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It would involve connecting the Montague Tunnel to the Fulton St IND local tracks. Last time I suggested doing that with the (W) train, I got responses about how difficult and expensive it would be to modify the cast-iron tubes to build said connection, not to mention having to duck under the southbound (2)(3) train tunnel at Borough Hall. What would be different about making the same connection using the (C)(E) trains?

As for replacing the (R) on 4th Ave Local with the (J) or another Nassau St service, I suggested doing that a while back when everyone was talking about how unreliable the (R) had become not long after Montague reopened. I got flamed for suggesting extending the (J) (and (Z)) both on here and Second Ave Sagas.

Would Montague even be able to handle the (C), (E) and (J) (and/or (Z) or another Nassau service)?  

Presumably the (R) would be cut back to City Hall. The (W) too, unless it would be deemed unnecessary to run it.

 

Edited by T to Dyre Avenue
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2 hours ago, RR503 said:

Someone, please explain to me why this is batshit crazy. I came up with the following late last night:

-Connect WTC to Cortlandt in order to send the (E) via the (R) in Lower Manhattan.

-Use provisions at Whitehall to connect this recaptured (R) line to Fulton Local

-Replace Broadway via Montague service with Nassau via Montague service, half running through to the Jamaica line, half terminating on Essex middle (would require some junction reconstruction) in order to provide +/- 30tph via tunnel.

The late-night logic behind this was that City Hall's curve is both slow and limiting of capacity. What's more, few use the (R) to commute from Brooklyn to Midtown, thus suggesting that connection's elimination. Fulton Street, too, deserves more, better service, but cannot get the same given its current track situation. The utilization of the current tunnel route from Cortlandt to Whitehall for (C) and (E) trains would facilitate the amelioration of both these situations and would do so with relatively minimal infrastructure investment. 

The replacement of 4th local to Broadway service with Nassau service, is, of course, the major route-related sticking point of all this. But, if I may argue for it, few use the (R) to get to midtown from South Brooklyn -- the line is more of a means to a transfer. Thus, its replacement with a service that has slightly improved transfer options (serves Fulton Center/Brooklyn Bridge/Delancey unlike (R)) and a wider variety of Lower Manhattan destinations (both Financial District and central Chinatown) would, in my opinion, be less onerous than one would think. 

Operationally, however, the plan even for me breaks down. The (E) would be considerably lengthened (unless it short turns at an improved Whitehall or some new terminal in Downtown Brooklyn), Jamaica line service would be dragged down to South Brooklyn, and the flexibility afforded by the current bridge/tunnel pairing would have to be at least partially sacrificed (you could keep flat junctions, but reroutes would not be anywhere near as simple as they are today). 

Edit: as an alternate to the (E) recapture thing, you could obviously also just send the (R) as is today down Fulton, if you’re cool with the ~24tph cap limit. 

Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

People have proposed this in the past but connecting the (E) to Whitehall would involve severing the (R) south of City Hall. I don't think there's room for a flying junction to allow for this, and it would have to be either (E) or (R) (not both). 

However, if the Manhattan Bridge goes down, there's nowhere to send the (N)(Q) except for Nassau or 8 Av in your plan. Currently, if the latter happens, the (N)(Q) will simply run via Whitehall to Broadway. Removing the (R) south of City Hall would remove this simplicity. 

I assume the present-day (R) would be truncated to City Hall.

I think your plan would look like this?

(C): 168 St to Lefferts Blvd via 8 Av Local and Fulton St Exp via Whitehall

(E): Jamaica Center to Euclid Av via QBL Exp, 8 Av Local, and Fulton St Local via Whitehall 

(J)(Z): Jamaica Center to Bay Ridge-95 St via Jamaica Express/Skip-Stop, Nassau St, and 4 Av Local

(R)(W): Forest Hills/Astoria to City Hall

Though I can see the logic for sending the (R) to Fulton. I think that would be more feasible/cheaper than sending the (C)(E) via Whitehall. 

As for the (J)(Z) replacing the (R), I somewhat agree. I can see logic for it with the (R) being delayed most of the time. People on here have proposed sending the (J) to Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, and Brighton in the past. Though I would only send the (J) to Bay Ridge if it were to be extended to SBK. But as mentioned before, it's controversial (not as much as the R32/R179 fiasco) and would leave Bay Ridge with no Midtown access.

Edited by Coney Island Av
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3 hours ago, Coney Island Av said:

As for the (J)(Z) replacing the (R), I somewhat agree. I can see logic for it with the (R) being delayed most of the time. People on here have proposed sending the (J) to Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, and Brighton in the past. Though I would only send the (J) to Bay Ridge if it were to be extended to SBK. But as mentioned before, it's controversial (not as much as the R32/R179 fiasco) and would leave Bay Ridge with no Midtown access.

People in Bay Ridge who want Midtown almost never stay on the (R) all the way there... They usually transfer at 59th, 36th or Atlantic to an express.

As for the current scenario, I feel like a rush hour only Nassau service could provide the additional trains needed to shuttle Bay Ridge riders to express stations and provide service to Lower Manhattan as well. I don't honestly see the same need outside of rush hour. Something like the (Z), six trains per hour in the peak direction arriving in Lower Manhattan from 8AM to 9AM and departing from 4:45PM to 6:15PM could work.

Edited by Around the Horn
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3 hours ago, Coney Island Av said:

People have proposed this in the past but connecting the (E) to Whitehall would involve severing the (R) south of City Hall. I don't think there's room for a flying junction to allow for this, and it would have to be either (E) or (R) (not both). 

However, if the Manhattan Bridge goes down, there's nowhere to send the (N)(Q) except for Nassau or 8 Av in your plan. Currently, if the latter happens, the (N)(Q) will simply run via Whitehall to Broadway. Removing the (R) south of City Hall would remove this simplicity. 

I assume the present-day (R) would be truncated to City Hall.

The Broadway Line platforms are right below the street level. The 8 Avenue Line platforms are two level down. The (E)’s platforms are under a mezzanine. That means there is a possibility to extend it until the tracks are just a level below the Broadway Line tracks, flanking it along the sides before rising up. Unfortunately, the ramp will have to be built by demolishing the current Cortlandt Street platforms, or having the (E) skip the station by running under the platforms, wrecking the lower level of the current station.

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Anyhow, an 8 Avenue–Broadway connection would bring two benefits:

  • a direct 8 Avenue local connection to the Brighton and 4 Avenue lines
  • possibility to reroute around service disruptions for trains headed between 4 Avenue or Brighton and Central Park West or Queens Boulevard

A reverse merger at World Trade Center, however, does not make much operational sense. The (W) would have to find a new terminal in Manhattan since the (E)(R) and (W) can’t all pass through Rector Street. Any extension of the (E) would consign it to the role of a long local (unless it goes to the Brighton Line).

An additional connection to the Fulton Street Line might be installed to untangle the Canal Street junction where (C) trains cross between the local and express tracks. City Hall lower level will probably have to be renovated for revenue use and/or the upper level will have to have a scissor crossover installed to turn around all Broadway local trains. But as a result, (E) trains will have to take over 4 Avenue local service and Bay Ridge–95 Street supposedly is unable to turn trains around fast enough to meet the 15 T.P.H. requirement.

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5 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

It would involve connecting the Montague Tunnel to the Fulton St IND local tracks. Last time I suggested doing that with the (W) train, I got responses about how difficult and expensive it would be to modify the cast-iron tubes to build said connection, not to mention having to duck under the southbound (2)(3) train tunnel at Borough Hall. What would be different about making the same connection using the (C)(E) trains?

As for replacing the (R) on 4th Ave Local with the (J) or another Nassau St service, I suggested doing that a while back when everyone was talking about how unreliable the (R) had become not long after Montague reopened. I got flamed for suggesting extending the (J) (and (Z)) both on here and Second Ave Sagas.

Would Montague even be able to handle the (C), (E) and (J) (and/or (Z) or another Nassau service)?  

Presumably the (R) would be cut back to City Hall. The (W) too, unless it would be deemed unnecessary to run it.

 

Not to mention the time to do that was either 1966 (when the World Trade Center was first being built) or 2001-'02 (when the WTC complex was in a state of flux).

Would be impossible to do now.  

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1 hour ago, CenSin said:

Anyhow, an 8 Avenue–Broadway connection would bring two benefits:

  • a direct 8 Avenue local connection to the Brighton and 4 Avenue lines
  • possibility to reroute around service disruptions for trains headed between 4 Avenue or Brighton and Central Park West or Queens Boulevard

A reverse merger at World Trade Center, however, does not make much operational sense. The (W) would have to find a new terminal in Manhattan since the (E)(R) and (W) can’t all pass through Rector Street. Any extension of the (E) would consign it to the role of a long local (unless it goes to the Brighton Line).

An additional connection to the Fulton Street Line might be installed to untangle the Canal Street junction where (C) trains cross between the local and express tracks. City Hall lower level will probably have to be renovated for revenue use and/or the upper level will have to have a scissor crossover installed to turn around all Broadway local trains. But as a result, (E) trains will have to take over 4 Avenue local service and Bay Ridge–95 Street supposedly is unable to turn trains around fast enough to meet the 15 T.P.H. requirement.

You could in theory have it where some (E) trains in rush hours divert to 9th Avenue and short-turn there.  

City Hall could probably be modified a bit on the upper level to turn trains.  Remember, the upper level was originally supposed to be a terminal.  

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5 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

People in Bay Ridge who want Midtown almost never stay on the (R) all the way there... They usually transfer at 59th, 36th or Atlantic to an express.

As for the current scenario, I feel like a rush hour only Nassau service could provide the additional trains needed to shuttle Bay Ridge riders to express stations and provide service to Lower Manhattan as well. I don't honestly see the same need outside of rush hour. Something like the (Z), six trains per hour in the peak direction arriving in Lower Manhattan from 8AM to 9AM and departing from 4:45PM to 6:15PM could work.

Bay Ridge to Jamaica seems rather long, but what if you extended those 4 AM/PM (J) short turns to/from Broadway Junction? (You could label these as (Z) trains to reduce confusion).

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59 minutes ago, R68OnBroadway said:

Bay Ridge to Jamaica seems rather long, but what if you extended those 4 AM/PM (J) short turns to/from Broadway Junction? (You could label these as (Z) trains to reduce confusion).

The one problem with that is that those short turns either become (Z) trains at Broad Street in the PM, or were (Z) trains to Broad Street in the AM...

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6 hours ago, CenSin said:

Anyhow, an 8 Avenue–Broadway connection would bring two benefits:

  • a direct 8 Avenue local connection to the Brighton and 4 Avenue lines
  • possibility to reroute around service disruptions for trains headed between 4 Avenue or Brighton and Central Park West or Queens Boulevard

A reverse merger at World Trade Center, however, does not make much operational sense. The (W) would have to find a new terminal in Manhattan since the (E)(R) and (W) can’t all pass through Rector Street. Any extension of the (E) would consign it to the role of a long local (unless it goes to the Brighton Line).

An additional connection to the Fulton Street Line might be installed to untangle the Canal Street junction where (C) trains cross between the local and express tracks. City Hall lower level will probably have to be renovated for revenue use and/or the upper level will have to have a scissor crossover installed to turn around all Broadway local trains. But as a result, (E) trains will have to take over 4 Avenue local service and Bay Ridge–95 Street supposedly is unable to turn trains around fast enough to meet the 15 T.P.H. requirement.

You wouldn't run Broadway Local via tunnel anymore. All trains would end at City Hall. To make up for that, you'd unf**k 53/63/60, have 4 services on 8th Avenue, and thus send the expresses via Cranberry to Fulton express and the locals via Whitehall/unnamed new tunnel to Fulton local.

On 4th local, your primary service would then be a Nassau line train (brown (H) anyone?) that runs from Bay Ridge to Essex Street. The latter station would in this case see (J) and (M) on the side tracks with our theoretical (H) terminating from the south on the middle -- a scenario contingent on switch reconfiguration, of course. In that case, you'd probably want to reopen the abandoned platforms/trackways at Bowery (maybe also connect to (B)(D) at Grand) and Canal, both to handle crowds, and to allow place for (H) trains to get out of the way of (J) if there's congestion at Essex. These reopened tracks could also be used to stage gap trains and to lay up sets overnight.

Through this whole makeover, the (J) could either keep its current terminal at Broad, or, if ridership so requires, continue south on 4th to, say, 9th Avenue or Bay Parkway. It honestly is unimportant which alternative is chosen -- the reimagined 4th local service is much more about being a reliable and expedient conduit to transfers than it is about providing one seat rides to a hot destination, and thus, as today, probably will not see crushload crowding. 

In terms of terminal cap at Bay Ridge, 95 is perfectly capable of 15tph -- if it is run properly. They should treat it -- and indeed, all terminals in the system -- as if they're double ended relay operations. Regardless if there is a platform between the relay tracks or not, outbound crews should board their cabs at the second to last stop, and terminating crews should disembark there. Simplifies and fluidizes everything. 

Back to the proposal. The WTC-Cortlandt track connection is honestly unnecessary if you're good with the 6-8tph penalty that the curve imposes. What needs to be addressed beyond the means laid out in the tsunami of foam that is this post is the fact that we have 60tph of B div track capacity dead-ending in Lower Manhattan, and that we have three Brooklyn trunks (Culver, Brighton, Fulton) which, by merit of their having local and express tracks which feed to a single Manhattan-bound track pair, contain an aggregate ~90tph of spare capacity. If you match the former with 2/3 of the latter you've just catapulted system capacity forward a generation or so while only having to invest in (relatively) short connectors instead of new trunks. 

To that end, it may indeed be better to send Broadway local to Fulton, and use the Worth St provisions to link 8th local with either Brighton or Culver. How that may be accomplished, I have no idea, but hey, I have y'all to be smart. Apologies for the startling lack of cogency in this post, by the way. I'm tired and multitasking.

Edited by RR503
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19 minutes ago, RR503 said:

You wouldn't run Broadway Local via tunnel anymore. All trains would end at City Hall. To make up for that, you'd unf**k 53/63/60, have 4 services on 8th Avenue, and thus send the expresses via Cranberry to Fulton express and the locals via Whitehall/unnamed new tunnel to Fulton local.

On 4th local, your primary service would then be a Nassau line train (brown (H) anyone?) that runs from Bay Ridge to Essex Street. The latter station would in this case see (J) and (M) on the side tracks with our theoretical (H) terminating from the south on the middle -- a scenario contingent on switch reconfiguration, of course. In that case, you'd probably want to reopen the abandoned platforms/trackways at Bowery (maybe also connect to (B)(D) at Grand) and Canal, both to handle crowds, and to allow place for (H) trains to get out of the way of (J) if there's congestion at Essex. These reopened tracks could also be used to stage gap trains and to lay up sets overnight.

Through this whole makeover, the (J) could either keep its current terminal at Broad, or, if ridership so requires, continue south on 4th to, say, 9th Avenue or Bay Parkway. It honestly is unimportant which alternative is chosen -- the reimagined 4th local service is much more about being a reliable and expedient conduit to transfers than it is about providing one seat rides to a hot destination, and thus, as today, probably will not see crushload crowding. 

In terms of terminal cap at Bay Ridge, 95 is perfectly capable of 15tph -- if it is run properly. They should treat it -- and indeed, all terminals in the system -- as if they're double ended relay operations. Regardless if there is a platform between the relay tracks or not, outbound crews should board their cabs at the second to last stop, and terminating crews should disembark there. Simplifies and fluidizes everything. 

Back to the proposal. The WTC-Cortlandt track connection is honestly unnecessary if you're good with the 6-8tph penalty that the curve imposes. What needs to be addressed beyond the means laid out in the tsunami of foam that is this post is the fact that we have 60tph of B div track capacity dead-ending in Lower Manhattan, and that we have three Brooklyn trunks (Culver, Brighton, Fulton) which, by merit of their having local and express tracks which feed to a single Manhattan-bound track pair, contain an aggregate ~90tph of spare capacity. If you match the former with 2/3 of the latter you've just catapulted system capacity forward a generation or so while only having to invest in (relatively) short connectors instead of new trunks. 

To that end, it may indeed be better to send Broadway local to Fulton, and use the Worth St provisions to link 8th local with either Brighton or Culver. How that may be accomplished, I have no idea, but hey, I have y'all to be smart. Apologies for the startling lack of cogency in this post, by the way. I'm tired and multitasking.

IIRC, the tubes to Downtown Brooklyn mostly have passenger capacity left to spare except the Brooklyn IRT and Fulton, which is fixable by linking SAS to Fulton local (and thus providing alternate East Side service from Brooklyn and additional Fulton services.) I don't think you really need to play Operation to fix that particular portion of the subway.

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7 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

IIRC, the tubes to Downtown Brooklyn mostly have passenger capacity left to spare except the Brooklyn IRT and Fulton, which is fixable by linking SAS to Fulton local (and thus providing alternate East Side service from Brooklyn and additional Fulton services.) I don't think you really need to play Operation to fix that particular portion of the subway.

Oh, totally. Queens is orders of magnitude worse.

That said, with the tubes you mentioned at capacity (along with the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges) you’re eventually gonna start having some not-so-minor problems. The way those lines were built makes some of them infinitely preferable because of their transfer choices and speed (that’s why Montague is empty), so unless you mess with service to level the playing field, so to speak, you’re never gonna get full utilization on all of them. This is where weird proposals like mine come in. 4th local is currently served by a train which has decent Lower Manhattan/Downtown Brooklyn/Chinatown/SoHo/Washington Square coverage, but is never used as such as it connects with so many other, faster means of accessing those areas along 4th. Thus it makes sense to run a service that has obscene transfer density (Nassau) in its place to best capture that market’s needs. Fulton, on the other hand, is off in its own little universe. Save for the (F), (G) and (R) at Hoyt and Jay and then the messy Fulton xfers it (and its counterpart in 8th Avenue) really doesn’t do well in providing connectivity. A BMT service — like the (R) — could help ameliorate that by providing an exit route from the relative infrastructural isolation of the IND. 

This is also why I’m not as hot on SAS to Fulton Local as I was before. If you want to truly take a load off the Brooklyn IRT, you have to make your alternate route easily accessible to BMT Southern Div riders. Fulton isn’t, and SAS as per today’s design only will be at Grand St. In light of that, I think examining the proposals in which SAS gets sent over the Manhattan Bridge in the place of the (B)(D) which are sent via Williamsburg, or takes over Montague in the place of the (R) (which itself is sent to Fulton) may be beneficial — you can thus make SAS that much more relevant to the rest of the system. 

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I think the best ways to make QBL work again is to either make a new Queens trunk line or change up the services running there, or divert trains using the SAS, although diverting the (B)(D) in South Brooklyn to Wiliamsburg would work better

Edited by KK 6 Ave Local
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2 hours ago, RR503 said:

Oh, totally. Queens is orders of magnitude worse.

That said, with the tubes you mentioned at capacity (along with the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges) you’re eventually gonna start having some not-so-minor problems. The way those lines were built makes some of them infinitely preferable because of their transfer choices and speed (that’s why Montague is empty), so unless you mess with service to level the playing field, so to speak, you’re never gonna get full utilization on all of them. This is where weird proposals like mine come in. 4th local is currently served by a train which has decent Lower Manhattan/Downtown Brooklyn/Chinatown/SoHo/Washington Square coverage, but is never used as such as it connects with so many other, faster means of accessing those areas along 4th. Thus it makes sense to run a service that has obscene transfer density (Nassau) in its place to best capture that market’s needs. Fulton, on the other hand, is off in its own little universe. Save for the (F), (G) and (R) at Hoyt and Jay and then the messy Fulton xfers it (and its counterpart in 8th Avenue) really doesn’t do well in providing connectivity. A BMT service — like the (R) — could help ameliorate that by providing an exit route from the relative infrastructural isolation of the IND. 

This is also why I’m not as hot on SAS to Fulton Local as I was before. If you want to truly take a load off the Brooklyn IRT, you have to make your alternate route easily accessible to BMT Southern Div riders. Fulton isn’t, and SAS as per today’s design only will be at Grand St. In light of that, I think examining the proposals in which SAS gets sent over the Manhattan Bridge in the place of the (B)(D) which are sent via Williamsburg, or takes over Montague in the place of the (R) (which itself is sent to Fulton) may be beneficial — you can thus make SAS that much more relevant to the rest of the system. 

Grand St gives you 4 Av express and Brighton express, which is good enough. I actually like that the transfer for South Brooklyn - SAS is at Grand St, since it places a useful transfer point away from Atlantic and Fulton and City Hall, which are major chokepoints right now. Most systems tend to avoid giant monolithic transfer stations because passenger volume increases exponentially as you add more lines.

The problem I have is that this results in no new net capacity to Brooklyn that we don't already have and just aren't using (Nassau to 4th), and there isn't really a need for net capacity, and that need is certainly not in the Southern Division of the BMT. It'd be very expensive without much to show for it.

Edited by bobtehpanda
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12 hours ago, RR503 said:

You wouldn't run Broadway Local via tunnel anymore. All trains would end at City Hall. To make up for that, you'd unf**k 53/63/60, have 4 services on 8th Avenue, and thus send the expresses via Cranberry to Fulton express and the locals via Whitehall/unnamed new tunnel to Fulton local.

On 4th local, your primary service would then be a Nassau line train (brown (H) anyone?) that runs from Bay Ridge to Essex Street. The latter station would in this case see (J) and (M) on the side tracks with our theoretical (H) terminating from the south on the middle -- a scenario contingent on switch reconfiguration, of course. In that case, you'd probably want to reopen the abandoned platforms/trackways at Bowery (maybe also connect to (B)(D) at Grand) and Canal, both to handle crowds, and to allow place for (H) trains to get out of the way of (J) if there's congestion at Essex. These reopened tracks could also be used to stage gap trains and to lay up sets overnight.

Through this whole makeover, the (J) could either keep its current terminal at Broad, or, if ridership so requires, continue south on 4th to, say, 9th Avenue or Bay Parkway. It honestly is unimportant which alternative is chosen -- the reimagined 4th local service is much more about being a reliable and expedient conduit to transfers than it is about providing one seat rides to a hot destination, and thus, as today, probably will not see crushload crowding. 

In terms of terminal cap at Bay Ridge, 95 is perfectly capable of 15tph -- if it is run properly. They should treat it -- and indeed, all terminals in the system -- as if they're double ended relay operations. Regardless if there is a platform between the relay tracks or not, outbound crews should board their cabs at the second to last stop, and terminating crews should disembark there. Simplifies and fluidizes everything. 

Back to the proposal. The WTC-Cortlandt track connection is honestly unnecessary if you're good with the 6-8tph penalty that the curve imposes. What needs to be addressed beyond the means laid out in the tsunami of foam that is this post is the fact that we have 60tph of B div track capacity dead-ending in Lower Manhattan, and that we have three Brooklyn trunks (Culver, Brighton, Fulton) which, by merit of their having local and express tracks which feed to a single Manhattan-bound track pair, contain an aggregate ~90tph of spare capacity. If you match the former with 2/3 of the latter you've just catapulted system capacity forward a generation or so while only having to invest in (relatively) short connectors instead of new trunks. 

To that end, it may indeed be better to send Broadway local to Fulton, and use the Worth St provisions to link 8th local with either Brighton or Culver. How that may be accomplished, I have no idea, but hey, I have y'all to be smart. Apologies for the startling lack of cogency in this post, by the way. I'm tired and multitasking.

That curve has that much of a penalty? Yeesh. I know that the Williamsburg curve limits capacity as well. What other curves have tph penalties on this magnitude?

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On 6/14/2018 at 12:16 PM, RR503 said:

Someone, please explain to me why this is batshit crazy. I came up with the following late last night:

-Connect WTC to Cortlandt in order to send the (E) via the (R) in Lower Manhattan.

-Use provisions at Whitehall to connect this recaptured (R) line to Fulton Local

-Replace Broadway via Montague service with Nassau via Montague service, half running through to the Jamaica line, half terminating on Essex middle (would require some junction reconstruction) in order to provide +/- 30tph via tunnel.

The late-night logic behind this was that City Hall's curve is both slow and limiting of capacity. What's more, few use the (R) to commute from Brooklyn to Midtown, thus suggesting that connection's elimination. Fulton Street, too, deserves more, better service, but cannot get the same given its current track situation. The utilization of the current tunnel route from Cortlandt to Whitehall for (C) and (E) trains would facilitate the amelioration of both these situations and would do so with relatively minimal infrastructure investment. 

The replacement of 4th local to Broadway service with Nassau service, is, of course, the major route-related sticking point of all this. But, if I may argue for it, few use the (R) to get to midtown from South Brooklyn -- the line is more of a means to a transfer. Thus, its replacement with a service that has slightly improved transfer options (serves Fulton Center/Brooklyn Bridge/Delancey unlike (R)) and a wider variety of Lower Manhattan destinations (both Financial District and central Chinatown) would, in my opinion, be less onerous than one would think. 

Operationally, however, the plan even for me breaks down. The (E) would be considerably lengthened (unless it short turns at an improved Whitehall or some new terminal in Downtown Brooklyn), Jamaica line service would be dragged down to South Brooklyn, and the flexibility afforded by the current bridge/tunnel pairing would have to be at least partially sacrificed (you could keep flat junctions, but reroutes would not be anywhere near as simple as they are today). 

Edit: as an alternate to the (E) recapture thing, you could obviously also just send the (R) as is today down Fulton, if you’re cool with the ~24tph cap limit. 

Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

With deinterlining, the length of a route would not be a factor for reliability. Another way to get the E to Brooklyn is to use the Worth Street provisions and connect to Nassau Street. This would be more expensive, but would provide access to Fulton and, with a new East River Tunnel, could add more capacity.

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On 6/10/2018 at 5:20 PM, RR503 said:

Why? You of all people should know my shpeel on the RBB, so I'll leave that unwritten, but I don't understand the need to run 3 services on 63. 

If we're allowed to build, I'd do the following: 

-53rd becomes all 8th Avenue services (whether that be all to 8th express, all to 8th local, or half and half is immeterial) to Queens Boulevard.

-63rd becomes all 6th Avenue Local to QB. 

-60th runs all trains to a reconstructed Astoria terminal (new switches south of Astoria Boulevard and a diamond crossover south of Ditmars instead of the current layout). 

-Broadway Express takes Second Avenue north of 72. 

-SAS mainline goes to a lower level of 72, and then either turns east under 75th St to run under 36th Ave/Sunnyside Yards/Northern Boulevard in Queens OR continues under Second Ave to 86th St, then turning east to follow Astoria Boulevard to Flushing. 

-New transfers between QBP and QP, Lex/63 and Lex/59. 

The above plan allows all services to run +/- 15tph, limits merging, and opens/preserves new single seat markets (Queens/East Side, UES/Midtown West).

Wasn't it deemed unfeasible/really difficult to add the switches at Astoria Boulevard?

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On 6/12/2018 at 10:07 AM, CenSin said:

With the speed of travel between the points well within the city limits, I would say that something like the LIRR from Jamaica to Penn Station would be welcome. My list of places that should be connected (in no particular order) with little to no intervening stations:

  • all of Staten Island
  • Coney Island
  • Flatlands
  • Marine Park
  • Canarsie
  • Howard Beach
  • Far Rockaway
  • South Jamaica
  • Oakland Gardens
  • Whitestone
  • East Elmhurst
  • Throggs Neck
  • Castle Hill
  • Eastchester
  • Wakefield
  • Norwood
  • Kingsbridge

These are places where travel times are in excess of 35 minutes to Manhattan by subway. Where existing rail infrastructure can manage, fares should be lowered and new services should be provided. Where existing rail infrastructure cannot manage or does not exist, construction of additional infrastructure would be needed.

How will you go about achieving your goal?

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1 hour ago, bobtehpanda said:

Grand St gives you 4 Av express and Brighton express, which is good enough. I actually like that the transfer for South Brooklyn - SAS is at Grand St, since it places a useful transfer point away from Atlantic and Fulton and City Hall, which are major chokepoints right now. Most systems tend to avoid giant monolithic transfer stations because passenger volume increases exponentially as you add more lines.

The problem I have is that this results in no new net capacity to Brooklyn that we don't already have and just aren't using (Nassau to 4th), and there isn't really a need for net capacity, and that need is certainly not in the Southern Division of the BMT. It'd be very expensive without much to show for it.

In a perfect world, I'd agree with you about transfers. The issue is that we've built out a system predicated on hub transfer points, so the integration of disaggregated transfers has become difficult. This is especially true with SAS, a route which has only three convenient transfer locations below 72nd St -- 14th, Houston and Grand. If the line is to be more than a shuttle for East Side residents, it has to achieve a greater level of integration, which can be accomplished only with route recapturing or additional transfer points. In the context of the South Brooklyn discussion, this restriction of transfer options to just Grand St will decrease the line's efficacy at relieving the (4)(5) in Brooklyn, and will transform the (B) and (D) into a bridge service from South Brooklyn points to Grand Street. So while avoiding core transfer points may sound good on paper, I think it may lead to an operational mess. 

About capacity, my apologies for being unclear if I was, but the proposal doesn't add capacity to the BMT -- it's dealing with the Fulton local capacity issue. In essence what is happening is Whitehall St trains are being sent via a new tunnel built using the provisions there to Hoyt Schermerhorn, and Nassau Line trains are taking over Montague/4th Local. That's +/- 30tph of new Brooklyn capacity sent to Fulton local. 

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3 hours ago, RR503 said:

Oh, totally. Queens is orders of magnitude worse.

That said, with the tubes you mentioned at capacity (along with the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges) you’re eventually gonna start having some not-so-minor problems. The way those lines were built makes some of them infinitely preferable because of their transfer choices and speed (that’s why Montague is empty), so unless you mess with service to level the playing field, so to speak, you’re never gonna get full utilization on all of them. This is where weird proposals like mine come in. 4th local is currently served by a train which has decent Lower Manhattan/Downtown Brooklyn/Chinatown/SoHo/Washington Square coverage, but is never used as such as it connects with so many other, faster means of accessing those areas along 4th. Thus it makes sense to run a service that has obscene transfer density (Nassau) in its place to best capture that market’s needs. Fulton, on the other hand, is off in its own little universe. Save for the (F), (G) and (R) at Hoyt and Jay and then the messy Fulton xfers it (and its counterpart in 8th Avenue) really doesn’t do well in providing connectivity. A BMT service — like the (R) — could help ameliorate that by providing an exit route from the relative infrastructural isolation of the IND. 

This is also why I’m not as hot on SAS to Fulton Local as I was before. If you want to truly take a load off the Brooklyn IRT, you have to make your alternate route easily accessible to BMT Southern Div riders. Fulton isn’t, and SAS as per today’s design only will be at Grand St. In light of that, I think examining the proposals in which SAS gets sent over the Manhattan Bridge in the place of the (B)(D) which are sent via Williamsburg, or takes over Montague in the place of the (R) (which itself is sent to Fulton) may be beneficial — you can thus make SAS that much more relevant to the rest of the system. 

The (E) could use the Broadway Line south of WTC and then use the provisions south of Whitehall to connect to Fulton Street. Second Avenue could connect to Nassau and then use Montague to go via Fourth Avenue to 95th Street. Capacity on Fulton would be increased, TPH into Brooklyn would increase, and Fourth Avenue would get service to the East Side of Manhattan.

Edited by Union Tpke
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50 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

That curve has that much of a penalty? Yeesh. I know that the Williamsburg curve limits capacity as well. What other curves have tph penalties on this magnitude?

Yeah it's a mess. I have heard though that much of that restriction stems from poor signal placement (T/Os can't see the timer coming into the curve s/b which forces them to creep) so I don't think it is as much of a Gordian's knot as the Willy B. 

AFAIK the worst curve culprits are Williamsburg, City Hall, Crescent (though its limit doesn't really matter), 11th St and of course, GCT. 

41 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

With deinterlining, the length of a route would not be a factor for reliability. Another way to get the E to Brooklyn is to use the Worth Street provisions and connect to Nassau Street. This would be more expensive, but would provide access to Fulton and, with a new East River Tunnel, could add more capacity.

I wouldn't go so far as to say deinterlining solves the length issue. Remember that a lot of bunching/gapping stems from variation in T/O operation style, and of course, with length, the effect such differences has increases. 

26 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

@RR503What do you think of Alon Levy's plan? My comments are as newyorksfuturetransit.

I personally think he goes too far. I think eliminating the flexibility provided by junctions like Dekalb, 59 and 36th (Queens) is a disservice to riders when the issues caused by them could be resolved operationally rather than with route changes. In general, aside from harnessing the capacity shadows on 8th and Broadway express, I see deinterlining as a simplistic way of avoiding the resolution of the sh*t operating environment we've created. Remember that all these problem junctions were once operated with 30+tph per track -- it's the overtiming/overdisciplining/neutering of braking that has killed them, not some intrinsic flaw in their operational design. I can see the merit of the delay isolation argument too, but again, if we knew how to swing service recovery, we wouldn't see nearly the number of cascading delays we do today -- I don't think I need to remind anyone here of the fact that the number of discrete incidents has not increased through our subway's little diva moment. 

22 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

Wasn't it deemed unfeasible/really difficult to add the switches at Astoria Boulevard?

I've actually heard it both ways here, so am honestly unsure. I'm pretty sure this is being discussed internally though, so maybe we'll here one way or another soon. 

15 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

The (E) could use the Broadway Line south of WTC and then use the provisions south of Whitehall to connect to Fulton Street. Second Avenue could connect to Nassau and then use Montague to go via Fourth Avenue to 95th Street. Capacity on Fulton would be increased, TPH into Brooklyn would increase, and Fourth Avenue would get service to the East Side of Manhattan.

Yup! Though the more I think about it, the less I like the (E) being extended beyond WTC. It's pretty much the MVP of the Queens transit scene, so making it into a bit of a monster line seems a tad unwise. If we're deinterlining 11th st in this fantasy world (thus sending all Bway local to Astoria), I think the (R) could take Fulton local without issue. 

Edited by RR503
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I had thought of a plan earlier that relates to this issue. It is similar but it has a change.

- (R) goes south from Whitehall Street to the Fulton Local via a new tunnel that starts just south of Whitehall Street from the bellmouth there

- (J)(Z) terminate at Chambers Street on the west tracks

- The SAS lines (T) and (V) stop at Grand Street with the  (B)(D) . After that, it goes down in elevation, then curves westward, and goes up to connect to the tail tracks that connect from Chambers Street (J)(Z) to the Manhattan Bridge. It wouldn't be able to connect to the beginning of these tracks though because it would be too deep, so it would have to go upwards as it goes west, and a new tunnel would have to be created. Then it would enter Chambers Street (J)(Z) on the two eastern tracks. Then, a connection would have to be built from the third track from the west to the first track so that Second Avenue trains could run to Fulton Street and Broad Street. Afterwards they would go along the 4th Avenue Local. Trains could terminate at two out of these three terminals: Broad Street, Bay Ridge, the West End Line.

- Tail tracks could be extended from World Trade Center slightly so that more trains could terminate there, if capacity limits are reached there.

Could this work? Or would it be better to create a new tunnel for SAS trains?

 

One more idea/question: I feel like there is an imbalance in the subway system, because almost all lines from the Bronx and Queens go to Brooklyn, which has less population than the Bronx and Queens combined. Staten Island is also south though, so I was wondering: Does Staten Island want a subway?

Edited by W4ST
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