Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[KK 6 Ave Local]

Some of my plans:

 from Gun Hill Rd  to Jamaica (Archer Avenue Line) via Third/Webster, SAS, new East River tunnel, Atlantic Branch, Archer Avenue

(U) from Rockaway Park to CI via buried RBB, normal RBB, or a subway paralleling it (worst idea), Queens Bypass, 63 Street, SAS, Manhattan Bridge, Brighton replacing  

(K) from Jamiaca 179 to Brighton Beach via QBL, Crosstown line, Franklin Shuttle, Brighton replacing  

 goes to West End replacing  which deinterlines Dekalb

 to Williamsburg,  and  to Flushing and Fresh Meadows (respectively) and  and  to Merrick Blvd while  goes to Laurelton

 to Astoria,  to SAS,  to QBL and a modified Forest Hills

 replaces  on QBL to Forest Hills

 extended to Springfield Blvd

 

[bobtehpanda]

14 hours ago, officiallyliam said:

That would align perfectly with a State Street tunnel; the tracks at Atlantic Terminal end facing State Street and expanding them could be a simple matter of just punching through the wall, if that's possible. And a super-express from Jamaica to Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan would be great, since there's really no quick way to make that journey now, and such a line would simultaneously relieve the Fulton line and provide riders in Woodhaven and Richmond Hill with a genuine express train. And it's not totally infeasible, either: the Atlantic Branch exists perfectly intact and is absolutely usable for subway service.

As an optimist, I want to believe that fixing the way junctions and terminals operate, and upgrading the signaling, should be the way forward - even though I find the isolation of lines that deinterlining allows to be attractive. Queens Blvd has two options: and via 53rd, and via 63rd, with local and as express (the flexibility choice), or local via 53rd and both as expresses to 63rd (the deinterlined choice). Both options mean that something has to change in order to keep CPW in order; in the latter option, you could simply revive the old to cover 8th Avenue and CPW local stops in Manhattan. While the pragmatist in me says the latter is superior, the idealist in me wants to make the former option happen.

I am curious, though: what would some improvements to junction ops look like?

The isn't really isolated running on State Street - it still transfers to the at Hoyt. While it loses some of the transfers it has today, that's sort of the point of this: the IND lines (Fulton and Crosstown) were planned with characteristic IND competitive interests in mind and thus lack transfers to the BMT and IRT; sending the to Fulton allows IND riders to have easier trips to BMT and IRT destinations - such as the heart of the Financial District and Union Square. So while the route might become somewhat more "isolated," it helps lines like the and become far less isolated. And as @RR503 mentioned, the provisions at Whitehall should be built in a way that allows them to cross under Joralemon, considering the BMT was built later (it wouldn't make sense to put in the bellmouths if you couldn't cross the tunnels right in front of you!)

4th av riders will still have access to all the services they have today for a transfer, at Atlantic or across the 4th Av platforms on the express. The Nassau Line runs almost exactly parallel to the downtown segment of the (R), and the only thing that loses access is maybe one-seat rides from NYU-land to 4th Av.

Fulton riders will actually gain a lot, since the only line Fulton does not connect to at Fulton St is the Broadway Line.

[P3F]

1 hour ago, bobtehpanda said:

4th av riders will still have access to all the services they have today for a transfer, at Atlantic or across the 4th Av platforms on the express. The Nassau Line runs almost exactly parallel to the downtown segment of the (R), and the only thing that loses access is maybe one-seat rides from NYU-land to 4th Av.

Fulton riders will actually gain a lot, since the only line Fulton does not connect to at Fulton St is the Broadway Line.

Fulton riders can access the Broadway line by transferring at Chambers Street.

[bobtehpanda]

1 hour ago, P3F said:

Fulton riders can access the Broadway line by transferring at Chambers Street.

From the platforms, it's a very convoluted walk, and it's also backtracking. I would barely consider that a transfer.

[P3F]

9 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

From the platforms, it's a very convoluted walk, and it's also backtracking. I would barely consider that a transfer.

It's very similar in length and time to the 4th Avenue - Brighton transfer at Atlantic Avenue that your deinterlining plans would force thousands of people to use.

[RR503]

20 minutes ago, P3F said:

It's very similar in length and time to the 4th Avenue - Brighton transfer at Atlantic Avenue that your deinterlining plans would force thousands of people to use.

So? I fail to see your point here. The fact that his solution to an operational problem requires increased use of a less than convenient transfer doesn’t mean he is bound to force everyone else to use similar facilities — especially when this proposal comes with the ancillary benefit of facilitating the very operational strategy that would cause the former inconvenience. 

[P3F]

42 minutes ago, RR503 said:

So? I fail to see your point here. The fact that his solution to an operational problem requires increased use of a less than convenient transfer doesn’t mean he is bound to force everyone else to use similar facilities — especially when this proposal comes with the ancillary benefit of facilitating the very operational strategy that would cause the former inconvenience. 

I wasn't trying to make a complicated point. I just find it funny that he discounts a transfer as being "a very convoluted walk" while another of his plans relies heavily on a similar transfer. However, none of this changes the fact that neither plan is likely to be enacted in the semi-near future.

Edited June 23, 2018 by P3F

[LGA Link N Train]

1 hour ago, P3F said:

It's very similar in length and time to the 4th Avenue - Brighton transfer at Atlantic Avenue that your deinterlining plans would force thousands of people to use.

Well at least the 4 Avenue - Brighton walk is navigable. Besides, I agree with @RR503 here. When it comes to counter arguments against deinterlining, I hear the same excuse every time, which is "people want to go to where ever they have to go without having to transfer" or "people want a one-seat ride". Well, allow me to say that after a while, it becomes a poor excuse.  

[RR503]

5 minutes ago, LGA Link N train said:

Well at least the 4 Avenue - Brighton walk is navigable. Besides, I agree with @RR503 here. When it comes to counter arguments against deinterlining, I hear the same excuse every time, which is "people want to go to where ever they have to go without having to transfer" or "people want a one-seat ride". Well, allow me to say that after a while, it becomes a poor excuse.  

If I may clarify a bit, I don’t object to giving people the most convenient set of services possible — that’s what a subway is for after all. Instead, I object to situations when the promulgation of such planning is prioritized over reaching maximum absolute capacity on key lines. I expounded on this a page ago so I won’t repeat in detail, but basically I think deinterlining junctions (at least in the now, before we have seriously tried unfu*king ops) for the sake of pure merge reduction is solving an operational issue with service planning. I think the only times deinterlining is truly justified is when it recaptures important capacity shadows, like those on 8th and Broadway Express. 

[Around the Horn]

3 hours ago, P3F said:

Fulton riders can access the Broadway line by transferring at Chambers Street.

That's terrible example... Try Jay Street-MetroTech instead.

[LGA Link N Train]

4 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

That's terrible example... Try Jay Street-MetroTech instead.

Chambers or Jay, there's still something that's narrow

[officiallyliam]

20 minutes ago, RR503 said:

Instead, I object to situations when the promulgation of such planning is prioritized over reaching maximum absolute capacity on key lines. I expounded on this a page ago so I won’t repeat in detail, but basically I think deinterlining junctions (at least in the now, before we have seriously tried unfu*king ops) for the sake of pure merge reduction is solving an operational issue with service planning.

Agreed - I think that Broadway, Cranberry, and Rogers Avenue should be the top priorities for deinterlining, though Rogers does require construction of new turnouts east of Franklin Avenue. But I also think that all the junctions where merges take place should be examined and their operations cleaned up - and if it's determined that the advantages of deinterlining would be greater than whatever disadvantages are presented, then they should be deinterlined. I like it as a theory, but I get that there do exist instances where deinterlining would cause more pain to riders than would be balanced out by whatever ops benefits are presented.

In relation to the previous talk about Queens Blvd, though, what are the diverging speeds on the turnouts at 36th in Queens? I seem to recall trains going pretty slow on those switches (although that could be a symptom of aggressive timers), and having a mix of local and express trains in both 53rd and 63rd mean that 36th really needs to run like clockwork if we're to get highest possible capacity.

[LGA Link N Train]

34 minutes ago, officiallyliam said:

In relation to the previous talk about Queens Blvd, though, what are the diverging speeds on the turnouts at 36th in Queens? I seem to recall trains going pretty slow on those switches (although that could be a symptom of aggressive timers), and having a mix of local and express trains in both 53rd and 63rd mean that 36th really needs to run like clockwork if we're to get highest possible capacity

If that's the case, then deinterlining would work by having 53rd be the local tunnel and 63rd be the express tunnel and . Not the best option, but it still works.  

[P3F]

1 hour ago, Around the Horn said:

That's terrible example... Try Jay Street-MetroTech instead.

Any sane person would use the Jay Street transfer instead of the Chambers Street one, which is mostly convenient for  riders. You're right; I should've used the Jay Street one in my original post. 

[P3F]

1 hour ago, RR503 said:

If I may clarify a bit, I don’t object to giving people the most convenient set of services possible — that’s what a subway is for after all. Instead, I object to situations when the promulgation of such planning is prioritized over reaching maximum absolute capacity on key lines. I expounded on this a page ago so I won’t repeat in detail, but basically I think deinterlining junctions (at least in the now, before we have seriously tried unfu*king ops) for the sake of pure merge reduction is solving an operational issue with service planning. I think the only times deinterlining is truly justified is when it recaptures important capacity shadows, like those on 8th and Broadway Express. 

A lot of the proposals put forward recently are very ambitious. In the particular case of connecting the Montague line to anything, there isn't a simple "easy" solution that can overcome the inertia of the tunnel not having anything extremely wrong with it.

There's nothing wrong with thinking of ways to make Montague more useful since, admittedly, it isn't a very popular way of getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I'm not really convinced, though, that building extra connections should be high on the list of priorities.

I believe the most realistic way of increasing Broadway capacity is the proposal that's been discussed a lot in the past several weeks -- send the  to 2nd Avenue and increase the 's frequency. Sure, the  will be limited to 15 TPH by 60th Street and Broadway, but that seems to be a reasonable upper limit for a line carrying two services, without CBTC. If this is carried out, Montague will also be used more, as 6 or 7  trains per hour will need to be sent to Brooklyn.

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by P3F

[Coney Island Av]

If Broadway is deinterlined, both the  should go to Astoria. This is because 38 St Yard in Sunset Park could be staged to accommodate revenue trains for the . 

However, the  cannot handle QBL alone. I would suggest extending the  back to Forest Hills, but that's controversial. Instead, the  should run via 63rd into Queens to replace the . 

New transfers between Queensboro Plaza/Queens Plaza should be constructed because the two are very close, and this connection would be very vital. It would allow for easier intra-Queens transfers without having to backtrack into Manhattan. 

Finally, instead of sending it to Forest Hills, I'd throw in a little extension of the  to Queens Plaza since the  would no longer be utilizing the outer tracks. A crossover switch will be added west of Queens Plaza to allow for this. While such a little extension, it would make transferring to the  more convenient and would gain additional ridership. Riders wanting to continue their journey into Eastern Queens can transfer across the platform.

So now, it would look like this:

: unchanged

: Queens Plaza to Church Av

: CI to Forest Hills-71 Av 

: CI to 96 St 

: Astoria to Bay Ridge, based out of 38 St

: Astoria to Whitehall St, extended to Bay Pkwy rush hours

 

 

[MysteriousBtrain]

5 hours ago, P3F said:

Fulton riders can access the Broadway line by transferring at Chambers Street.

Consider this: you get off at chambers St. You find a flight of stairs to go up followed by another to go down. Then you walk the entire length of WTC and walk a short narrow walkway to get to the .

And god forbid you need/come from uptown service, you can add two extra flights to make 4 sets of stairs, a narrow walkway, and walking an entire IND platform.

[bobtehpanda]

4 hours ago, P3F said:

It's very similar in length and time to the 4th Avenue - Brighton transfer at Atlantic Avenue that your deinterlining plans would force thousands of people to use.

Why do people need to transfer to the Brighton platforms? The exact same northbound services at Brighton are available on the 4th Av express (6th Av, Broadway express), and the 4th Av expresses are literally across the platform. Unless I've missed something and someone is talking about de-interlining the DeKalb services as well.

[P3F]

7 minutes ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Consider this: you get off at chambers St. You find a flight of stairs to go up followed by another to go down. Then you walk the entire length of WTC and walk a short narrow walkway to get to the .

And god forbid you need/come from uptown service, you can add two extra flights to make 4 sets of stairs, a narrow walkway, and walking an entire IND platform.

As was said above, the best transfer from Fulton to Broadway is at Jay Street.

[bobtehpanda]

1 hour ago, P3F said:

A lot of the proposals put forward recently are very ambitious. In the particular case of connecting the Montague line to anything, there isn't a simple "easy" solution that can overcome the inertia of the tunnel not having anything extremely wrong with it.

There's nothing wrong with thinking of ways to make Montague more useful since, admittedly, it isn't a very popular way of getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I'm not really convinced, though, that building extra connections should be high on the list of priorities.

I believe the most realistic way of increasing Broadway capacity is the proposal that's been discussed a lot in the past several weeks -- send the  to 2nd Avenue and increase the 's frequency. Sure, the  will be limited to 15 TPH by 60th Street and Broadway, but that seems to be a reasonable upper limit for a line carrying two services, without CBTC. If this is carried out, Montague will also be used more, as 6 or 7  trains per hour will need to be sent to Brooklyn.

 

The problem with that de-interlining proposal is that it decreases Astoria service at a time when Astoria is rapidly being redeveloped and growing in population, and on top of that Queensboro Plaza will be inundated with even more transfer passengers once the capacity increase from CBTC is realized.

[P3F]

1 minute ago, bobtehpanda said:

Why do people need to transfer to the Brighton platforms? The exact same northbound services at Brighton are available on the 4th Av express (6th Av, Broadway express), and the 4th Av expresses are literally across the platform. Unless I've missed something and someone is talking about de-interlining the DeKalb services as well.

I was indeed referring to your earlier plan of deinterlining the DeKalb services.

[P3F]

Just now, bobtehpanda said:

The problem with that de-interlining proposal is that it decreases Astoria service at a time when Astoria is rapidly being redeveloped and growing in population, and on top of that Queensboro Plaza will be inundated with even more transfer passengers once the capacity increase from CBTC is realized.

Unless some other restriction would prevent the  from running 15 trains per hour, Astoria service shouldn't be decreased.

Of course, it goes without saying that this service pattern would cost more money to run than the current one.

[officiallyliam]

1 hour ago, P3F said:

There's nothing wrong with thinking of ways to make Montague more useful since, admittedly, it isn't a very popular way of getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I'm not really convinced, though, that building extra connections should be high on the list of priorities.

Adding a connection in the style of 11th Street from Montague to IND Fulton won't make it much more useful, because of capacity constraints, but the proposal to add a new tunnel for the to run to IND Fulton would both make Montague (indirectly) more useful. Montague isn't a popular way to get to Manhattan because most riders switch to a different train before Manhattan, but switching Montague service to run to Nassau would likely mean two things: firstly, more riders to Montague, because Nassau gives you tons of transfers, and secondly, add a significant capacity to the Fulton and 8th Avenue lines.

57 minutes ago, Coney Island Av said:

I would suggest extending the  back to Forest Hills, but that's controversial. Instead, the  should run via 63rd into Queens to replace the . 

Why even bother? Transit didn't cut the back to LIC because it hates railfans, it did so because running trains from Crosstown to QBL is a flawed service pattern that has been proven to waste capacity. Don't act like you're doing some noble deed by not formally suggesting a proposal that's going to get shot down on common-sense grounds, and then mention it anyway. If you didn't want to court the controversy of the to Forest Hills, don't mention it at all.

And running the via 63rd is just adding a merge for no reason - if the is going via 63rd, it should go to SAS.

[RR503]

9 hours ago, officiallyliam said:

In relation to the previous talk about Queens Blvd, though, what are the diverging speeds on the turnouts at 36th in Queens? I seem to recall trains going pretty slow on those switches (although that could be a symptom of aggressive timers), and having a mix of local and express trains in both 53rd and 63rd mean that 36th really needs to run like clockwork if we're to get highest possible capacity.

Those the D3/T1 and T2/D4 switches are all D 20. That said, that whole area is adorned with poorly signed timers who definitely limit to less than 20mph, so I’d attribute any slowness in  speeds to that factor more than switch geometry. 

I do think it’s worth pointing out that the D1/T1 and T2/D2 connections are their respective switches’ straight lineup, increasing the speed at which trains can traverse them. 

9 hours ago, P3F said:

A lot of the proposals put forward recently are very ambitious. In the particular case of connecting the Montague line to anything, there isn't a simple "easy" solution that can overcome the inertia of the tunnel not having anything extremely wrong with it.

I wouldn’t place the Whitehall-Hoyt Schermerhorn tunnel among the highest agency priorities at the moment, but it definitely is something to be looked at in the future. In a world where CBTC could be questioned, I’d say that I find it a tad disappointing that we’re gonna drop a billion or more resignalling Fulton and the Rockaways for lines that will never be able to leverage the capabilities of the new signals. If I may say so, it strikes me as possibly being better to invest in the base infrastructure with projects like this first. 

8 hours ago, Coney Island Av said:

If Broadway is deinterlined, both the  should go to Astoria. This is because 38 St Yard in Sunset Park could be staged to accommodate revenue trains for the . 

However, the  cannot handle QBL alone. I would suggest extending the  back to Forest Hills, but that's controversial. Instead, the  should run via 63rd into Queens to replace the . 

New transfers between Queensboro Plaza/Queens Plaza should be constructed because the two are very close, and this connection would be very vital. It would allow for easier intra-Queens transfers without having to backtrack into Manhattan. 

Finally, instead of sending it to Forest Hills, I'd throw in a little extension of the  to Queens Plaza since the  would no longer be utilizing the outer tracks. A crossover switch will be added west of Queens Plaza to allow for this. While such a little extension, it would make transferring to the  more convenient and would gain additional ridership. Riders wanting to continue their journey into Eastern Queens can transfer across the platform.

So now, it would look like this:

: unchanged

: Queens Plaza to Church Av

: CI to Forest Hills-71 Av 

: CI to 96 St 

: Astoria to Bay Ridge, based out of 38 St

: Astoria to Whitehall St, extended to Bay Pkwy rush hours

Come on man! The whole post you’ve written here is predicated on your espoused wish to deinterline Broadway, yet you decide to fill the capacity hole on QB with some *really* ugly interlining. Methinks you can do better. 

Specifically, sending the  via 63 is in essence flipping off  riders. That line already has to merge with  — the former two taking place at some of the most tightly scheduled interlockings in the system. Do you really want to add another line to the mess? I generally don’t like using cascading delays as a justification for choices in service planning, but do you realize that if, under your service plan, something goes wrong on the , it’ll directly affect all 3 B division trunks AND the bloody  train? Maybe think about that. As an alternative, why don’t you do what is gonna be necessary in a few years anyway and send the  up SAS. On the capacity management side of things, keeping the  out of 63 conveniently leaves you the option of sending the  via 63, which, as you know, enables capacity capture on 8th Avenue. Maybe construe some service patterns based on that, no? 

Now, the  thing you’ve invented. You’re spending money here on a new crossover, and are creating a turnback style terminal on non-adjacent tracks. I guess my question is why? I love then train  — it’s my back route when the  has been supplemented out of existence — but do you *really* think the best way to improve it is by making passengers play a guessing game about which local track’s  will depart first — something that will inevitably cause the requisite dashes to the other platform when they’re wrong? I know many here fap to that cross platform transfer at Queens Plaza, but I really don’t think it produces any savings whatsoever for those in the dominant, Manhattan bound commute flow — remember, it’s backtracking. I personally think that a more useful way to foam away time and money would be to figure out ways to reroute the northern end of the  to Queensboro Plaza or 21st-Queensbridge in order to give  riders a better spread of Queens options. This is especially true for people like me who support some level of deinterlining in Queens, as such changes would make it so the only direct northern connection options for  riders are 53/8 services and the .  

[kosciusko]

14 hours ago, Coney Island Av said:

: Astoria to Bay Ridge, based out of 38 St

: Astoria to Whitehall St, extended to Bay Pkwy rush hours

At this point why even have the ? Just increase service on the  and maybe have 1-2 turn at Whitehall during rush hour.