Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[JeremiahC99]

23 minutes ago, CenSin said:

That’s partly the problem. But even routes that are independent have delays as a function of length/station stops.

Well for some routes, there could be some improvements with deinterlining, such as on the Broadway Line.

However, deinterling is only one part of the solution for the delays. What is recommended is speed increases, timer re-calibration on all tracks, aggressive CBTC installations, as well as some station closures and consolidations if possible. There could be more solutions as well, but the problem needs to be attacked at all angles.

Edited July 19, 2020 by JeremiahC99

[Bay Ridge Express]

26 minutes ago, CenSin said:

I was reading the LGA Access Improvement Project documents and came across this proposal:

It’s interesting, but if this had any remote chance of being built as proposed, it would essentially turn the 36 Street local tracks into another bottleneck for Queens Boulevard. The split should—instead—start as far west as Court Square as an extension of the to a lower level of Queens Plaza, thereby avoiding any reduction in Queens Boulevard capacity. The dead-ends at Court Square anyway, so with a connection to the at Queens Plaza, this would—at the very least—make it more useful to ordinary passengers.

Or just let the  do their thing... this is basically the same proposal but on Steinway instead of 31. Also, extending the  could increase terminal capacity and there wouldn't be any bottlenecks. Plus, more people would be willing to ride the Broadway line than the  especially if you're going to have airport connectivity.

[Armandito]

1 hour ago, Bay Ridge Express said:

For the  in the Bronx, instead of going by Morris Av, I would go by 3 Av for transfers for both the  and , then Melrose Av and Park Av from there.

I planned to provide a free walking transfer to the at 149th and Concourse at the planned stop on Morris. You still think moving the line further east to Third would work out better?

[CenSin]

1 hour ago, Bay Ridge Express said:

1 hour ago, CenSin said:

I was reading the LGA Access Improvement Project documents and came across this proposal:

It’s interesting, but if this had any remote chance of being built as proposed, it would essentially turn the 36 Street local tracks into another bottleneck for Queens Boulevard. The split should—instead—start as far west as Court Square as an extension of the to a lower level of Queens Plaza, thereby avoiding any reduction in Queens Boulevard capacity. The dead-ends at Court Square anyway, so with a connection to the at Queens Plaza, this would—at the very least—make it more useful to ordinary passengers.

Or just let the  do their thing... this is basically the same proposal but on Steinway instead of 31. Also, extending the  could increase terminal capacity and there wouldn't be any bottlenecks. Plus, more people would be willing to ride the Broadway line than the  especially if you're going to have airport connectivity.

The Astoria Line extension has a single distinct disadvantage compared to the : it requires all airport passengers to go through all the residential station stops in Astoria sharing space with those passengers. The first available opportunity to relieve itself of airport passengers is at Queensboro Plaza (), and the second at Lexington Avenue–59 Street ().

The going to Queens Plaza directly from the airport can pretty much segregate away 100% of its capacity for airport passengers. At Queens Plaza, it can relieve itself of all of those passengers among 2 East River crossings (or 3 if a transfer passageway is built to connect to Queensboro Plaza). That’s not to say the extension will be exclusively for airport use, but it will be designed that way for better distribution of passengers.

I’m reminded of this bed-of-nails science experiment as I write this:

The analogy is kind of a stretch (no pun intended), but I think you can see what I’m getting at.

That said, the Astoria Line extension option still has an advantage that dwarfs everything else: the one-seat ride to/from all of the most trafficked stations in the system including Times Square (#1), Herald Square (#3), Union Square (#4), Lexington Avenue–59 Street (#14), Canal Street (#17), and Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center (#19).

7 minutes ago, Armandito said:

1 hour ago, Bay Ridge Express said:

For the  in the Bronx, instead of going by Morris Av, I would go by 3 Av for transfers for both the  and , then Melrose Av and Park Av from there.

I planned to provide a free walking transfer to the at 149th and Concourse at the planned stop on Morris. You still think moving the line further east to Third would work out better?

A transfer all the way across to Grand Concourse is probably unnecessary. Anyone who needs a Woodlawn-2 Avenue trip would transfer to/from the at 125 Street. The would cover all the other cases at different stations along 3 Avenue.

Edited July 20, 2020 by CenSin

[Armandito]

31 minutes ago, CenSin said:

A transfer all the way across to Grand Concourse is probably unnecessary. Anyone who needs a Woodlawn-2 Avenue trip would transfer to/from the at 125 Street. The would cover all the other cases at different stations along 3 Avenue.

Any disadvantages with routing it along either Webster or Park Avenue?

[CenSin]

26 minutes ago, Armandito said:

Any disadvantages with routing it along either Webster or Park Avenue?

I would defer an opinion on that to people who actually live in the Bronx. But south of Fordham Road, it’s apparent that all the subway lines would be spaced out more evenly with a 3 Avenue alignment rather than a Webster Avenue alignment.

[Armandito]

1 hour ago, CenSin said:

I would defer an opinion on that to people who actually live in the Bronx. But south of Fordham Road, it’s apparent that all the subway lines would be spaced out more evenly with a 3 Avenue alignment rather than a Webster Avenue alignment.

Too bad the old El was demolished back in '73. If the MTA was more willing to invest in refurbishing the El to accommodate heavier cars and longer trains, it would've been hugely beneficial for Bronxites living along the corridor. Rather than waiting on the SAS to get built, a smarter idea would've been to connect it to the Lexington Avenue Line at Third Avenue-138th Street and have the (8) train operate as a local alongside the (6). One chief disadvantage, however, would be eliminating express service along the Pelham Line to allow for more frequent service along the local stations so track capacity on Lex could be shared with the (8).

Edited July 20, 2020 by Armandito

[JeremiahC99]

41 minutes ago, Armandito said:

Any disadvantages with routing it along either Webster or Park Avenue?

Both are duplicated heavily by the Metro North Harlem Line, and I don’t know about you but there is opportunity to use the existing line to bring transit service in the area. Currently, the Harlem Line stops at Melrose at 162nd Street, Tremont at Tremont Avenue, Fordham at Fordham Road, Botanical Gardens at Bedford Park Blvd, Willaiamsbridge at Gun Hill Road, Woodlawn at 233rd Street, and Wakefield at 241st Street. There are some neighborhoods that are bypassed at all due to no station there and others see paltry headways. Perhaps if stations were build in Morrisania at 168th Street, Claremont at Claremont Pkwy, Belmont at either East 180th or 183rd Street, and Norwood at 204th Street (all holding 8-car trains), rearrange Harlem Line service so that there would be a local train service between Mount Vernon West and Grand Central (making all stops while service to Westchester and beyond would go express to Mount Vernon West (as is the case sometimes), and even lower the Metro North fare within the city limits to $2.75, you could have expanded service within the 3rd/Webster Avenue corridor all for a fraction of the cost of building a new subway line. The Bronx Metro North stations could see increased service.

 

Meanwhile, an ideal Bronx subway Line for SAS  service should be along Prospect and Crotona Avenues. The corridor is service by the Bx17 bus and is currently has no nearby subway service (at least on the northern end). Having the SAS routed via Crotona Avenue could help bring better access to the Bronx Zoo and even to the Little Italy neighborhood as a whole.

[Lex]

20 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Meanwhile, an ideal Bronx subway Line for SAS  service should be along Prospect and Crotona Avenues. The corridor is service by the Bx17 bus and is currently has no nearby subway service (at least on the northern end). Having the SAS routed via Crotona Avenue could help bring better access to the Bronx Zoo and even to the Little Italy neighborhood as a whole.

You need to go well out of the way for that.

Any Prospect/Crotona subway proposal is better spent as part of a  realignment via 21st Street.

[JeremiahC99]

10 minutes ago, Lex said:

You need to go well out of the way for that.

Any Prospect/Crotona subway proposal is better spent as part of a  realignment via 21st Street.

Yeah you're right. Though I wasn't intending for the line to serve Fordham Plaza. Rather, what I was intending for this line is past Fordham Road, the line would curve under the Bronx Park to Allerton Avenue, then go northeast along Boston Road to Dyre Avenue. The Dyre Avenue Branch of the  train could then be abandoned and all  service would've been rerouted to the White Plains Road Line.

However, the problem I see with this plan (and frankly any plan to extend the SAS to the Bronx) is that the line would be two tracks, whereas the Dyre Avenue Line has two tracks and feeds into the three track White Plains Line, and in the peak, the  provides peak-direction express service. This could inhibit the ability for the line to take people off the Dyre Avenue  train, let alone replace it. Now if the whole SAS were built with 4 tracks, we could potentially have a 4 track Crotona Line with bi directional and all day express service south of Fordham, but we do not have that.

And the lack of express tracks on the upper SAS is why I feel that any SAS Bronx expansions should be scrapped until we can find a way to fit another two tracks on the SAS, because without those express tracks, the upper SAS feels more like a branch instead of a trunk, and the Bronx extensions could be impractical (especially since there are other areas of the borough the SAS can serve alongside the southern part of the borough). Only after we ad those two extra tracks can we consider Bronx SAS service, but maybe that's just me.

[EvilMonologue]

4 hours ago, CenSin said:

I was reading the LGA Access Improvement Project documents and came across this proposal:

It’s interesting, but if this had any remote chance of being built as proposed, it would essentially turn the 36 Street local tracks into another bottleneck for Queens Boulevard. The split should—instead—start as far west as Court Square as an extension of the to a lower level of Queens Plaza, thereby avoiding any reduction in Queens Boulevard capacity. The dead-ends at Court Square anyway, so with a connection to the at Queens Plaza, this would—at the very least—make it more useful to ordinary passengers.

Idk if you just were talking about the route initially being an extension of the  but I'd point out that a subway connecting to LGA should go to Manhattan since that's where most people flying in would want to go. That being said a transfer would not be the end of the world, though if you are catering to air passengers, having a multi-level transfer with luggage would likely be a pain. That being said, it is an interesting proposal for sure.

Edited July 20, 2020 by EvilMonologue

[Bay Ridge Express]

3 hours ago, CenSin said:

The Astoria Line extension has a single distinct disadvantage compared to the : it requires all airport passengers to go through all the residential station stops in Astoria sharing space with those passengers. The first available opportunity to relieve itself of airport passengers is at Queensboro Plaza (), and the second at Lexington Avenue–59 Street ().

The going to Queens Plaza directly from the airport can pretty much segregate away 100% of its capacity for airport passengers. At Queens Plaza, it can relieve itself of all of those passengers among 2 East River crossings (or 3 if a transfer passageway is built to connect to Queensboro Plaza). That’s not to say the extension will be exclusively for airport use, but it will be designed that way for better distribution of passengers.

I understand your point, but even so, why should it be the ? You'd essentially be forcing transfers with that proposal. Hypothetically, such a route should be part of a Manhattan trunk line. There's currently not really good options for this, but I have multiple ideas:

 Yes, you might have to share local ridership along 31, but maybe you could also have some sort of peak express pattern (using the center track) which would work for direct service to/from the airport, stopping in Queens only at Ditmars Blvd, Astoria Blvd, and Queensboro Plaza. Also, like you said, Broadway covers most of the bases in terms of most popular stations.

 (or some other 2 Av service that runs south of 55 St) could go via the 63 St Line and then connect to the proposed route. Downsides: not really helpful for people that have to go to the west side, takes away capacity from the .

A New Crosstown line (34 St, maybe?): Would connect with all most Manhattan trunk lines () and would be a short and fully deinterlined route cutting through LIC. The downside is that it would probably be expensive, and would still essentially force transfers for anyone looking to go north/south of 34 St like how the  would.

Let's take a look at the  option, too: connectivity to the , potentially also ? These are pretty good, covers the bases of Manhattan with services on 8 Av, 6 Av, 42 St, and Broadway. However, it would also be better if the route was an extension of one of those services...

Edited July 20, 2020 by Bay Ridge Express

[bobtehpanda]

5 hours ago, CenSin said:

The Astoria Line extension has a single distinct disadvantage compared to the : it requires all airport passengers to go through all the residential station stops in Astoria sharing space with those passengers. The first available opportunity to relieve itself of airport passengers is at Queensboro Plaza (), and the second at Lexington Avenue–59 Street ().

The going to Queens Plaza directly from the airport can pretty much segregate away 100% of its capacity for airport passengers. At Queens Plaza, it can relieve itself of all of those passengers among 2 East River crossings (or 3 if a transfer passageway is built to connect to Queensboro Plaza). That’s not to say the extension will be exclusively for airport use, but it will be designed that way for better distribution of passengers.

 

I don't really buy this.

The problem you're describing for the Astoria Line is only really a problem to the airport. From the airport, LGA would be the first stop, so this is not really a problem since there will be an empty train for airport passengers. Ideally an Astoria Line extension would also head to Flushing and maybe that'd be a problem then, but given current MTA finances that probably would not happen until 2250 at this point.

The might actually be worse, because at Queens Plaza you have the and the  , which are fairly packed in their own right coming into Queens Plaza. A connection at QBP wouldn't help matters, because the and aren't much better off. And not to mention people coming off the would also be fighting for space not only from people already on the train, but from the increasingly high-density residential towers that are sprouting like weeds in LIC.

[Union Tpke]

11 hours ago, CenSin said:

The Astoria Line extension has a single distinct disadvantage compared to the : it requires all airport passengers to go through all the residential station stops in Astoria sharing space with those passengers. The first available opportunity to relieve itself of airport passengers is at Queensboro Plaza (), and the second at Lexington Avenue–59 Street ().

 

All the studies that have looked at that extension have presumed that airport trains would run express on the Astoria Line.

[Lex]

37 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

All the studies that have looked at that extension have presumed that airport trains would run express on the Astoria Line.

Honestly, the time saved from running express trains to/from the airport wouldn't be worth it. It fails to adequately capture non-airport ridership and would be limited by having a single track for express service. That's also failing to address the lack of adequate places to turn trains even with the extension...

[Bay Ridge Express]

2 hours ago, Union Tpke said:

All the studies that have looked at that extension have presumed that airport trains would run express on the Astoria Line.

 

1 hour ago, Lex said:

Honestly, the time saved from running express trains to/from the airport wouldn't be worth it. It fails to adequately capture non-airport ridership and would be limited by having a single track for express service. That's also failing to address the lack of adequate places to turn trains even with the extension...

There's only one express track, but I think some sort of peak express service pattern on the  could work.

[CenSin]

10 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

The might actually be worse, because at Queens Plaza you have the and the  , which are fairly packed in their own right coming into Queens Plaza. A connection at QBP wouldn't help matters, because the and aren't much better off. And not to mention people coming off the would also be fighting for space not only from people already on the train, but from the increasingly high-density residential towers that are sprouting like weeds in LIC.

That’s a reasonable point. I’ve ridden all of the trains in that area regularly during rush hours. The packing is literally like sardines in a can—bodies squished together into one mass.

[bobtehpanda]

4 hours ago, Lex said:

Honestly, the time saved from running express trains to/from the airport wouldn't be worth it. It fails to adequately capture non-airport ridership and would be limited by having a single track for express service. That's also failing to address the lack of adequate places to turn trains even with the extension...

The modern two-track terminals at Hudson Yards and 96 St are more than capable of turning around >30TPH, no? Or are you talking about the southern end?

[Lex]

3 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

The modern two-track terminals at Hudson Yards and 96 St are more than capable of turning around >30TPH, no? Or are you talking about the southern end?

That's under the assumption that, for whatever reason, only express trains serve the airport. Otherwise, the point is moot.

[CenSin]

• via 53 Street, Queens Boulevard express to Jamaica
• to Court Square
• via 63 Street, Queens Boulevard local to Forest Hills
• via 60 Street, Queens Boulevard local to LaGuardia Airport
• via 60 Street, Queens Boulevard local to Forest Hills ❓

[shiznit1987]

For those proposing the  to Fulton Street, how would it get there? Would it tie into the Rutgers St tubes and share the , then switch at Jay? 

Also, If the  does make it to Fulton, does that clear the way for an IND extension down Utica? 

 

[JeremiahC99]

7 minutes ago, shiznit1987 said:

For those proposing the  to Fulton Street, how would it get there? Would it tie into the Rutgers St tubes and share the , then switch at Jay? 

Also, If the  does make it to Fulton, does that clear the way for an IND extension down Utica? 

 

Phase 4 of the SAS has provisions for service to Brooklyn that can be used for this purpose. After the Hanover Square station stop, the tunnel curves at the traffic island near Peter Minuit Plaza and goes under the East River to Brooklyn. It then would enter Brooklyn at along Remsen Street, and curve Southeast towards the Court Street stop (present location of the museum), and it would then go to the outer tracks and platforms at Hoyt-Schermerhorn. From there,  service would continue to Euclid Avenue. The map below has something similar: 

 

The IND Utica Avenue Subway is a separate issue, though the map I linked shows it as part of an South 4th Street Subway network, which replaces the Jamaica Elevated. Replacement of the elevated line with this should be considered in the long run, though IMO, a Utica Avenue Line would be better served by the IRT.

[LGA Link N Train]

2 hours ago, CenSin said:

• via 53 Street, Queens Boulevard express to Jamaica
• to Court Square
• via 63 Street, Queens Boulevard local to Forest Hills
• via 60 Street, Queens Boulevard local to LaGuardia Airport
• via 60 Street, Queens Boulevard local to Forest Hills ❓

So Once it’s under Steinway Street, would the line straight up bypass Steinway Street and go to LGA? 
 

This is an interesting alternative, but it’d be nice if a Stop or 2 were made on Steinway Street to serve the commercial areas around it.

[Union Tpke]

Adding another branch is not what we need to be doing and limits capacity.

[bobtehpanda]

3 hours ago, CenSin said:

• via 53 Street, Queens Boulevard express to Jamaica
• to Court Square
• via 63 Street, Queens Boulevard local to Forest Hills
• via 60 Street, Queens Boulevard local to LaGuardia Airport
• via 60 Street, Queens Boulevard local to Forest Hills ❓

What does Astoria get if there are two 60th St services down the 11th St connection?

TBH the QBL is already doing too much as is.

2 hours ago, shiznit1987 said:

For those proposing the  to Fulton Street, how would it get there? Would it tie into the Rutgers St tubes and share the , then switch at Jay? 

Also, If the  does make it to Fulton, does that clear the way for an IND extension down Utica? 

No. The Utica provisions at Fulton are directly perpendicular to the existing station.

A more likely scenario for SAS to Utica would be to use the storage tracks between 9-21 Sts to turn off east towards Williamsburg before turning southeast towards Myrtle Av and going under Stuyvesant Av.