Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 11/18/2018 at 9:35 PM, subwaykid256 said:

Sending the  to Bay Ridge with no Upper/Midtown Manhattan service is ridiculous. When the  went there it wasn't as popular as the . I'm not saying that it shouldn't happen. But it shouldn't happen with it being the sole local train via 4 Av.

 

The  plays a big role as it is being the sole train that is local in three boroughs. And connecting popular Neighborhoods like Astoria and Bay Ridge to the city.

If you guys are saying that having the  run to 71st Av wouldn't work. Then the  alone to Bay Ridge wouldn't work

 

But I don’t think anyone has suggested running the  alone to 71st Ave. At one time, it was the primary Queens Blvd local train, but that finally stopped in 1987, when the  replaced the then-weekdays only . And the QB line local stations serve a much more densely populated area than the 4th Ave local stops. So it’s better for the QB local stops to have as much Midtown-bound service as possible, whereas given how many people bail on the  in Brooklyn because of how long the  takes to get to Midtown from there, I think you can get away with a Nassau Line service such as the  on 4th Ave local, provided it actually goes to Bay Ridge (unlike the old ). Nassau does offer more transfers than Lower Broadway. 

Edited November 22, 2018 by T to Dyre Avenue

[BreeddekalbL]

1 hour ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

But I don’t think anyone has suggested running the  alone to 71st Ave. At one time, it was the primary Queens Blvd local train, but that finally stopped in 1987, when the  replaced the then-weekdays only . And the QB line local stations serve a much more densely populated area than the 4th Ave local stops. So it’s better for the QB local stops to have as much Midtown-bound service as possible, whereas given how many people bail on the  in Brooklyn because of how long the  takes to get to Midtown from there, I think you can get away with a Nassau Line service such as the  on 4th Ave local, provided it actually goes to Bay Ridge (unlike the old ). Nassau does offer more transfers than Lower Broadway. 

But I thought those from South Brooklyn want Broadway service and in my proposal I have the  extended to 9th Ave as a rush hour supplement for the   

Different question 

If track gauges on lirr and subway are the same say in the future they decide to route the via the Port Washington branch or have the run it's proposed extension you would have to only tear up the platforms to fit the line standards and rip up the 3rd rail and I bet the extension would be much cheaper then the  via pw

 

[engineerboy6561]

3 hours ago, BreeddekalbL said:

But I thought those from South Brooklyn want Broadway service and in my proposal I have the  extended to 9th Ave as a rush hour supplement for the   

Different question 

If track gauges on lirr and subway are the same say in the future they decide to route the via the Port Washington branch or have the run it's proposed extension you would have to only tear up the platforms to fit the line standards and rip up the 3rd rail and I bet the extension would be much cheaper then the  via pw

 

It looks like it would be about the same, with only a slight advantage to the  . If you assume the tail tracks are under Brewer Blvd, then you have to bring them under the South Jamaica Houses and you could probably get them to connect to the LIRR tracks around 109 Av. From there you're looking at additional stops at 109 Av-ish, Linden Bl, Foch Bl, Baisley Blvd, between 140 Av and 141 Av, and at N Conduit Av to get reasonable stop spacing. You're also going to need to expand the interlocking near Green Acres Mall to allow for all four branches (Babylon, West Hempstead, Far Rockaway, and Long Beach) to fit on those two tracks between St. Albans and Valley Stream. The  would require less new track and fewer sharp curves, as you could extend it along Roosevelt and then S-curve it onto the railroad alignment near Parsons. The big things you'd wind up doing that would be expensive are ripping out the mezzanine at the end of the Main St station, and probably lowering the railroad track about 10 additional feet between Main St and Parsons Bl so that you could do a clean merge with the  tracks without wrecking anyone's basement.

That said, routing the  onto those tracks past Flushing seems a bit like a waste of trackage. What I'd personally be interested in doing would be adding infill stops on the PW line at Junction Blvd and Queens Blvd, splitting those two tracks off at the Sunnyside interlocking and running them under Newtown Av to 30 Av, then under the East River to connect with the 2 Av subway at 86 St. At that point you could conceivably run both the  and  via 2 Av in Manhattan. At that point, the  would serve PW and NE Queens, the  would serve the Bronx and Harlem, the  would serve Forest Hills/71 Av, and the  would serve Astoria, with an  transfer point at 30 Av/31 St and an  transfer at Main St, Flushing (build a proper station house at Roosevelt Av on the railroad and then add a passage under Main St to the  ).

[shiznit1987]

A lot of people like extending the  but IMHO that doesn't really solve anything.  is maxed out ATM peak direction. What I would like to see is a 34st Crosstown (8) Train complement the  :

Start at Hudson Yards-34st

Stop at

7/8th Aves-Penn Station (Connect to )

6th Ave-Herald Sq (Connect to )

5th Ave/Park Av (Connect to )

Once in Queens, turns under 11th st in LIC:

Stop at:

Vernon Blvd-Jackson Ave (Connect to )

45th Rd (Right next to Amazon)

43rd Ave

It emerges alongside the Astoria Line portal and goes into a rebuilt N side of QBP. From there it uses the existing 2nd Ave El Trackways to join the  then runs along a new 3-track upper level structure all the way to Willets Pt. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shiznit1987]

Idea for 5th Ave Subway: 

 Jamaica-Parsons/Archer to 59st-5th Ave, Manhattan

 Bay Ridge-95st to Jamaica-179st

The 5th Ave subway starts at 1st Ave and Delancey Sts where 2 tracks from the Nassau Line and the 2 from the Williamsburg Bridge form a 4 track trunk running up 1st Ave. The line then turns down 14st (Under the ) with a stop at Union Square. Then the line heads up 5th Ave making these stops:

23rd st

34th st

42nd st

50th st

59th st

Two tracks terminate at 59th st (provisions for extension built in) for the  while the other two take over the 63rd st tunnel to Queens. 

Queens Blvd would look like this: 

 Current service pattern

 71st-Continential to CI via QB Local

 179st-Jamaica to Bay Ridge via QB Express/63st tunnel/5th Ave line

 Same except cut back to Whitehall.

 

The reason I think this works better than continuing the 2nd Ave line south is because a line down 5th puts you within walking distance of all the offices along Park/Madison/6th aves. People will use this versus trying to pack the Lex. 

 

 

 

 

 

[BreeddekalbL]

16 hours ago, engineerboy6561 said:

It looks like it would be about the same, with only a slight advantage to the  . If you assume the tail tracks are under Brewer Blvd, then you have to bring them under the South Jamaica Houses and you could probably get them to connect to the LIRR tracks around 109 Av. From there you're looking at additional stops at 109 Av-ish, Linden Bl, Foch Bl, Baisley Blvd, between 140 Av and 141 Av, and at N Conduit Av to get reasonable stop spacing. You're also going to need to expand the interlocking near Green Acres Mall to allow for all four branches (Babylon, West Hempstead, Far Rockaway, and Long Beach) to fit on those two tracks between St. Albans and Valley Stream. The  would require less new track and fewer sharp curves, as you could extend it along Roosevelt and then S-curve it onto the railroad alignment near Parsons. The big things you'd wind up doing that would be expensive are ripping out the mezzanine at the end of the Main St station, and probably lowering the railroad track about 10 additional feet between Main St and Parsons Bl so that you could do a clean merge with the  tracks without wrecking anyone's basement.

That said, routing the  onto those tracks past Flushing seems a bit like a waste of trackage. What I'd personally be interested in doing would be adding infill stops on the PW line at Junction Blvd and Queens Blvd, splitting those two tracks off at the Sunnyside interlocking and running them under Newtown Av to 30 Av, then under the East River to connect with the 2 Av subway at 86 St. At that point you could conceivably run both the  and  via 2 Av in Manhattan. At that point, the  would serve PW and NE Queens, the  would serve the Bronx and Harlem, the  would serve Forest Hills/71 Av, and the  would serve Astoria, with an  transfer point at 30 Av/31 St and an  transfer at Main St, Flushing (build a proper station house at Roosevelt Av on the railroad and then add a passage under Main St to the  

 

I knew the would be slightly cheaper cause with the you will have to close main Street to reconfigure it

[subwaykid256]

I assume the frequency of Montague Tunnel is 24 TPH

 71 Av- Euclid Av (via State St) 8 TPH

 Astoria-Brighton Express 8 TPH

 B'way Junction - Bay Ridge 95 St 8 TPH

 

[KK 6 Ave Local]

Nobody's posted in a while, let's start some discussion about proposals that don't need any new track

 

[shiznit1987]

6 hours ago, KK 6 Ave Local said:

Nobody's posted in a while, let's start some discussion about proposals that don't need any new track

 

This may be cheating, but earlier there was discussion on how to de-interline the Upper IND (Concourse/CPW/Inwood) and my proposal runs like this:

Just below 50st/8th Ave, build a switch between the upper level Local track and the Express Track to allow 8th Ave Express Trains to serve 50th St. All  trains will slide over to the local track, stopping at 50th St Upper Level (  service is unaffected). The  and  will both continue up the CPW Local tracks to 168st, while the  and  will take over the CPW Express. Overall, the service pattern would look like this:

 168st-Wash Hts to Mott Av-Far Rock or Lefferts Blvd-Ozone Park via CPW Local, 8th Ave Express, Fulton Express (All Times, Local late nights)

 207th St-Inwood to Brighton Beach via CPW Express, 6th Ave Express, Manhattan Bridge, Brighton Express. Cut back to Prospect Park during weekends and overnights (after 10pm)

 Current routing and schedule. 

 Current routing and schedule. 

 

Yes, this technically requires a switch instillation, but in the grand scheme of things this untangles the upper IND a great deal. Wash Heights and Inwood get direct 6th ave express service, the  gets shortened somewhat, and CPW has a boost in service. Oh...and Brighton riders get their 6th Ave service back. 

 

 

 

 

[T to Dyre Avenue]

2 hours ago, shiznit1987 said:

This may be cheating, but earlier there was discussion on how to de-interline the Upper IND (Concourse/CPW/Inwood) and my proposal runs like this:

Just below 50st/8th Ave, build a switch between the upper level Local track and the Express Track to allow 8th Ave Express Trains to serve 50th St. All  trains will slide over to the local track, stopping at 50th St Upper Level (  service is unaffected). The  and  will both continue up the CPW Local tracks to 168st, while the  and  will take over the CPW Express. Overall, the service pattern would look like this:

 168st-Wash Hts to Mott Av-Far Rock or Lefferts Blvd-Ozone Park via CPW Local, 8th Ave Express, Fulton Express (All Times, Local late nights)

 207th St-Inwood to Brighton Beach via CPW Express, 6th Ave Express, Manhattan Bridge, Brighton Express. Cut back to Prospect Park during weekends and overnights (after 10pm)

 Current routing and schedule. 

 Current routing and schedule. 

 

Yes, this technically requires a switch instillation, but in the grand scheme of things this untangles the upper IND a great deal. Wash Heights and Inwood get direct 6th ave express service, the  gets shortened somewhat, and CPW has a boost in service. Oh...and Brighton riders get their 6th Ave service back. 

 

 

 

 

I recall seeing a proposal from 1991 for running the then 6th Avenue  in a manner very similar to your proposed  and an  in a similar manner to you proposed  (but fully local and only to Euclid Avenue). It never got implemented.  

[W4ST]

I've been thinking about Phase 2 of SAS. I would prefer for it to go straight into the Bronx, and end at 3rd Avenue / 149th Street. However, it looks like they will build the segment to 125th and Lexington. Building it to 125th and Lexington alone is relatively useless, as just about nobody already on the  will make the transfer, and probably only a few people on the , so I think they must extend it. Going across 125th Street is a good start, but I think that they should make the line go across the river into New Jersey.

The line would cross the river, with a stop at Edgewater. Then it would go through Palisades Park, Ridgefield Park, and Bogota, before ending at Hackensack. Edgewater and Palisades Park do not have good transit, with only infrequent buses, so this would help them out. It would also encourage more buildings to be built in this part of New Jersey, which is geographically fairly close to Midtown, but is in a location where it takes a long time (around 45 minutes) to get to Midtown on infrequent buses.

These would be the stops, starting from 125th Street and Lexington Avenue.

• 125th Street and Lexington Avenue (connection to )
• 125th Street and Malcolm X Blvd (connection to )
• 125th Street and St. Nicholas Ave (connection to ) This station would have 3 tracks so that trains could terminate here if necessary.
• 125th Street and Broadway (connection to ) This station would have a diamond crossover just east of the station, so that this station could be used as a terminal before the New Jersey portion is built.
• Edgewater - Hudson Ave
• Central Blvd and Anderson Ave
• Central Blvd and Bergen Blvd
• Central Blvd and Broad Ave
• Central Blvd and Depot Pl (Connection to HBLR, when it gets extended there) Just before or just after this station, the line would go aboveground.
• Overpeck Corporate Office Park (west of this station, the line would be built over I-95, and then I-80)
• Park Ave and I-80
• Palisade Ave and I-80 (West of this station, the line would be built next to or over the New York Susquehanna and Western Railroad track)
• Bogota - River Rd and W Fort Lee Rd
• Hackensack - Main Street (Connection to the Passaic - Bergen Rail Line, if it gets built)

This is not a priority (I think some extensions in Queens and the Bronx should be built first) but if the MTA builds a cross-125th Street line, I think this should be considered.

Forgot to add: The Bronx extension can be built as well, this is just another extension that could be built.

Edited December 9, 2018 by W4ST

[T to Dyre Avenue]

Wow, that’s quite a ways into Jersey for a subway line. Perhaps that should be a project for Port Authority. Maybe have it function strictly as a crosstown line on 125th, and not feed into SAS. 

[Around the Horn]

Hackensack sounds like a job for Gateway or the RPA's proposed commuter rail loop, not the subway...

[W4ST]

20 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Wow, that’s quite a ways into Jersey for a subway line. Perhaps that should be a project for Port Authority. Maybe have it function strictly as a crosstown line on 125th, and not feed into SAS. 

That's a good idea. Perhaps, once SAS is extended into the Bronx, the station at 125 / Lex can be used for this new PATH-like line, which could start there, at 125/2nd Ave, or at 116/2nd Ave.

[bobtehpanda]

On 11/22/2018 at 1:46 AM, engineerboy6561 said:

That said, routing the  onto those tracks past Flushing seems a bit like a waste of trackage. What I'd personally be interested in doing would be adding infill stops on the PW line at Junction Blvd and Queens Blvd, splitting those two tracks off at the Sunnyside interlocking and running them under Newtown Av to 30 Av, then under the East River to connect with the 2 Av subway at 86 St. At that point you could conceivably run both the  and  via 2 Av in Manhattan. At that point, the  would serve PW and NE Queens, the  would serve the Bronx and Harlem, the  would serve Forest Hills/71 Av, and the  would serve Astoria, with an  transfer point at 30 Av/31 St and an  transfer at Main St, Flushing (build a proper station house at Roosevelt Av on the railroad and then add a passage under Main St to the  ).

The tricky thing about the subway via is that it leaves riders east of Great Neck in a precarious situation due to the single track. I'm sure east PW riders will be very pissed if you reduce them to a scoot to the subway.

After thinking about it for a long time, I mostly find the 7 via PW a waste of time. Extend the 7 under Roosevelt to Broadway LIRR to move some of the Flushing routes out of that congested black hole; it's past the worst of the Northern traffic. If you still want to go further east, go under Northern Blvd and head to Bell/Northern or QCC. The LIRR route is suboptimally located for bus-train connections, and right now PW helps use up capacity on the LIRR tunnels, so that six tracks east go into six tracks west once ESA opens.

[LGA Link N Train]

On 12/10/2018 at 7:37 PM, bobtehpanda said:

After thinking about it for a long time, I mostly find the 7 via PW a waste of time. Extend the 7 under Roosevelt to Broadway LIRR to move some of the Flushing routes out of that congested black hole; it's past the worst of the Northern traffic. If you still want to go further east, go under Northern Blvd and head to Bell/Northern or QCC. The LIRR route is suboptimally located for bus-train connections, and right now PW helps use up capacity on the LIRR tunnels, so that six tracks east go into six tracks west once ESA opens.

I'm going to agree with this statement here. In my opinion, No subway line under any circumstance, should take over PW. It sounds like a waste of money if you ask me. Just extend the  east, Increase LIRR Port Washington Service (especially when East side Access comes around), Improve the bus Network around Flushing, and you're done. 

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

On a side note, I've come to fully understand why an  service pattern would work perfectly on QBL. I was riding the earlier today, and it got delayed because of an in front of it first, and then an , which didn't help so much. This helped me better understand interlining, and the sometimes negative effects of it. Here's a small proposal I made which only affects QBL and 8th Avenue (Keep in mind that this is under the assumption that QB Local can handle a 3rd Service and Forest Hills wasn't so ..... messed up when it comes to fumigation. Another note I want to point out is that this proposal keeps 8th Avenue Interlined and doesn't affect CPW) 

- Cut back to WTC and runs at 12 TPH

 - Altered and now runs between Jamaica Center and Euclid Avenue (15TPH). It will now run express in 8th Avenue. 

- Unaltered and still running at 15TPH

- New Local route from Forest Hills to WTC, via 53rd Street (8 TPH)

 - Now runs via 63rd Street; Remainder of the route is unaltered (12TPH)

- Now Runs to Astoria (15 TPH) with a select 5 to 6 TPH heading to Forest Hills during the Rush Hour. 

  gets increased service of about 12 TPH and the is booted to SAS now running even split headways with the (15+15=30).

 

Any thoughts or questions? 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by LaGuardia Link N Tra

[shiznit1987]

 

23 hours ago, LaGuardia Link N Tra said:

- Now Runs to Astoria (15 TPH) with a select 5 to 6 TPH heading to Forest Hills during the Rush Hour. 

  gets increased service of about 12 TPH and the is booted to SAS now running even split headways with the (15+15=30).

 

Any thoughts or questions? 

 

 

People (Including myself) aren't going to be too pleased about losing  service on Queens Blvd. It's actually IMHO tied with the  for being the second favorite on QB after the . No one will ride a local  that goes through 63rd st. Also, this doesn't really solve the 36st issue. It's a nice thought though. 

If we're going to go for De-interlining Queens, then we need to simply bite the bullet a build an underground transfer from 63rd/Lex to 59th/Lex so everything flows like this:

 63 st/QB Express

 53 st/QB Local -> 8th Ave Express/Brooklyn

168 st to WTC 8th Ave Local 

 207st to Brighton Beach via CPW/6th Ave Exp

 Current route

 To SAS via Broadway Express + Bridge

 Astoria/Broadway Local

WIth the exception of the  and  joining at 145st, the entire B divison is completely merge-less going Bronx/Queens Bound. 

Edited December 13, 2018 by shiznit1987
Just Thinking

[LGA Link N Train]

27 minutes ago, shiznit1987 said:

 

People (Including myself) aren't going to be too pleased about losing  service on Queens Blvd. It's actually IMHO tied with the  for being the second favorite on QB after the . No one will ride a local  that goes through 63rd st. Also, this doesn't really solve the 36st issue. It's a nice thought though. 

If we're going to go for De-interlining Queens, then we need to simply bite the bullet a build an underground transfer from 63rd/Lex to 59th/Lex so everything flows like this:

 63 st/QB Express

 53 st/QB Local -> 8th Ave Express/Brooklyn

168 st to WTC 8th Ave Local 

 207st to Brighton Beach via CPW/6th Ave Exp

 Current route

 To SAS via Broadway Express + Bridge

 Astoria/Broadway Local

WIth the exception of the  and  joining at 145st, the entire B divison is completely merge-less going Bronx/Queens Bound. 

Well, as a Queens Blvd Rider myself, I would understand the concern of removing the  from QBL, which is why I proposed a Rush Hour Split service (With an Increased  service of course). Another concern I’d like to bring up is the 36th Street issue. If trains were put under a strict schedule and ran certain headway’s (under the scenario that our signal system was properly maintained) then it wouldn’t be much of an issue. (Say for example -  via 53rd and  via 63rd run next to each other entering/exiting 36th Street. The next minute, it would have to be an  and  doing the same process). 

Your proposal works too, but I was more or less focusing on a rearrangement of service in order to create more reliable headway’s rather than fully deinterlining. 

[RR503]

1 hour ago, shiznit1987 said:

People (Including myself) aren't going to be too pleased about losing  service on Queens Blvd. It's actually IMHO tied with the  for being the second favorite on QB after the . No one will ride a local  that goes through 63rd st. Also, this doesn't really solve the 36st issue. It's a nice thought though. 

 If we're going to go for De-interlining Queens, then we need to simply bite the bullet a build an underground transfer from 63rd/Lex to 59th/Lex so everything flows like this:

With you here on the Lex-63 connection. Instead of making heavy-handed and questionably necessary investments like ESA, Fulton Center, CBTC, etc, we should be focusing on this sort of 'quick win' investment -- there are *so* many little things we could do with massive effect for low cost. Others on the I'd say are the reconfiguration of the Astoria terminal, a station in Livonia Yard, crossover replacement at Jamaica Center, a flyover for Dyre, etc, etc. 

About deinterlining 36: the interlocking there isn't inherently limited by geometry or configuration. I'd at least attempt to operate interlined service through there before we throw in the towel -- the  is quite popular for a reason, after all... 

[MysteriousBtrain]

Without taking Hudson yards into consideration, does anyone think it's possible to have the extend to 12 cars or two 6 car sets in order to improve on maintenance and car consistency?

[Lance]

On ‎12‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 9:41 PM, RR503 said:

With you here on the Lex-63 connection. Instead of making heavy-handed and questionably necessary investments like ESA, Fulton Center, CBTC, etc, we should be focusing on this sort of 'quick win' investment -- there are *so* many little things we could do with massive effect for low cost. Others on the I'd say are the reconfiguration of the Astoria terminal, a station in Livonia Yard, crossover replacement at Jamaica Center, a flyover for Dyre, etc, etc. 

About deinterlining 36: the interlocking there isn't inherently limited by geometry or configuration. I'd at least attempt to operate interlined service through there before we throw in the towel -- the  is quite popular for a reason, after all... 

¿Por qué no los dos? I'm not saying your ideas don't have merit, far from it, I actually like what you come up with, even if I don't always agree with the ideas. However, the so-called "questionably necessary investments" you mentioned do serve a purpose as well. ESA will free up much needed space at Penn Station by allowing the LIRR to travel to Grand Central. It also has the unintended benefit of facilitating the push for Penn Station Access for Metro-North. The Fulton Center project has streamlined the formerly abysmal transfer at Fulton St without rebuilding the Nassau St tracks, all while recouping some of the costs with the shops above. As for CBTC, well, I've already said my piece on that. We do need to take a more progressive stance on these easier projects, but we cannot ignore the big ones either.

[transitfan111]

15 hours ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Without taking Hudson yards into consideration, does anyone think it's possible to have the extend to 12 cars or two 6 car sets in order to improve on maintenance and car consistency?

 

You have to purchase new cars, extend platforms, reconfigure some signals, etc and it’ll be more expensive (or about the same) than just fixing the Main Street terminal which is the real chockpoint. It takes trains forever to get in there. 

[shiznit1987]

4 hours ago, Lance said:

¿Por qué no los dos? I'm not saying your ideas don't have merit, far from it, I actually like what you come up with, even if I don't always agree with the ideas. However, the so-called "questionably necessary investments" you mentioned do serve a purpose as well. ESA will free up much needed space at Penn Station by allowing the LIRR to travel to Grand Central. It also has the unintended benefit of facilitating the push for Penn Station Access for Metro-North. The Fulton Center project has streamlined the formerly abysmal transfer at Fulton St without rebuilding the Nassau St tracks, all while recouping some of the costs with the shops above. As for CBTC, well, I've already said my piece on that. We do need to take a more progressive stance on these easier projects, but we cannot ignore the big ones either.

Just to piggyback on this: If for anything, ESA should've gone whole hog and moved all LIRR operations to Grand Central. The new terminal should've then continued down Park as two tracks and then take over the existing tunnels 3 & 4 under the east river, thus giving the LIRR a WTC-esque loop under the east side of Manhattan. The freed up space @ Penn coupled with two new Hudson tubes would have given NJT all the space it'd need for expansion for 100 years. 

[RR503]

5 hours ago, Lance said:

¿Por qué no los dos? I'm not saying your ideas don't have merit, far from it, I actually like what you come up with, even if I don't always agree with the ideas. However, the so-called "questionably necessary investments" you mentioned do serve a purpose as well. ESA will free up much needed space at Penn Station by allowing the LIRR to travel to Grand Central. It also has the unintended benefit of facilitating the push for Penn Station Access for Metro-North. The Fulton Center project has streamlined the formerly abysmal transfer at Fulton St without rebuilding the Nassau St tracks, all while recouping some of the costs with the shops above. As for CBTC, well, I've already said my piece on that. We do need to take a more progressive stance on these easier projects, but we cannot ignore the big ones either.

I think "heavy handed" was the key phrase in my previous post -- my bad for not, well, making it key syntactically. My big criticism of ESA, SAS, CBTC, Fulton etc is that all of those projects solve issues that could have been operated away. In order, Penn is shit because the railroads are too afraid of competence to through-run (and b/c the LIRR won't run proper service/have proper fares for people to get the  at HPA), UES SAS is necessary because the rate at which Lex peak ridership is declining is slower than that of MTA's operational decay, CBTC...well, you know what I say, and Fulton could have been an incremental fix (did they really need to spend 1.4b on that weird ass glass thing?). Real estate won't even begin to pay that back, btw -- I can't imagine they're getting more than 10 or 20 mil a year from all of those tenants.  

To return to my point, though, the reason I focus so much on incrementalism is because so many of the perceived civic disasters are solvable through small, targeted investments instead of these massive capital spends. Let's reserve the megaprojects for when we have controlled/controllable costs, and we can conceive of things like...

51 minutes ago, shiznit1987 said:

...ESA should've gone whole hog and moved all LIRR operations to Grand Central. The new terminal should've then continued down Park as two tracks and then take over the existing tunnels 3 & 4 under the east river, thus giving the LIRR a WTC-esque loop under the east side of Manhattan. The freed up space @ Penn coupled with two new Hudson tubes would have given NJT all the space it'd need for expansion for 100 years. 

2

Or better yet, send it down the East Side to ATL or somewhere in Jersey. 

[bobtehpanda]

22 hours ago, RR503 said:

Or better yet, send it down the East Side to ATL or somewhere in Jersey. 

Honestly, I like this better than through running, just because all of the major rail systems use different traction systems and have already, or are two far down the process of replacing their fleets. You'd more than double LIRR capacity with two new inbound tracks. And honestly with how much ESA overran you'd probably get it for the same amount of money, since you'd no longer need to excavate an Empire State Building sized hole 150 ft below Grand Central.

Edited December 16, 2018 by bobtehpanda