Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[R68OnBroadway]

Would a  to 21st run up 21st with a new platform at Court or would it connect to the 11th St cut and then diverge to 21st?

[Lance]

8 hours ago, Lance said:

Based on the early 1999 schedules from the MTA's archived site, all three lines ran roughly every 7-8 minutes each (or 24 trains per hour total) at the height of the rush hours. I'll link to the Archive.org pages later today as I'm currently working off my phone.

Following up, here's the scheduled service levels for the 6th Avenue services as captured in 1999 by the Wayback Machine:

- 168 Street / 21 St-Queensbridge to Coney Island

- 205 Street to Coney Island

- 179 Street to Coney Island

- 21 St-Queensbridge to Brighton Beach

As mentioned in the previous post, the three express lines ran a combined 22-24 trains per hour with the as the least frequent of them, operating only six trains during peak periods. While the operated at the same levels seen today, at 15 trains per hour, there was less local service overall on the line.

For those interested in seeing similar schedules for the time period, replace the bracketed text below with the route of choice.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990418024253/http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/service/[q]train.htm

 

[R68OnBroadway]

Here's an idea to preserve Midtown-Williamsburg service (yes, this idea is far-out but is meant to be given how split this forum is over  vs ; before anyone bit*** over this please take into consideration is not meant to be realisitc) :

New trackway connection between Kenmare/Mott on Nassau and Broome/6th to link 8th local and Nassau. All platforms Jamaica lengthened to fit 10 car trains; express track installed between Cypress and Broadway Junction. 

unchanged

 168th-Lefferts via CPW local, 8th express and Fulton express

179th- JC via QBL local, 53rd, 8th local; express between Marcy/Crescent and local afterwards

 179th- Metropolitan via QBL local, 53rd, 8th local and Broadway/Brooklyn local

 179th-CI via QBL express, 63rd and Culver express

 JC-Church via QBL express, 63rd and Culver local

 extended to 18th

 rerouted to 96th

 Astoria- Euclid

 unchanged

 Crescent-Bay Ridge via Broadway/Brooklyn local and 4th local 

 /  eliminated

 

Thoughts?

 

 

[R68OnBroadway]

54 minutes ago, Fredrick Wells 3 said:

I don't like that idea. You already have the  trains along 31st Street. Better distinguish the  extension as a Northern Blvd Subway (LOCAL) line. SAS would be the EXPRESS version from the College Point area.

That's if you decide to go with the Subway over LRT.

I meant to say to 21st-Queensbridge to connect to the , any subway line up 21st is pointless .

[KK 6 Ave Local]

Here's my vision for the Second Avenue Subway:

 (U)  

Local  

Express  (U)

 starts at Broadway-125 Street and runs on SAS to Hanover Square where it runs under a new tunnel to the Fulton Local tracks. 

(U) would run from Throgs Neck, Lafayette Ave, and SAS to Fulton Local as well.

 would run from Jamaica/179th Street to the 63rd tunnel and SAS Local, then to either Hanover Square or somewhere in Williamsburg. 

 would run on a 3rd Avenue Line to Fordham Road or Co-op City

Northern Queens would be serviced by an extension of the  to Bell Blvd and the  to Bayside and College Point. This idea could also be done using a Northern Blvd subway with the  services.

[ibroketheprinter]

I think whatever happens the  should become full-time local to Lefferts while the  stays express full-time and is split-terminal between Rockaway Park and Far Rock, thus helping improve TPH in the Rockaways.

 

Just a thought, not trying to incite a war.

[JeremiahC99]

2 hours ago, ibroketheprinter said:

I think whatever happens the  should become full-time local to Lefferts while the  stays express full-time and is split-terminal between Rockaway Park and Far Rock, thus helping improve TPH in the Rockaways.

 

Just a thought, not trying to incite a war.

The heavily used Lefferts Blvd branch would not like a local service from Lefferts Blvd during the day. It would be too slow.

Ideally, the  should just alternate between Far Rockaway and Lefferts Blvd (the two branches with the highest ridership), while the  can go to the lesser-used Rockaway Park Branch to replace the Rockaway Pk shuttle and provide some service to Manhattan. Yes it may be too slow, but the amount of people impacted would not be high as some riders would end up taking the Q53+ to the Rockaway Blvd station for the .

[Wallyhorse]

3 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

The heavily used Lefferts Blvd branch would not like a local service from Lefferts Blvd during the day. It would be too slow.

Ideally, the  should just alternate between Far Rockaway and Lefferts Blvd (the two branches with the highest ridership), while the  can go to the lesser-used Rockaway Park Branch to replace the Rockaway Pk shuttle and provide some service to Manhattan. Yes it may be too slow, but the amount of people impacted would not be high as some riders would end up taking the Q53+ to the Rockaway Blvd station for the .

If you make the full-time to Lefferts with a limited amount of peak-direction service there as well while most 's are split 4-3 between Far Rockaway and Rockaway Park, that would work.  Maybe as part of this the becomes 24/7 and eliminates the late-night shuttle.  

[Lex]

3 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

The heavily used Lefferts Blvd branch would not like a local service from Lefferts Blvd during the day. It would be too slow.

The  is just barely slower by virtue of being a local.

If anything's likely to be too slow, it's the .

[R68OnBroadway]

Any  service to Lefferts when it is a Fulton local line is a disaster. You’d be introducing two more merges and screwing over Liberty Av riders.  The only way to regulate the  to two branches is to have a new Fulton local line to Euclid (  maybe) and then have the  run express to Lefferts while the  split RPK and Far Rockaway.

As for the  to RPK, that’s one of the worst ideas I have heard.

[Caelestor]

The maximum capacity solution is the  taking over the Fulton St local to Euclid,  to Rockaways, and  express to Lefferts. Then the  takes over the Bay Ridge branch and the  takes over the Culver local, allowing the  to run express.

Then build the QB bypass / 50 St crosstown, stopping at Woodhaven Blvd, Woodside, Sunnyside Yards, Court Sq, 2/3 Aves, Rockefeller Center, Broadway/8 Ave, and 10 Ave.

SAS from 72 St to Hanover Sq would have the biggest investment, but presumably it would link up with a new Northern Blvd line in Queens.

[KK 6 Ave Local]

I would rearrange Lower Manhattan to have the  serving Fulton Local. This can also be done with a second SAS Line.

[bobtehpanda]

On 4/12/2019 at 6:12 PM, Caelestor said:

The maximum capacity solution is the  taking over the Fulton St local to Euclid,  to Rockaways, and  express to Lefferts. Then the  takes over the Bay Ridge branch and the  takes over the Culver local, allowing the  to run express.

Then build the QB bypass / 50 St crosstown, stopping at Woodhaven Blvd, Woodside, Sunnyside Yards, Court Sq, 2/3 Aves, Rockefeller Center, Broadway/8 Ave, and 10 Ave.

SAS from 72 St to Hanover Sq would have the biggest investment, but presumably it would link up with a new Northern Blvd line in Queens.

IIRC,  instead of SAS Phase IV, there should be a 'Grand St swap' as follows:

• The Second Avenue Line (Let's say and ) takes over the existing  tracks at Grand St. A connection is built to Bowery  .
• The Sixth Avenue Express goes down Rutgers.  weekday local and weekday express, all other times local
• The Sixth Avenue Local either goes to Broadway and Myrtle ( ) or terminates at 2nd Av ( ). Long term, the can be extended to Kings Plaza via Williamsburg and Utica Av.

Upsides:

• Second Avenue no longer has shit connections to the rest of the system, since interchange with Broadway and the IRT is available at Atlantic. The current plan has no connections to either other than 125/Park.
• Second Avenue via the Bridge will be faster than the  via downtown, relieving the Lex
• Nassau gains an earlier transfer to an East Side line, relieving the Lex while cutting travel times.
• South Brooklyn gains a direct connection to the East Side
• Sixth Avenue has less conflicts; it will effectively separate Sixth Av Express from the BMT
• Culver Express is now doable while preserving the Ridgewood  
• The should probably become more reliable with a more segregated route

Downsides

• No longer serving Water St section of Financial District

Edited April 14, 2019 by bobtehpanda

[Lex]

19 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

• Second Avenue via the Bridge will be faster than the  via downtown, relieving the Lex

I love how the Bridge being (barely) faster is touted as an upside while conveniently ignoring that the bulk of the people using Lexington Avenue for service to Brooklyn are trying to go beyond Atlantic-Barclays. Also, failing to continue further south in Manhattan means that there won't be much of any relief for either route within Manhattan.

 

31 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

• Culver Express is now doable while preserving the Ridgewood  

You realize that you'd practically have to combine  and  headways just to match what the  has now, right? Also, that's putting all of South Brooklyn's Sixth Avenue service on a single, hard-to-reach corridor which will then require a transfer just to reach 14th Street (remember, we're talking about the one trunk that has trains regularly skip a major street that is served by all others on both sides).

42 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

IIRC,  instead of SAS Phase IV, there should be a 'Grand St swap' as follows:

• The Second Avenue Line (Let's say and ) takes over the existing  tracks at Grand St. A connection is built to Bowery  .
• The Sixth Avenue Express goes down Rutgers.  weekday local and weekday express, all other times local
• The Sixth Avenue Local either goes to Broadway and Myrtle ( ) or terminates at 2nd Av ( ). Long term, the can be extended to Kings Plaza via Williamsburg and Utica Av.

I'd like to see what you'd do about the other track connections. Is the plan to copy our DNA and go the double helix route just to turn trains?

Trying to have trains go down Utica Avenue via Williamsburg is possibly the most useless thing that can be done aside from connecting Utica Avenue to Eastern Parkway, as it would either have to awkwardly wind through there (with deep tunnels divorced from the grid) and serve none of the places people are trying to reach or travel under the Jamaica Line all the way to Reid Avenue.

[JeremiahC99]

On 4/12/2019 at 3:46 PM, R68OnBroadway said:

Any  service to Lefferts when it is a Fulton local line is a disaster. You’d be introducing two more merges and screwing over Liberty Av riders.  The only way to regulate the  to two branches is to have a new Fulton local line to Euclid (  maybe) and then have the  run express to Lefferts while the  split RPK and Far Rockaway.

As for the  to RPK, that’s one of the worst ideas I have heard.

Why is the  to the lightly used Rockaway Park the worst idea you heard? I feel it makes sense as the highly used Lefferts Blvd and Far Rockaway Branches can still have express service while the very few people who use the Rockaway Park Branch can have the local. It’s logical according to ridership numbers.

[Around the Horn]

8 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Why is the  to the lightly used Rockaway Park the worst idea you heard? I feel it makes sense as the highly used Lefferts Blvd and Far Rockaway Branches can still have express service while the very few people who use the Rockaway Park Branch can have the local. It’s logical according to ridership numbers.

There is a reason why the hasn't gone to the Rockaways since 1992 and that's because it makes the line way too long and unreliable.

[RR503]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

I love how the Bridge being (barely) faster is touted as an upside while conveniently ignoring that the bulk of the people using Lexington Avenue for service to Brooklyn are trying to go beyond Atlantic-Barclays. Also, failing to continue further south in Manhattan means that there won't be much of any relief for either route within Manhattan.

Today, with GT15s most of the way through Dekalb and a merge operation procedure that could make a boulder cry, the  beats the  to Union Square by 5 minutes. Dunno about you, but I think combining a thorough operational review of Dekalb junction with Bob's reroute would be able to deflect BMT south folks who transfer to the  at Barclays or USQ away from them...and you may even be able to pull people who today switch from the  to the  with the potentially massive time savings available by switching your transfer. 

Generally, the idea that SAS should go to Lower Manhattan rather than over the bridge is flawed. The core of Lex express (BG-125), current ops issues aside, is one of the fastest corridors in the system; barring massive investments in express tracks that would skip an equal number of Midtown stops as the Lex, there's no way that SAS could do more than less effectively duplicate the  in the Lower Manhattan market -- to say nothing of the fact that the chosen routing of SAS in Lower Manhattan sends it through the area that is most rapidly becoming residential. SAS is going to have to beat the Lex by doing something better than the Lex, not by duplicating it.

The obvious choices here are getting Queens a one seat ride to the East Side, and circumnavigating the Lex's dogleg through Lower Manhattan en route to Brooklyn. The former requires new tunnels; the latter is achievable the second you arrive at Chrystie (and hey, you get the Jamaica line real service in the process!). Dunno about you, but taking loads off the Lex in a productive manner, providing a real second service set in Williamsburg and rationalizing 6th Avenue routings all sound like good things to me. 

1 hour ago, Lex said:

You realize that you'd practically have to combine  and  headways just to match what the  has now, right? Also, that's putting all of South Brooklyn's Sixth Avenue service on a single, hard-to-reach corridor which will then require a transfer just to reach 14th Street (remember, we're talking about the one trunk that has trains regularly skip a major street that is served by all others on both sides).

The pairings should be as per Vanshnook's version of this plan -- 6th local to Rutgers, 6th express to Williamsburg -- for ease of construction, but otherwise this is completely sound. BMT South has access to Broadway here; that corridor is essentially 6th save for at W4 (which would be accessible to riders via transfer off of SAS trains at 2nd/Houston). 

I just want to emphasize as strongly as I possibly can the fact that current headways cannot be taken to be representative of potential capacity. The  and  run on tracks that have historically hosted 30 trains per hour; today's 20 is a function of Dekalb dysfunction and a lack of capacital imagination on the part of planners, not one of any real restriction. 

 

Edited April 14, 2019 by RR503

[JeremiahC99]

2 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

There is a reason why the hasn't gone to the Rockaways since 1992 and that's because it makes the line way too long and unreliable.

And even with speed increases the SPEED unit is doing, that won’t fix things?

And last time the  went to Rockaway, the northern end was Bedford Park Blvd on the Concourse Line. Now it’s at 168th Street. With the shorter trip time north of 145th Street to a northern terminal, why would a line from 168 to Rockaway Park be considered unreliable considering the 5 rush hour  trips make the exact same trip?

[bobtehpanda]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

I love how the Bridge being (barely) faster is touted as an upside while conveniently ignoring that the bulk of the people using Lexington Avenue for service to Brooklyn are trying to go beyond Atlantic-Barclays. Also, failing to continue further south in Manhattan means that there won't be much of any relief for either route within Manhattan.

Sure. A bunch of people are also trying to head to Midtown's East Side. Currently the  is the only way to do that. Second Avenue via the Bridge will provide a speed advantage that an otherwise all-stops train via Downtown wouldn't have. As opposed to a slog Downtown which might not even be faster than the  .

1 hour ago, Lex said:

You realize that you'd practically have to combine  and  headways just to match what the  has now, right? Also, that's putting all of South Brooklyn's Sixth Avenue service on a single, hard-to-reach corridor which will then require a transfer just to reach 14th Street (remember, we're talking about the one trunk that has trains regularly skip a major street that is served by all others on both sides).

A connection at Second Avenue to all Sixth Avenue trains isn't the end of the world, and neither is 4th Av - 9th Sts. People are not dying at Lex-59 due to the lack of interlining.

Sixth Avenue Express headways are low due to a combination of terminal issues and a need to maintain even headways at DeKalb. Remove the from DeKalb and you solve one problem; bad terminals are neither a total hindrance ( The runs fine headways despite Jamaica Center by using 179 as a terminal for select trains) or completely unchangeable (new South Ferry, various old projects to redo terminals like Flatbush that were planned for but never completed)

1 hour ago, Lex said:

I'd like to see what you'd do about the other track connections. Is the plan to copy our DNA and go the double helix route just to turn trains?

The can turn there today as the did. If you want you can add a crossover at the other end of the middle tracks.

The subway is no stranger to reconfiguring junctions; we built the Chrystie St Connection, didn't we?

1 hour ago, Lex said:

Trying to have trains go down Utica Avenue via Williamsburg is possibly the most useless thing that can be done aside from connecting Utica Avenue to Eastern Parkway, as it would either have to awkwardly wind through there (with deep tunnels divorced from the grid) and serve none of the places people are trying to reach or travel under the Jamaica Line all the way to Reid Avenue.

What's with the attachment to the street grid? You have to go deep under the East River anyways. No one is dying at Roosevelt Island or Lex-63/Lex-53/Grand Central because the stations are deep. There's an entire Russian capital out there that is all deep stations. Make a stop at Myrtle Av and a stop at Lorimer-Metropolitan and help relieve the  . 

If Williamsburg to Kings Plaza via Utica is so useless, then explain why the B46 is the third busiest bus route in the city. At 5300 riders per mile, it would have the second highest daily boardings per mile of any light rail system in the US. And that's dividing over the length of the local and the express. We're railstituting the M15, so what's so bad about the B46, the next obvious candidate on the list? (Yes, the Bx12 has higher ridership, but building a subway line on Fordham Road and Pelham Pkwy wouldn't really be feasible as a separate line.)

Not to mention that this is not exactly a new proposal:

It just seems like you have some weird hate boner for Utica.

[MysteriousBtrain]

49 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

And even with speed increases the SPEED unit is doing, that won’t fix things?

And last time the  went to Rockaway, the northern end was Bedford Park Blvd on the Concourse Line. Now it’s at 168th Street. With the shorter trip time north of 145th Street to a northern terminal, why would a line from 168 to Rockaway Park be considered unreliable considering the 5 rush hour  trips make the exact same trip?

There's a pattern I see in your posts. And I'll address it with the following:

Longer routes≠better service

 

Also no matter how similar:

≠

Edited April 14, 2019 by MysteriousBtrain

[Harlem Crosstown]

If we de-interlined CPW, 8th, and Fulton then the  just becomes a truncated  line.

[Harlem Crosstown]

Just now, Harlem Crosstown said:

If we de-interlined CPW, 8th, and Fulton then the  just becomes a truncated  line.

Following up to this, if  trains run local and  express you get a lot of interlining but the  still gets to be a separate service.

[Around the Horn]

4 hours ago, Harlem Crosstown said:

If we de-interlined CPW, 8th, and Fulton then the  just becomes a truncated  line.

As if that's a problem... Extend the  to Lefferts under that scenario and then the  can focus on the Rockaways.

4 hours ago, Harlem Crosstown said:

Following up to this, if  trains run local and  express you get a lot of interlining but the  still gets to be a separate service.

I don't understand why having the  be a "separate service" should be a consideration during the planning process.

[Q Broadway Express]

On 4/12/2019 at 12:46 PM, R68OnBroadway said:

Any  service to Lefferts when it is a Fulton local line is a disaster. You’d be introducing two more merges and screwing over Liberty Av riders.  The only way to regulate the  to two branches is to have a new Fulton local line to Euclid (  maybe) and then have the  run express to Lefferts while the  split RPK and Far Rockaway.

As for the  to RPK, that’s one of the worst ideas I have heard.

The used to run to Rockaway Park.

[Lex]

2 hours ago, Q Broadway Express said:

The used to run to Rockaway Park.

Yes, yes it did. And it was a horrible decision.