Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[R10 2952]

14 minutes ago, Armandito said:

The will forever remain a Sixth Avenue service given its popularity with Ridgewood commuters who already benefit from a one-seat ride to Midtown.

Well, I don't know about that.  Granted, the  along West End carried air and was mostly useless as a rush hour supplement to the  post-1995, and the MTA should certainly be trying to avoid zero-chance service patterns that don't generate sufficient ridership.

There is also another side to that coin, though; a route becoming a victim of it's own success/popularity- the M and the R in their current incarnations are direct examples of this.  There has to be a reasonable balance.  You don't want empty trains, but you don't want crush-loaded ones, either.  There is something to be said for relief/supplemental lines like the  and ..  

Edited August 3, 2020 by R10 2952

[Armandito]

11 minutes ago, R10 2952 said:

There is something to be said for relief/supplemental lines like the  and ..  

What other busy subway lines could benefit from supplemental services, too?

[Caelestor]

The Astoria-Bay Ridge line is compromised by

• The Astoria terminal can only turn 15 tph
  • Solution: Extend the line to LGA, or turn some trains at Astoria Blvd or Queensboro Plaza
• The Bay Ridge terminal can "supposedly" only turn 10 tph, but I believe it's much higher than that
  • Solution: Fix the terminal or extend the line to Staten Island
• The City Hall curve can only support 20 tph
  • Solution: Better signaling is required

I think 20 tph between Bay Ridge and Astoria is probably adequate, in conjunction with improvements such as open gangways.

3 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Here's an interesting idea: a two-track, more aggressively spaced stop spacing Jamaica Line (think IND or SAS style stop spacing:)

Really great proposal - continues the Jamaica Line down Fulton St for a better walkshed before merging back with the original Jamaica Ave tracks. I think it's okay to keep the existing stops between Myrtle Ave and Broadway Junction, Cleveland St, and Forest Parkway, but turning the  more like the  is pretty good.

[LGA Link N Train]

3 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

 

If you don't have a full four tracks, both skip stop and a three-track express cut frequencies in half at less used stations.

Modern subways today (e.g. Beijing, Shanghai, etc.) realize this and mostly use two-tracks with wider stop spacing, because while people may have to walk a bit farther they get double the frequency, and people not getting off at those stations get faster trips.

ooo, this peaked my interest. Is there a study or source where I can look into or no?

Quote

Flying junction is assumed.

Alright, Personally, I'd at least preserve the 3rd track between Broadway Junction and Marcy Avenue in case anything falls to s**t

Quote

Population density along the eastern segment of the Jamaica Line is not very high, so they don't have a massive need for stops. And those streets are the ones that have perpendicular buses on them.

Pretty much all the stations that have been consolidated on this stretch are in the bottom quarter of ridership.

Oh yea, the Q24 and Q56 are nearby. I'm not so keen on the idea of not having any subway stops between Broadway Junction and Crescent Street but I know what you mean. I also noticed in your map that you rerouted the Jamaica line to.....  75th Street? That's pretty interesting, the hasn't proposed that since 1988

Edited August 3, 2020 by LaGuardia Link N Tra

[R10 2952]

@Armandito Well the  certainly benefited from the  shadowing it as a local from Forest Hills to the Lower East Side, the  benefits from the  offloading some of the crush between Franklin Ave and 149th St... same story with the  providing relief for the  and .  These secondary services all exist for good reason.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

2 hours ago, R10 2952 said:

Regarding the whole / thing, I may have mentioned this before, but 36th Street Yard is supposed to become a revenue yard in the long term.  I'm assuming it would essentially be a satellite yard to Coney Island, but either way it would probably allow for shortening the route- 95th to Ditmars, 71st to Whitehall (I guess the only question would be which route gets which letter).

The Whitehall bottleneck would still be an issue; only practical solutions I see to that would either be have trains terminate at City Hall's lower level, or have the  run to 95th...

 

You might have. I’ve mentioned it in this thread and the split  train thread. And they certainly did have long-term plans to do it as part of the full-build SAS. But they needn’t have to build a full SAS to convert 36th to a revenue storage yard. It can still be a revenue yard for the . Since the  is 24/7 in Brooklyn and not Queens, its home base should be in Brooklyn and not Queens.

4 hours ago, Around the Horn said:

Man, reading that thread now is a trip... lol

It sure is. A real shame nothing came of it, though.

4 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Here's an interesting idea: a two-track, more aggressively spaced stop spacing Jamaica Line (think IND or SAS style stop spacing:)

<map>

I like it very much. Would be great to have a  line that continues past Jamaica into Hollis. At first, I was like, “Wait! Where does Rockaway Blvd intersect with Jamaica Avenue?” Then I realized you’d be continuing the el further east on Fulton to stop at Rockaway. Though I’d keep 85th St and because of the business area, and possibly one of the stations between Crescent and Bway Jct, most likely Cleveland St.

1 hour ago, Caelestor said:

The Astoria-Bay Ridge line is compromised by

• The Astoria terminal can only turn 15 tph
  • Solution: Extend the line to LGA, or turn some trains at Astoria Blvd or Queensboro Plaza
• The Bay Ridge terminal can "supposedly" only turn 10 tph, but I believe it's much higher than that
  • Solution: Fix the terminal or extend the line to Staten Island
• The City Hall curve can only support 20 tph
  • Solution: Better signaling is required

I think 20 tph between Bay Ridge and Astoria is probably adequate, in conjunction with improvements such as open gangways.

Really great proposal - continues the Jamaica Line down Fulton St for a better walkshed before merging back with the original Jamaica Ave tracks. I think it's okay to keep the existing stops between Myrtle Ave and Broadway Junction, Cleveland St, and Forest Parkway, but turning the  more like the  is pretty good.

Agreed 75th-Elderts Lane and Cypress Hills have  a lot of cemetery in their walkshed, which depresses ridership at those stations. The  might get better ridership with fewer and better located stations. 

For Astoria, it’s always surprised me that it can only turn 15 tph, given that other stub terminals can turn more than that. Either redo the switches or configure Astoria Blvd to turn whatever Ditmars can’t. Or yes, break down the silos, tell whatever NIMBY’s are still on 31st Street that it’s not 1995 anymore and extend to LGA. Likewise for Bay Ridge, add switches that would allow trains to terminate at 86th St and reverse on the pocket track in between 86th and 95th.

[Armandito]

45 minutes ago, R10 2952 said:

@Armandito Well the  certainly benefited from the  shadowing it as a local from Forest Hills to the Lower East Side, the  benefits from the  offloading some of the crush between Franklin Ave and 149th St... same story with the  providing relief for the  and .  These secondary services all exist for good reason.

The could also benefit from a secondary service, too--especially since it had the fastest-growing ridership in recent years. For that I proposed a new (X) line from Court Square to Brighton Beach via the Franklin Avenue and Brighton Lines (making all local stops) a week back. It would make all stops to Bedford-Nostrand before branching out to Franklin and connecting to the at Prospect Park.

[bobtehpanda]

1 hour ago, LaGuardia Link N Tra said:

ooo, this peaked my interest. Is there a study or source where I can look into or no?

Alright, Personally, I'd at least preserve the 3rd track between Broadway Junction and Marcy Avenue in case anything falls to s**t

Oh yea, the Q24 and Q56 are nearby. I'm not so keen on the idea of not having any subway stops between Broadway Junction and Crescent Street but I know what you mean. I also noticed in your map that you rerouted the Jamaica line to.....  75th Street? That's pretty interesting, the hasn't proposed that since 1988

Source on the Chicago study (they ended up going with just redoing the four tracks)

One thing to consider with two vs three tracks is that a two track el takes up less space than three, and a two-track station is significantly simpler than a two-platform three track one.

Think about it this way; when 1/9 skip-stop was eliminated, former skipped stations got their train frequency doubled overnight. Similarly, if you look at the schedule  local stations actually get more service in the reverse peak than the peak direction, because all the trains are using the local track.

I swung it over to 75th partially because of the walkshed, and partially because 75th/Rockaway/91st is a massive six way intersection that doesn't have anything on the corners of the triangle formed by the streets, so you could build a much wider curve than the one that currently exists. (The north end of the jog would still be a problem though.)

[mrsman]

7 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Source on the Chicago study (they ended up going with just redoing the four tracks)

One thing to consider with two vs three tracks is that a two track el takes up less space than three, and a two-track station is significantly simpler than a two-platform three track one.

Think about it this way; when 1/9 skip-stop was eliminated, former skipped stations got their train frequency doubled overnight. Similarly, if you look at the schedule  local stations actually get more service in the reverse peak than the peak direction, because all the trains are using the local track.

I swung it over to 75th partially because of the walkshed, and partially because 75th/Rockaway/91st is a massive six way intersection that doesn't have anything on the corners of the triangle formed by the streets, so you could build a much wider curve than the one that currently exists. (The north end of the jog would still be a problem though.)

I also like your plan for the Jamaica el.  Consistent service without skip stop.  Well spaced lines.  More frequency and fewer stops and thus better overall reliability.  

Better transfers with stops at Williamsburg Bridge bus plaza and Union Ave for  

The line is so old they might as well make these types of changes in a full rebuild.  It can work.

[Armandito]

11 minutes ago, mrsman said:

Better transfers with stops at Williamsburg Bridge bus plaza and Union Ave for  

Indeed. The always gets the leftovers of MTA money just because it doesn't serve Manhattan. If Livonia and Junius are finally getting a new transfer, why can't the and  get their own? That's messed up...

They say they lose fare revenue from free transfers but I don't see the impact being so big as to be a drain on coffers. Just another lame excuse to neglect the Crosstown Line despite having so much potential...

[Union Tpke]

12 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Can the whole train segment from Whitehall to 95th accommodate 24-30 trains per hour or is it capped at a certain level? There could be a potential to bring more than 15-20 trains per hour down there.

The Broadway Line south of City Hall is capped at 21 TPH due to the curve. Whitehall terminal is capped at 15 TPH. Montague is good for 30 TPH with Nassau trains in the mix.

[Armandito]

Just now, Union Tpke said:

The Broadway Line south of City Hall is capped at 21 TPH due to the curve. Whitehall terminal is capped at 15 TPH. Montague is good for 30 TPH with Nassau trains in the mix.

Seems like we could help out the with a new Nassau Street service to Bay Ridge. As in something that could replicate the brown <R>.

[mrsman]

37 minutes ago, Armandito said:

Seems like we could help out the with a new Nassau Street service to Bay Ridge. As in something that could replicate the brown <R>.

Yes, something like that can work.  Extra  trains from Bay Ridge to Chambers.  The fact that no longer serves Nassau Street should make it easier to run a train like this.  I think reinstituting the bankers' special is far better than having a super long  from Jamaica to Bay Ridge.

I think we have to realize that the  in Brooklyn has certain roles.  It serves as a local "shuttle" for most passengers.  If they board in Bay Ridge or along the 4th Ave local, the vast majority of passengers will transfer to  trains at the earliest opportunity to make the trip to most of Manhattan that much quicker.  For those passengers, they want a reliable , not so much a fast   and certainly not a long .  Nobody will stay on the  so long even if their ultimate destination is a midtown local stop or Queens.  This explains why a Brooklyn only  worked for so many passeengers during the Montague tunnel closure.

Passengers boarding the  in northern Brooklyn, are likely headed into Lower Manhattan, and the ability of serving both Church street and  Nassau steet should be helpful.  THe Montague tunnel serves all of the southern BMT as their connection to Lower Manhattan with their transfer to , regardless of which of the CI lines they start from.  The more trains through the Montague tunnel the better, and if is limited by City Hall extra runs from Brooklyn should go to Chanmbers, not Whitehall.

[R10 2952]

On a side note, I'm surprised we have a yellow RR bullet here on the site, but we don't have the brown R diamond...

[F O O L]

5 hours ago, mrsman said:

I also like your plan for the Jamaica el.  Consistent service without skip stop.  Well spaced lines.  More frequency and fewer stops and thus better overall reliability.  

Better transfers with stops at Williamsburg Bridge bus plaza and Union Ave for  

The line is so old they might as well make these types of changes in a full rebuild.  It can work.

I am very much in support for a plan like this and a full rebuild like you mentioned but what would be the best way to do a rebuild tho? Do it in sections with shuttle buses to replace the gap?

[Armandito]

24 minutes ago, F O O L said:

I am very much in support for a plan like this and a full rebuild like you mentioned but what would be the best way to do a rebuild tho? Do it in sections with shuttle buses to replace the gap?

Better yet, remove the infamous S-curve between Cypress and Crescent and reroute the entire segment along Fulton Street via Jamaica Avenue.

[F O O L]

38 minutes ago, Armandito said:

Better yet, remove the infamous S-curve between Cypress and Crescent and reroute the entire segment along Fulton Street via Jamaica Avenue.

And to keep with the theme of spacing out stops, i think there should be two stops on this new jamaica elevated: Arlington Avenue and Cypress Hills - Highland Blvd (current cypress hills station renamed to crescent street since highland blvd is closer to central cypress hills making it a more logical name)

Edited August 3, 2020 by F O O L

[Bklyn Bound 2 Local]

What about rebuilding the Smith- 9 Sts Station? SInce the MTA is working to bring accessibility to the subway, that would be hard and expensive for a station elevated 70 feet in the air.

[bobtehpanda]

1 hour ago, Armandito said:

Better yet, remove the infamous S-curve between Cypress and Crescent and reroute the entire segment along Fulton Street via Jamaica Avenue.

And serve a bunch of dead people? That'll be great for ridership.

1 hour ago, F O O L said:

I am very much in support for a plan like this and a full rebuild like you mentioned but what would be the best way to do a rebuild tho? Do it in sections with shuttle buses to replace the gap?

Only way to do it.

MTA was on the right path with FasTrack. New Yorkers need to get less allergic to shorter but more painful construction works, because at the current rate our system will never be in a state of good repair.

[JeremiahC99]

45 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

And serve a bunch of dead people? That'll be great for ridership.

Jamaica Avenue is only one to three blocks from Fulton Street so nothing is lost there.

Another alternative is the Q24 bus on Atlantic Avenue as well so folks have an option to either walk to Jamaica Avenue for the new subway or take the existing Q24 bus  on Atlantic to catch the train at Broadway Junction.

Edited August 3, 2020 by JeremiahC99

[CenSin]

1 hour ago, bobtehpanda said:

2 hours ago, Armandito said:

Better yet, remove the infamous S-curve between Cypress and Crescent and reroute the entire segment along Fulton Street via Jamaica Avenue.

And serve a bunch of dead people? That'll be great for ridership.

C’m on! Think of all the weeping widows it’d serve!

[bobtehpanda]

1 hour ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Jamaica Avenue is only one to three blocks from Fulton Street so nothing is lost there.

Another alternative is the Q24 bus on Atlantic Avenue as well so folks have an option to either walk to Jamaica Avenue for the new subway or take the existing Q24 bus  on Atlantic to catch the train at Broadway Junction.

If you move the line, you're going to lose some people on the edge of the current walkshed. The density is away from Jamaica Av. And the bus isn't very fast, and that's also a forced transfer to continue along the rest of the line.

Edited August 3, 2020 by bobtehpanda

[Lex]

57 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

If you move the line, you're going to lose some people on the edge of the current walkshed. The density is away from Jamaica Av. And the bus isn't very fast, and that's also a forced transfer to continue along the rest of the line.

I'd consider the shift if significant changes are made to the Atlantic Branch (infill stations, extension up Third Avenue to ultimately feed into Port Washington, fares that are 100-200% of the subway/local bus fare, with a preference toward 100% instead of 200%). If those don't happen, then I wholeheartedly agree with leaving the  on Fulton Street.

[LGA Link N Train]

On 8/2/2020 at 9:22 PM, R10 2952 said:

Well, I don't know about that.  Granted, the  along West End carried air and was mostly useless as a rush hour supplement to the  post-1995, and the MTA should certainly be trying to avoid zero-chance service patterns that don't generate sufficient ridership.

What's surprising is that most railfans think that the  was reliable. I was talking to a friend of mine today (who lives along West End and is more into the historical side of transit) and I told him that I didn't understand why most railfans love the so much, only to get the response of "It was reliable, useful, convenient, was a good supplement to the train, etc." I wasn't buying into it mainly because it carried air in the 2000's and whatnot. Funny thing is, this friend of mine isn't the first person to tell me all of this when I asked this. I spoken to other people (some of whom also happened to live near West End) and they also all think that the  was good and started complaining about 14 minute headway's on the  and what not. I sat there speechless because given the nature of trunk lines, people bail for the expresses in addition to the fact that most are headed towards Midtown as opposed to Nassau.

 

5 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Jamaica Avenue is only one to three blocks from Fulton Street so nothing is lost there.

Another alternative is the Q24 bus on Atlantic Avenue as well so folks have an option to either walk to Jamaica Avenue for the new subway or take the existing Q24 bus  on Atlantic to catch the train at Broadway Junction.

I thought so too but as someone who took the to/from Norwood Avenue for school, I say that's debatable. Granted, Fulton Street has some business activity whereas there's little to none at Jamaica Avenue west of 85th Street-Forest Parkway. In addition to that, Atlantic Avenue isn't really the safest street to cross (I'm saying from my own experience, it's a pain in the ass to get across the street at Atlantic Avenue and Franklin)

 

21 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Think about it this way; when 1/9 skip-stop was eliminated, former skipped stations got their train frequency doubled overnight. Similarly, if you look at the schedule  local stations actually get more service in the reverse peak than the peak direction, because all the trains are using the local track.

Interesting note, I got off the today at Jackson Heights and I looked at the countdown clock and compared it to the Manhattan bound countdown clock, I see what you mean. 

 

21 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

I swung it over to 75th partially because of the walkshed, and partially because 75th/Rockaway/91st is a massive six way intersection that doesn't have anything on the corners of the triangle formed by the streets, so you could build a much wider curve than the one that currently exists. (The north end of the jog would still be a problem though.)

Interesting. I wonder if this'll fly with people along that segment of Fulton Street and 75th Street given that it's an EL and a total of possibly 11 homes taken. (at least that's better than 75 homes almost taken away like in the 1958 proposal)

[R10 2952]

1 hour ago, LaGuardia Link N Tra said:

What's surprising is that most railfans think that the  was reliable. I was talking to a friend of mine today (who lives along West End and is more into the historical side of transit) and I told him that I didn't understand why most railfans love the so much, only to get the response of "It was reliable, useful, convenient, was a good supplement to the train, etc." I wasn't buying into it mainly because it carried air in the 2000's and whatnot. Funny thing is, this friend of mine isn't the first person to tell me all of this when I asked this. I spoken to other people (some of whom also happened to live near West End) and they also all think that the  was good and started complaining about 14 minute headway's on the  and what not. I sat there speechless because given the nature of trunk lines, people bail for the expresses in addition to the fact that most are headed towards Midtown as opposed to Nassau.

Personally, I never had that big of a problem with the  running along 4th Avenue.  It did get decent ridership until the mid-1990s (when it ran there during middays), although I will admit part of the reason for that was the Manhattan Bridge being out for most of the '90s- it helped balance some of the loads off the .  Once it became a rush-only service and then the Bridge fully reopened a few years after that, ridership did drop significantly.  For what it's worth, at least it was a better service pattern than the route it had before 1986- Stillwell Ave via Brighton.  That never made sense to me.  As to 4th Avenue, I believe back in the '80s some of the Nassau <R> trains ran between Metropolitan and 95th, or at least they were scheduled to do so; have yet to find any pictures of it, though.

In any case, I definitely think the  needs to be changed; we've had several decades to witness that the current route is not working as well as it could.  I'm also not a fan of the current - it shares trackage with the /, , , the , and runs shorter trains than the .  The M+V combo was not a marriage made in heaven, not by a long shot.       

Edited August 4, 2020 by R10 2952