an alternative to the Sea Beach Line without sacrificing the North Brooklyn-Midtown direct service.

With this alone, the  would simply be moved to the 8th Avenue Line (recolored to blue and potentially redesignated), requiring the  and  to be swapped to make the former express through Midtown and Upper Manhattan, and this in itself would also require Queens Blvd service to be rearranged. I do also have this paired with another set of projects that involve alterations to the Fulton Street, Broadway, and Jamaica Lines to provide more frequent service on the Fulton Street and Rockaway Lines, speed service to Lower Manhattan for Jamaica riders, and provide an alternative to the Eastern Pkwy Line for Brooklyn riders. 

Admittedly, this is merely a long term projects given the costs, but it’s something that’s honestly worth considering. To this day, these are some of my favorite proposals.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

3 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

I will come forward to admit that the guy on YouTube with that plan is me, and that’s precisely my plan. Essentially a version of the 1931 Worth Street Line plans and what I consider the successor to the Chrystie Street connection, the intentions to my plan is to support additional deinterlining (beyond what can already be done) while retaining the Midtown connection for Williamsburg Bridge riders. Albeit this will be via 8th Avenue instead of 6th Avenue, which does increase capacity on both lines and clears the way on 6th Avenue for a proper Culver Express, providing an alternative to the Sea Beach Line without sacrificing the North Brooklyn-Midtown direct service.

With this alone, the  would simply be moved to the 8th Avenue Line (recolored to blue and potentially redesignated), requiring the  and  to be swapped to make the former express through Midtown and Upper Manhattan, and this in itself would also require Queens Blvd service to be rearranged. I do also have this paired with another set of projects that involve alterations to the Fulton Street, Broadway, and Jamaica Lines to provide more frequent service on the Fulton Street and Rockaway Lines, speed service to Lower Manhattan for Jamaica riders, and provide an alternative to the Eastern Pkwy Line for Brooklyn riders. 

Admittedly, this is merely a long term projects given the costs, but it’s something that’s honestly worth considering. To this day, these are some of my favorite proposals.

I remember the discussion about your plan from a few years back. I do like it, but I’ve always wondered if it was necessary to swap the  and  in Upper Manhattan? It would be good to have a real Culver express service.

[Reptile]

Is it possible for an infill station on the 63rd Street line to be created that can transfer to the Queens Plaza station? This would make deinterlining QBL infinitely easier imo

[ActiveCity]

5 minutes ago, Reptile said:

Is it possible for an infill station on the 63rd Street line to be created that can transfer to the Queens Plaza station? This would make deinterlining QBL infinitely easier imo

There was supposed to be a station at Northern Blvd and 41st Avenue on the IND 63rd Street line. It would've had 2 island platforms with 3 tracks. In addition, a passageway transfer to the existing IND Queens Boulevard line would've been built. It's much harder to de-interline without building new subway extensions. Until then, we are stuck with the Queens Boulevard connector.

 

[TMC]

2 hours ago, Reptile said:

Is it possible for an infill station on the 63rd Street line to be created that can transfer to the Queens Plaza station? This would make deinterlining QBL infinitely easier imo

It’s not strictly necessary, most riding QBL would retain one seat options, regardless of them taking a local or express. 6th Ave and 8th Ave serve the same destinations in the Midtown CBD, and Lex-63 could have a passageway built to Lex-59. It’s perfectly doable right away.

[Benny Kanner]

On 12/17/2022 at 11:03 PM, JustTheSIR said:

Opinions on my upgrades from last time

The brown that runs through Central Park East are the Z and X trains, that go into the Bronx, and runs along Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn

posted on Wattpad so you don’t have to scroll past the images on here 

https://www.wattpad.com/1296311910-lololol-choo-choo-again

The  should certainly be brown & be associated with the BMT Jamaica Elevated Line. The <X> &  should run express via the BMT Jamaica Elevated Line alongside the & , while the , , , &  should run local.  should be brown again & run from College Point-5th Avenue to Fort Hamilton Parkway, while the  should run from Bronx Park to Dyker Beach Park-86th Street. The <X> should run from Lawrence to Pelham Bay Park, while the  should run from 133rd Avenue to Inwood-207th Street. The BMT Madison Avenue Line should serve the  instead of 5th Avenue, as there should be a tunnel for the New York Central Railroad under 5th Avenue. The  &  should run on the IND 86th Street Line, while the , & <S> should run on the BMT 86th Street Line. The BMT 14th Street Line should be extended past the 8th Avenue terminal & up the BMT West End Avenue Line. The <S> should run on the BMT 1st Avenue Line & run to Harlem-125th Street. The  should run to Harlem-135th Street. The  &  should be associated with the IND Crosstown Line & be light green. 

[Benny Kanner]

On 1/8/2023 at 10:47 AM, Reptile said:

Is it possible for an infill station on the 63rd Street line to be created that can transfer to the Queens Plaza station? This would make deinterlining QBL infinitely easier imo

The <U> &  should be associated with the IND Crosstown Line & be light green. It should also run express service on the lower level. 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Benny Kanner

[Benny Kanner]

On 5/6/2022 at 10:42 AM, shiznit1987 said:

I agree. I'd run the  to Bedford Park Blvd rush hours and middays while the  runs express. 

If the  were to run local on QB, it'd involve merging on Broadway, which I'm trying to avoid. Rather, I'd offer something that looks like this: 

 Sea Beach -> Manhattan Bridge/Broadway Express -> SAS 

 West End -> Manhattan Bridge/Broadway Express -> SAS

 Brighton Local -> Manhattan Bridge/Broadway Local -> Astoria

 Brighton Express -> Manhattan Bridge/Broadway Local -> Astoria (Rush Hours and Middays only)

 QB Local -> 53rd St -> 8th Ave Local -> Montauge Tunnel -> 4th Ave Local to Bay Ridge 

 QB Express -> 63rd St -> 6th Ave Local ->  to Culver and  to Metropolitan.

Since the  would now have the 8th Ave local tracks all to itself we can run 30tph on both the local and express of QB with half of all  trains turning at Whitehall or 9th Ave Brooklyn. 

 

The {QT} should replace  service onto the BMT 2nd Avenue Line from the BMT Broadway Line. The  &  should run express on the BMT Astoria Line, while the , , , &  should run local. The  should run to Fordham Plaza, while the  should run to Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard.  should run to Crocheron Park-217th Street, while the  should run to Ditmars Boulevard-111th Street. The  should run to Starlight Park-174th Street, while the  should run to Rikers Island. The  should run from South Hempstead-Southern State Parkway, Nassau County to Bayonne Bridge, Staten Island, while the  should run from Foch Boulevard-Roy Wilkins Park, Queens to Bard Avenue, Staten Island. The  &  should be brown again. The  should run from Bronx Park to Dyker Beach Park-86th Street, while the  should run from College Point-5th Avenue to Fort Hamilton Parkway. 

[Benny Kanner]

These should be the [E] route stations:

South Hempstead-Southern State Parkway

Allen Road

Andover Road

Dorchester Road

Lakeview Avenue

Tanglewood Road

Remsen Street

Hempstead Avenue

Marshall Avenue

Emerson Place

Corona Avenue

Fletcher Avenue

Benedict Avenue

Clearstream Avenue

Liberty Boulevard-Arlington Park

Hook Creek Boulevard

Belt Parkway-Brookville Boulevard

Francis Lewis Boulevard

224th Street Springfield Boulevard

Farmers Boulevard

Baisley Boulevard

Roy Wilkins Park-Foch Boulevard

Linden Boulevard

109th Avenue

105th Avenue

P-O-R-T-A-L

Jamaica Center

Sutphin Boulevard

Van Wyck Boulevard

Union Turnpike

71st Avenue

Roosevelt Avenue

Northern Boulevard

Queens Plaza

Court Square

Roosevelt Island

1st Avenue-53rd Street

Lexington Avenue-53rd Street

5th Avenue-53rd Street

7th Avenue-53rd Street

50th Street

42nd Street-Port Authority Bus Terminal

34th Street-Pennsylvania Station

28th Street

23rd Street

18th Street

14th Street

Perry Street

West 4th Street-Washington Square Park (E)

Spring Street <E>(E)

Canal Street <E>(E)

World Trade Center <E>(E)

Rector Street <E>(E)

Battery Park <E>(E)

Governors Island <E>(E)

Henry Street <E>(E)

Smith Street <E>(E)

4th Avenue <E>(E)

Saint John's Place <E>(E)

Prospect Park-Brooklyn Museum <E>(E)

P-O-R-T-A-L

Prospect Park-Lincoln Road <E>(E)

Saint Paul's Place <E>(E)

Prospect Park Southwest <E>(E)

McDonald Avenue <E>(E)

37th Street <E>(E)

New Utrecht Avenue <E>(E)

53rd Street <E>(E)

61st Street <E>(E)

Bay Ridge Avenue <E>(E)

77th Street <E>(E)

84th Street <E>(E)

92nd Street <E>(E)

Fingerboard Road <E>(E)

Mosel Avenue <E>(E)

Richmond Road <E>(E)

Howard Avenue <E>(E)

Victory Boulevard <E>(E)

Bard Avenue <E>(E)

Martling Avenue <E>

Forest Avenue <E>

Castleton Avenue <E>

Richmond Terrace <E>

Port Richmond Avenue <E>

Nicholas Avenue <E>

Bayonne Bridge <E>

[ActiveCity]

Im 90% finished with my fantasy NYC subway map which happens to include Staten Island. I'll link it in the afternoon at 6:00 P.M EST. It serves every major part of the city and you'd be surprised how much is filled in.

Edited January 10, 2023 by ActiveCity

[ActiveCity]

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1bE-NgnA0sJF_A3za6ox1shNcfPp5Dl8&ll=40.78976089418641%2C-73.89081439397653&z=11

Here it is.

[Vulturious]

Thought I'd have try my own spin on how a Staten Island connection to the NYC Subway would look like. It's already pretty self-eplanatory going from 95 St down along 4 Av, the  would run north along Bay St with the first stop at Hylan Blvd. From what it looks like, there's an empty lot around Bay St and Willow Av where the curve of the  would be going to/from Clifton station, so I decided to add a portal there for  trains to surface and run along a portion of the  to St. George station.

Obviously platforms needs extensions since they aren't long enough for any normal NYC subway train length. Clifton Station would be possible, but i felt the curve from the southbound tracks would be too right and I didn't want to have an at-grade junction. So I decided to have southbound  trains split before the station using the layup tracks on the left which sees an extension to the rest of the  to hopefully not make operations complicated. The only issue would be St. George's station since if I'm not mistaken, they aren't long lengths so I guess an at-grade junction will have to do going towards Ball Park platform. 

Probably would be better to just let it run underground or maybe beside it continuing along Bay St to St. George.

[JustTheSIR]

1 hour ago, Vulturious said:

Thought I'd have try my own spin on how a Staten Island connection to the NYC Subway would look like. It's already pretty self-eplanatory going from 95 St down along 4 Av, the  would run north along Bay St with the first stop at Hylan Blvd. From what it looks like, there's an empty lot around Bay St and Willow Av where the curve of the  would be going to/from Clifton station, so I decided to add a portal there for  trains to surface and run along a portion of the  to St. George station.

Obviously platforms needs extensions since they aren't long enough for any normal NYC subway train length. Clifton Station would be possible, but i felt the curve from the southbound tracks would be too right and I didn't want to have an at-grade junction. So I decided to have southbound  trains split before the station using the layup tracks on the left which sees an extension to the rest of the  to hopefully not make operations complicated. The only issue would be St. George's station since if I'm not mistaken, they aren't long lengths so I guess an at-grade junction will have to do going towards Ball Park platform. 

Probably would be better to just let it run underground or maybe beside it continuing along Bay St to St. George.

I don’t intend to be rude but: 

1: exactly HOW high do you intend the grade at Clifton to be? 

2: you’re extending the stations south right? Because Tompkinsville can’t extend any farther in any direction and Clifton has the switch north

3: who is this benefitting. People who need to go to Brooklyn? No they have the more widespread express bus for that.
People who need to go to Manhattan? Not if it’s longer than 25 minutes (ferry duration) or they need to get to the W, 4, 5, or 1

[Vulturious]

2 hours ago, JustTheSIR said:

I don’t intend to be rude but: 

1: exactly HOW high do you intend the grade at Clifton to be? 

2: you’re extending the stations south right? Because Tompkinsville can’t extend any farther in any direction and Clifton has the switch north

3: who is this benefitting. People who need to go to Brooklyn? No they have the more widespread express bus for that.
People who need to go to Manhattan? Not if it’s longer than 25 minutes (ferry duration) or they need to get to the W, 4, 5, or 1

1.) No idea how high, I'll probably just keep it at-grade with the  anyway since it probably doesn't run that often enough to really make much of a difference.

2.) Clifton is a little easier since it's got side platforms, I probably should've elaborated on what I said about Clifton's extension. Essentially, the platforms would be extended north, northbound platform probably wouldn't be much of an issue. Southbound platform would have to extend onto the layup tracks which I'm going to move the track onto the other side of the platform. That layup track's switch would be moved south where the  would meet up with the . I don't really know what to do with Tompkinsville unfortunately so I could always just keep the line underground or have it continue running along Bay St elevated.

3.) People going to Brooklyn take express buses? Are you sure your not mistaking those going to Manhattan? Who would want to pay $6.25 per ride going into Brooklyn one way? The point of this connection was to make a connection between Brooklyn and Staten Island. There is no way to run a line from Manhattan to Staten Island directly since both are very, very, very far apart. That connection would be just as long, if not, even longer than the the  going through Jamaica Bay to and from the Rockaways. Not to mention, it would be entirely underground and underwater. Even outside of this, different communities would be connected by another means of transportation.

Like I said in my other post, this was just my take, my little spin on what I think a subway extension from Bay Ridge to Staten Island would look like. Personally, I couldn't care if this doesn't happen, but if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that it'll be very beneficial in the long run. 

[TMC]

11 hours ago, JustTheSIR said:

I don’t intend to be rude but: 

1: exactly HOW high do you intend the grade at Clifton to be? 

2: you’re extending the stations south right? Because Tompkinsville can’t extend any farther in any direction and Clifton has the switch north

3: who is this benefitting. People who need to go to Brooklyn? No they have the more widespread express bus for that.
People who need to go to Manhattan? Not if it’s longer than 25 minutes (ferry duration) or they need to get to the W, 4, 5, or 1

I think the ideal scenario for Staten Island would be linking the SIRT and North Shore Branch into a new S-Bahn tunnel under New York Harbor, running all the way to Grand Central Lower Level, continuing north as the Harlem Line. As for a subway extension from Bay Ridge, running along SI Expwy and Forest Ave might be a good option. 

Edited January 12, 2023 by TMC

[TMC]

8 hours ago, Vulturious said:

3.) People going to Brooklyn take express buses? Are you sure your not mistaking those going to Manhattan? Who would want to pay $6.25 per ride going into Brooklyn one way? The point of this connection was to make a connection between Brooklyn and Staten Island. There is no way to run a line from Manhattan to Staten Island directly since both are very, very, very far apart. That connection would be just as long, if not, even longer than the the  going through Jamaica Bay to and from the Rockaways. Not to mention, it would be entirely underground and underwater. Even outside of this, different communities would be connected by another means of transportation.

I want to point out the express bus argument as an especially bad one. I, for one, believe that subway extensions and regional rail improvements could make them obsolete. They already have very low fare-box recovery ratios, which would likely lower once rail becomes more attractive, due to its higher ride quality and perceived comfort. They're already duds now, and will be even more of a dud if any expansion of this nature happens.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 1/11/2023 at 8:05 PM, Vulturious said:

Thought I'd have try my own spin on how a Staten Island connection to the NYC Subway would look like. It's already pretty self-eplanatory going from 95 St down along 4 Av, the  would run north along Bay St with the first stop at Hylan Blvd. From what it looks like, there's an empty lot around Bay St and Willow Av where the curve of the  would be going to/from Clifton station, so I decided to add a portal there for  trains to surface and run along a portion of the  to St. George station.

Obviously platforms needs extensions since they aren't long enough for any normal NYC subway train length. Clifton Station would be possible, but i felt the curve from the southbound tracks would be too right and I didn't want to have an at-grade junction. So I decided to have southbound  trains split before the station using the layup tracks on the left which sees an extension to the rest of the  to hopefully not make operations complicated. The only issue would be St. George's station since if I'm not mistaken, they aren't long lengths so I guess an at-grade junction will have to do going towards Ball Park platform. 

Probably would be better to just let it run underground or maybe beside it continuing along Bay St to St. George.

I think it would be better if a subway didn't interline with the , but rather ran on its own r-o-w with a transfer to the  in or near Grasmere. And the  is already too long of a line, so I'd prefer if another line were to be extended to Staten Island. Maybe something like this...

https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2022/02/a-tunnel-too-far-part-2-hylans-dream/ 

Scroll down to the paragraph titled "Grasmere-95th St Local-Express," which suggests running the  there as an extension of his 2020 deinterlining proposal - https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2020/10/deinterlining-with-one-switch/ 

[TMC]

18 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

I think it would be better if a subway didn't interline with the , but rather ran on its own r-o-w with a transfer to the  in or near Grasmere. And the  is already too long of a line, so I'd prefer if another line were to be extended to Staten Island. Maybe something like this...

https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2022/02/a-tunnel-too-far-part-2-hylans-dream/ 

Scroll down to the paragraph titled "Grasmere-95th St Local-Express," which suggests running the  there as an extension of his 2020 deinterlining proposal - https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2020/10/deinterlining-with-one-switch/ 

I think the current level of density on the island would best be served by a long regional rail tunnel under New York Harbor. New deep stations would be needed at St. George and Fulton Center, with the tunnel running up to Grand Central Lower Level, stopping at Union Square on the way. I see this as an extension of the Harlem Line, as proposed by Alon Levy:

[MTA Researcher]

How much would it cost to have Broadway Local go uptown via CPW? This would enable both 8 Av and 6 Av Lines to remain express while Broadway assists the 2nd 8 Av Line which is local.

Thus we would have this setting:

 CPW/8 Av Exp

 CPW/6 Av Exp

 CPW/8 Av Lcl

 CPW/Bway Lcl

 

Here’s a diagram of the proposed track layout:
https://ibb.co/Gn7P4c2

[Vulturious]

11 hours ago, MTA Researcher said:

How much would it cost to have Broadway Local go uptown via CPW? This would enable both 8 Av and 6 Av Lines to remain express while Broadway assists the 2nd 8 Av Line which is local.

Thus we would have this setting:

 CPW/8 Av Exp

 CPW/6 Av Exp

 CPW/8 Av Lcl

 CPW/Bway Lcl

 

Here’s a diagram of the proposed track layout:
https://ibb.co/Gn7P4c2

High chance of it costing around maybe in the hundred millions, but hopefully not any more than $100M. One thing I don't think is possible is a connection from Columbus Circle station to 57 St-7 Av station. Most likely, the connection would have to be north of Columbus Circle.

[Vulturious]

Continuing on with some of my bs proposals, I decided to change up the alignment for Phase IV of the SAS routing. Starting off, the SAS would continue to make it's proposed stop at Grand St which if I'm not mistaken there was a proposal to have the transfer be cross-platform which is what I did. Kind of forgot to add crossover switches for reroute purposes and whatnot, but I would be very disappointed if we do not see cross-platform transfer conversion for Grand St.

I wanted to use more portions of the Nassau line that would make one stop at the abandoned Canal St platform for transfers to all of Broadway, but that would've missed Grand St transfer which I think is rather important since the SAS is already making transfers to the  already. So I decided to use the abandoned side of the old Nassau loop that used to connect to the Manhattan Bridge. There's also a track connection I added between both Broadway and SAS. This one is a bit of a troll move on my part, but there's potential stuff that can happen with this connection, like a Manhattan Loop.

Moving on towards Chambers St, decided to truncate both the  to Chambers to give room for the SAS to continue on down along Nassau St. Obviously, it's not the best idea, but under this there would be in a way less moving parts happening. If I'm correct, switches north of the station wouldn't need to be touched at all and the only thing to keep operations moving would be to time trains arriving/departing Chambers St properly.

Like all of my other proposals, these are nothing but just pipedreams and doesn't need to be taken seriously. 

[MTA Researcher]

7 hours ago, Vulturious said:

One thing I don't think is possible is a connection from Columbus Circle station to 57 St-7 Av station. Most likely, the connection would have to be north of Columbus Circle.

Why wouldn’t it be possible?

 

if it’s not possible, then how would you structure CPW/Broadway Connection?

 

I assume after 57 St/7 Av the next northern stop would be 72 St on CPW, thus no transfer at 59 St Columbus Circle for Broadway Local….

[Vulturious]

4 minutes ago, MTA Researcher said:

Why wouldn’t it be possible?

 

if it’s not possible, then how would you structure CPW/Broadway Connection?

 

I assume after 57 St/7 Av the next northern stop would be 72 St on CPW, thus no transfer at 59 St Columbus Circle for Broadway Local….

That's exactly what I'm saying.

As shown here while sorta hard to see, this would most likely be how the connection would work with the track connection bypassing Columbus Circle Station entirely going straight to 72 St. 

[MTA Researcher]

24 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

As shown here while sorta hard to see, this would most likely be how the connection would work with the track connection bypassing Columbus Circle Station entirely going straight to 72 St.

So we get a scenario similar to 21 St Queensbridge - Queens Plaza where the  express and  local stop at 59 St - Columbus Circle and  local merging with the  coming from 57 St/7 Av. 

 

Looking at QBL it’s similar in the sense that you have  express and  local at Queens Plaza and  local at 21 St Queensbridge merging with the  going east.

[Vulturious]

22 minutes ago, MTA Researcher said:

So we get a scenario similar to 21 St Queensbridge - Queens Plaza where the  express and  local stop at 59 St - Columbus Circle and  local merging with the  coming from 57 St/7 Av. 

 

Looking at QBL it’s similar in the sense that you have  express and  local at Queens Plaza and  local at 21 St Queensbridge merging with the  going east.

Yeah it's another QBL scenario, except this time it's a little more forgiving with how many lines are around Columbus Circle and it's not as isolated compared to QBL. This connection has more options, more flexibility.