Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[Fresh Pond]

What's wrong?

Again with the whole Culver Express shtick...

[MTA Dude]

Just wondering, if you extend the SAS across 125th Street, just how would it impact the M60, which is an SBS along 125th Street? And also, if some related train gets extended to 34th Street, how would it impact the M34, which is an SBS along 34th Street?

[DailyDose]

Just wondering, if you extend the SAS across 125th Street, just how would it impact the M60, which is an SBS along 125th Street? And also, if some related train gets extended to 34th Street, how would it impact the M34, which is an SBS along 34th Street?

If that happens, they should terminate the M60, and make an express bus route from Midtown to LaGuardia via Midtown tunnel.

It should be done anyway, lol.

True for now, but how much is that going to change when Columbia completes their expansion? That is a BIG reason why I'd be looking to extend Phase 2 of the SAS all the way across 125th Street and previously I was looking at if possible converting 125th Street into an express stop/short-turn terminal. When that expansion is complete, you could very well see where having a limited amout of service to 137 will help at the very least if not having the SAS extend all the way over.

Columbia is not everything.

Columbia can deal with their own problems.

They are big boys.

Edited September 4, 2014 by DailyDose

[TrainFanInfinity]

No it's like the M15, they're not gonna delete/completely change a route just because some of it is covered. And it would compete with van services and other things.

 

Also due to the many Culver Express proposals made, they're not gonna want an unless there's a full-headway route that serves local going to Manhattan.

 

I think 125th Street Crosstown is good though, but fault line is there? (I don't even know how one could be in Manhattan).

Edited September 4, 2014 by TrainFanInfinity

[Trainmaster5]

Or they could increase 1-line service from 137 St onward. But whatever.

Let's just ignore the SAS proposal for a minute and focus on 125th St itself. Anyone on the far west side of 125th St who wants downtown service would proceed south from whatever their origin point. I'd venture a guess that 98% of those travelers would take the , , , ,or(D) train or any s/b bus before they would make a trip on the SAS and travel east before heading s/b. Lance, your proposal makes sense while any other option seems to be a waste of time ,IMO. Wallyhorse I didn't mean to upvote you but whatever. Carry on.

[bobtehpanda]

No it's like the M15, they're not gonna delete/completely change a route just because some of it is covered. And it would compete with van services and other things.

 

Also due to the many Culver Express proposals made, they're not gonna want an unless there's a full-headway route that serves local going to Manhattan.

 

I think 125th Street Crosstown is good though, but fault line is there? (I don't even know how one could be in Manhattan).

 

The fault line is (supposedly) not particularly active, but basically it's a remnant of way back in geological history when the Appalachians were an actively growing mountain range and whatnot. (The Appalachians are thought to have formed when two landmasses collided and slowly pushed up on top of each other.)

 

Let's just ignore the SAS proposal for a minute and focus on 125th St itself. Anyone on the far west side of 125th St who wants downtown service would proceed south from whatever their origin point. I'd venture a guess that 98% of those travelers would take the , , , ,or(D) train or any s/b bus before they would make a trip on the SAS and travel east before heading s/b. Lance, your proposal makes sense while any other option seems to be a waste of time ,IMO. Wallyhorse I didn't mean to upvote you but whatever. Carry on.

 

I mean, 125th Crosstown is a good service to have, simply because of the lack of crosstown options. I believe that the DOT study for the M60 SBS found that over half of M60 125th St riders didn't leave Manhattan, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were similar results for the other buses on the street.

 

As a justification for downtown service, that sounds awful, unless the person happened to be working in Midtown East or the UES and lived at or above 125th St.

[Wallyhorse]

Let's just ignore the SAS proposal for a minute and focus on 125th St itself. Anyone on the far west side of 125th St who wants downtown service would proceed south from whatever their origin point. I'd venture a guess that 98% of those travelers would take the , , , ,or(D) train or any s/b bus before they would make a trip on the SAS and travel east before heading s/b. Lance, your proposal makes sense while any other option seems to be a waste of time ,IMO. Wallyhorse I didn't mean to upvote you but whatever. Carry on.

My idea of extending Phase 2 all the way across 125 makes it easier for people on the UES to get over to Columbia without EITHER:

 

1. Having to take a crosstown bus to Broadway first and getting the to 125th.

 

OR

 

2. (Once Phase 1 of the SAS is complete) Taking the to Times Square and changing to the there.

 

The idea of Phase 2 of the SAS being a 125th Street crosstown would also have it cross with every other subway line that stops on 125th Street as stops after Lex-125 (for the 6) ) would be as follows:

 

5th-Lenox Avenues (transfer to on the Lenox end)

 

St. Nicholas Avenue (transfer to )

 

Broadway-12th Avenue (terminal, transfer to at Broadway).

 

Part of this is you likely will also see a major expansion of dorm room space at Columbia that could be like NYU where some dorm space is actually a considerable distance away from the main campus (there are some NYU dorms as far north on 3rd Avenue as 23rd Street I believe, well over a mile from the campus).   That's also why extending Phase 2 across 125th may actually be very important in this case.

[Kamen Rider]

So you want this based only on connecting the UES with Columbia?

 

Then that is exactly the problem I keep telling you is wrong with your ideas. You are attempting to spend Lord knows how much money using a niche market as justification. They can take the subway to the M60SBS.

 

Expanded campus? More Dorm space? That is not a sufficient reason to build a subway line.

[bobtehpanda]

Part of this is you likely will also see a major expansion of dorm room space at Columbia that could be like NYU where some dorm space is actually a considerable distance away from the main campus (there are some NYU dorms as far north on 3rd Avenue as 23rd Street I believe, well over a mile from the campus).   That's also why extending Phase 2 across 125th may actually be very important in this case.

 

There are many reasons to build a 125th St crosstown. Out of all of those reasons, you pick a fairly insignificant expansion that might involve dorms. Seriously?

 

I realize this is a subway forum, but you don't need to get such bad tunnel vision.

Edited September 5, 2014 by bobtehpanda

[Wallyhorse]

Columbia is the main incentive for doing so (aside from the fact 125th Street is the CBD in Harlem) but far from the only reason.  Such a crosstown I think will make do great for ALL of 125th and provide transfers to all other lines.  Doing so also potentially allows for the SAS to be connected to the 8th Avenue line at St. Nicholas/125 to allow for a future line to the extreme UWS and/or the Councourse line (if warranted) and at the very least allow for re-routes of at least the via the SAS and 63rd Street and the and via the SAS, 63rd and 6th Avenue when needed plus give flexibility to allow for special event trains from the SAS to Yankee Stadium without having people switch to the at 125.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Wallyhorse

[Lance]

Nobody here is denying the significance or potential benefits of a 125th Street crosstown line. We're just saying that as usual, you're overstating the significance of a very localized project. This time, it happens to be the expansion of Columbia University. Most riders from the University are going downtown, so such a proposal won't be beneficial to those riders who will likely just want more 1 trains to bring them into Midtown.

 

Now, bringing riders from one side of the island to the other north of Central Park without having to ride on a slow-as-molasses crosstown bus? That's a fairly good idea which also has the added benefit of providing transfer connections between all of the north-south lines.

 

@Bob: Tunnel vision in the subway forum; that's hilarious. I wish I thought of that.

 

On  the subject of the Culver express ideas, the common problems with these proposals are the same problems that ultimately killed the service in the '70s. First and foremost, both the local and express have to run to Manhattan. The G as the sole local will never fly and that's that. Then there's the issue of frequency. What's the ratio of express to local trains? Express trains have to come often enough to have a strong ridership or they'll just stay on or wait for the local.

 

Then there's the question of what's the express and what's the local. In the days of the V, the common idea was to simply extend the V to Church Av (or somewhere else, the details are inconsequential) while the F ran express. Obviously with the V gone and the M in its place as the "secondary" 6th Avenue local, that idea has gone the way of the dinosaur. The only real options are either, pull the E from the World Trade Center and extend it to the Culver line or create some kind of local/express F situation not unlike the current 6 and 7 services.

 

My concern with the E idea is two-fold. First, as there isn't enough room in Cranberry for all 8th Avenue trains, the E would have to be rerouted through Rutgers, which would create another bottleneck on the Houston St stretch of 6th Avenue. It also pulls service away from the World Trade Center, which we should be hesitant to do until we can get a gauge of how many people will use the station once 1 World Trade opens.

 

With that idea pretty much a non-starter, the only real option is the F local/express. With the entire F-line limited to 15TPH because of capacity constraints on Queens Blvd, the question now becomes how many of those trains should be dedicated to express service on Culver. As I said, there has to be enough to be useful, but also at the same time, there has to be enough local service so that those trains don't become cattle cars. While not as busy as 7 Av and Church Av, the local stations on the Crosstown-Culver line do have significant ridership levels and they shouldn't see significantly less service so riders south of Church Av can get a slightly faster commute.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Lance
Culver express

[Wallyhorse]

You are right as whole, but that as said is far from the only reason I would have the SAS go across 125 with biggest other reasons for doing so is a connection to the 8th Avenue line that would as noted allow if warranted for a future line to/from extreme upper Manhattan/Concourse plus give flexibility for re-routes as needed (you could even for example have a line that runs from Whitehall Street with the after 57th via the SAS and then after St. Nicholas Avenue in this setup continue via the 8th Avenue/Concourse line and actually give the Broadway Line access to The Bronx). 

That said, as one who has seen Universities expand greatly in recent years and get more and more property, I also know some of these Universities have grown far bigger in recent years and Columbia's expansion could be much bigger than many realize.  It might not be the reason to extend Phase 2, but it is something that I think might be what pushes it over the top.

[MTA Dude]

Nobody here is denying the significance or potential benefits of a 125th Street crosstown line. We're just saying that as usual, you're overstating the significance of a very localized project. This time, it happens to be the expansion of Columbia University. Most riders from the University are going downtown, so such a proposal won't be beneficial to those riders who will likely just want more 1 trains to bring them into Midtown.

 

Now, bringing riders from one side of the island to the other north of Central Park without having to ride on a slow-as-molasses crosstown bus? That's a fairly good idea which also has the added benefit of providing transfer connections between all of the north-south lines.

 

@Bob: Tunnel vision in the subway forum; that's hilarious. I wish I thought of that.

 

On  the subject of the Culver express ideas, the common problems with these proposals are the same problems that ultimately killed the service in the '70s. First and foremost, both the local and express have to run to Manhattan. The G as the sole local will never fly and that's that. Then there's the issue of frequency. What's the ratio of express to local trains? Express trains have to come often enough to have a strong ridership or they'll just stay on or wait for the local.

 

Then there's the question of what's the express and what's the local. In the days of the V, the common idea was to simply extend the V to Church Av (or somewhere else, the details are inconsequential) while the F ran express. Obviously with the V gone and the M in its place as the "secondary" 6th Avenue local, that idea has gone the way of the dinosaur. The only real options are either, pull the E from the World Trade Center and extend it to the Culver line or create some kind of local/express F situation not unlike the current 6 and 7 services.

 

My concern with the E idea is two-fold. First, as there isn't enough room in Cranberry for all 8th Avenue trains, the E would have to be rerouted through Rutgers, which would create another bottleneck on the Houston St stretch of 6th Avenue. It also pulls service away from the World Trade Center, which we should be hesitant to do until we can get a gauge of how many people will use the station once 1 World Trade opens.

 

With that idea pretty much a non-starter, the only real option is the F local/express. With the entire F-line limited to 15TPH because of capacity constraints on Queens Blvd, the question now becomes how many of those trains should be dedicated to express service on Culver. As I said, there has to be enough to be useful, but also at the same time, there has to be enough local service so that those trains don't become cattle cars. While not as busy as 7 Av and Church Av, the local stations on the Crosstown-Culver line do have significant ridership levels and they shouldn't see significantly less service so riders south of Church Av can get a slightly faster commute.

 

Agree with and the runs at 4:15, or 8:30 if service were to be split among service and service. Question: Is it sufficient enough?

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

 

With that idea pretty much a non-starter, the only real option is the F local/express. With the entire F-line limited to 15TPH because of capacity constraints on Queens Blvd, the question now becomes how many of those trains should be dedicated to express service on Culver. As I said, there has to be enough to be useful, but also at the same time, there has to be enough local service so that those trains don't become cattle cars. While not as busy as 7 Av and Church Av, the local stations on the Crosstown-Culver line do have significant ridership levels and they shouldn't see significantly less service so riders south of Church Av can get a slightly faster commute.

I don't know, but what if  an entirely new service was made, however, utilizing the CPW to 145, via Culver Express/ 6 Avenue Express/ CPW Express.

Edited September 6, 2014 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[MTA Dude]

I don't know, but what if  an entirely new service was made, however, utilizing the CPW to 145, via Culver Express/ 6 Avenue Express/ CPW Express.

 

CPE and 6 Aenue: You wanna squeeze trains into 2:30 and 4 minute interals? Be my guest.

 

No, I didn't tink so.

[Wallyhorse]

I don't know, but what if  an entirely new service was made, however, utilizing the CPW to 145, via Culver Express/ 6 Avenue Express/ CPW Express.

That could work and essentially serve almost the same purpose as my previous plan to send the via Culver.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

CPE and 6 Aenue: You wanna squeeze trains into 2:30 and 4 minute interals? Be my guest.

 

No, I didn't tink so.

I was just asking, because Lance did say that there were constraints on the QBL, so maybe there would've be space on the CPW for it. Maybe, I didn't know, twas an honest question (jeez)...

 

That could work and essentially serve almost the same purpose as my previous plan to send the via Culver.

The difference is that it doesn't involve 3 million train reroutes, and it's rush hours only....

Edited September 6, 2014 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[NYSubwayBuff]

Theoretically is it possible to send trains from 63st tracks to the completed SAS? It would be nuch better than sending it up CPW

[Lance]

Actually, yes. Unless the MTA plans to send an absurd number of Q trains to 96 St/2 Av, there should be plenty of room for a 6th Avenue/Culver line from 96 St to Church Av. Of course, it still has the issue of having three locals on the line, so it would be a tight squeeze with the F, M and the new service. I'm assuming this service will be local because running it express on 6th Avenue would require switching between the local and express tracks at W 4 St, thus delaying all the trains on the line.

 

As I alluded to in a previous post, most other current ideas for the Culver express lack a viable northern terminal. Running it express to Jamaica is not really feasible for the reasons stated previously. Running it local to 71/Continental or up Central Park West to Harlem (express or local) is not a good idea for a different reason. Creating another service so the F can run express would over-serve the other lines such a service would run through. The M and R handle the Queens Blvd local just fine, as do the A & D and B & C on the Central Park West express and local tracks respectively. There doesn't need to be another line running there, gumming up the works and running empty, all so riders on the Culver line have express service.

[MTA Dude]

Actually, yes. Unless the MTA plans to send an absurd number of Q trains to 96 St/2 Av, there should be plenty of room for a 6th Avenue/Culver line from 96 St to Church Av. Of course, it still has the issue of having three locals on the line, so it would be a tight squeeze with the F, M and the new service. I'm assuming this service will be local because running it express on 6th Avenue would require switching between the local and express tracks at W 4 St, thus delaying all the trains on the line.

 

As I alluded to in a previous post, most other current ideas for the Culver express lack a viable northern terminal. Running it express to Jamaica is not really feasible for the reasons stated previously. Running it local to 71/Continental or up Central Park West to Harlem (express or local) is not a good idea for a different reason. Creating another service so the F can run express would over-serve the other lines such a service would run through. The M and R handle the Queens Blvd local just fine, as do the A & D and B & C on the Central Park West express and local tracks respectively. There doesn't need to be another line running there, gumming up the works and running empty, all so riders on the Culver line have express service.

 

What if you connect the to a new tunnel, then connect it to Culver before Jay Street? Would that be possible?

[Quill Depot]

How about honoring Metro cards on inner-city LIRR/MNRR travel?

[bobtehpanda]

What if you connect the to a new tunnel, then connect it to Culver before Jay Street? Would that be possible?

 

Connecting the to a new tunnel would involve essentially destroying the new transfer to Cortlandt St that's being built as part of WTC (not to mention how close the is...)

[Wallyhorse]

Connecting the to a new tunnel would involve essentially destroying the new transfer to Cortlandt St that's being built as part of WTC (not to mention how close the is...)

If they were going to do that, they would have done it 10+ years ago when they were rebuilding the PATH Station,  What they would have had to do was eliminate the existing Chambers platform (perhaps for a few years eliminate the and have the replace it to Euclid) so they could have the tracks leading into the Chambers station likely go below the existing tracks at Church Street and then have the tracks rise to meet the Broadway Line (via new cuts) somewhere between Cortlandt and Rector, disrupting tunnel service on the Broadway line for at least a year or two in all likelihood.

[bobtehpanda]

If they were going to do that, they would have done it 10+ years ago when they were rebuilding the PATH Station,  What they would have had to do was eliminate the existing Chambers platform (perhaps for a few years eliminate the and have the replace it to Euclid) so they could have the tracks leading into the Chambers station likely go below the existing tracks at Church Street and then have the tracks rise to meet the Broadway Line (via new cuts) somewhere between Cortlandt and Rector, disrupting tunnel service on the Broadway line for at least a year or two in all likelihood.

 

Do you mean WTC? Because deactivating all of Chambers sounds like an awful idea, just as awful as eliminating an 8th Av local on a line that has been seeing growing ridership at local stations.

[Wallyhorse]

Do you mean WTC? Because deactivating all of Chambers sounds like an awful idea, just as awful as eliminating an 8th Av local on a line that has been seeing growing ridership at local stations.

Not ALL of Chambers, the platform ONLY.

 

The platform would have been unaffected or minimally effected by this.