Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[Caelestor]

The  only has two tracks and does perfectly fine. The key is to realize that new stations should have multiple exits, which effectively increases the catchment area of each stop. You see this on SAS where 72, 86, and 96 St stations all have exits on 69, 83, and 94 Streets.

Similarly, an entirely local Northern Blvd line will work because of wider stop spacing. Between Manhattan and Flushing, it should only be stopping at

• Vernon Blvd / 11 St
• Court Sq
• Northern Blvd / Broadway
• 74 St
• 82 St
• Junction Blvd
• 108 St

which is the same number of stops that the  has. The Northern Blvd line would be a straight shot into Midtown, and I expect most of the  passengers to switch over actually.

[Armandito]

21 minutes ago, Caelestor said:

The  only has two tracks and does perfectly fine. The key is to realize that new stations should have multiple exits, which effectively increases the catchment area of each stop. You see this on SAS where 72, 86, and 96 St stations all have exits on 69, 83, and 94 Streets.

Similarly, an entirely local Northern Blvd line will work because of wider stop spacing. Between Manhattan and Flushing, it should only be stopping at

• Vernon Blvd / 11 St
• Court Sq
• Northern Blvd / Broadway
• 74 St
• 82 St
• Junction Blvd
• 108 St

which is the same number of stops that the  has. The Northern Blvd line would be a straight shot into Midtown, and I expect most of the  passengers to switch over actually.

Would it use 57th Street as a crosstown route in Manhattan? Or would another street sound better?

[B35 via Church]

3 hours ago, Armandito said:

I plan to run it as the line (in a pink bullet) between 162nd Street and Northern Boulevard (near the LIRR Broadway station) and the 34th Street-Hudson Yards station (at a lower level below the existing platform). It would not share any trackage with other subway lines except for a non-revenue connection to the main QBL at the 36th Street interlocking. The side platforms at the 36th Street station would be converted to island platforms to allow it to be served by Northern Boulevard trains (a map would be uploaded soon).

Just to 162nd? May as well double track something like that & call it a day.... TPH at your discretion.

3 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Three tracks doesn't provide any additional capacity benefit; in fact it cuts frequency at local stations. And Northern Blvd lacks obvious "express" station placements.

In light of erecting some new subway line, any station can be made into an express station for whatever the reason{s} (see Junction Blvd), so I wouldn't put much stock into the notion of an obvious express station...

As far as supplying express service goes, yeah, if it isn't for both directions simultaneously (as in, a 4-track line), AFAIC, forget it....

Edited September 4, 2020 by B35 via Church

[Armandito]

1 minute ago, B35 via Church said:

Just to 162nd? May as well double track something like that & call it a day.... TPH at your discretion.

It would run at around the same frequency as the which is also local-only along its entire route.

[Deucey]

I'm sure I mentioned this somewhere here before - relocating Canal Street   and  Grand Street  in a new tunnel that makes it so the DeKalb bottleneck is cleared by having Bk-bound trains run on the south side and Uptown trains on the north side of the Manny B.

If that's ever done, should there also be a connection from the Grand Street tracks to the BMT Nassau line and/or Broadway Line (south) as another redundancy for the  train in Downtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn?

[Vulturious]

7 minutes ago, Deucey said:

I'm sure I mentioned this somewhere here before - relocating Canal Street   and  Grand Street  in a new tunnel that makes it so the DeKalb bottleneck is cleared by having Bk-bound trains run on the south side and Uptown trains on the north side of the Manny B.

If that's ever done, should there also be a connection from the Grand Street tracks to the BMT Nassau line and/or Broadway Line (south) as another redundancy for the  train in Downtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn?

I would say have it connected to the BMT Nassau line to have a better connection onto the Eastern Division. It kind of sucks for those that need to transfer from an express train onto a local train, better for a direct connection. Maybe it can be planned when phase 4 of SAS ever comes by. I don't know about connecting Broadway Line, at least how well the connection should be since they already have good connections in Brooklyn. Am I missing anything else when it comes to connecting to Broadway line at Grand?

[Caelestor]

7 hours ago, Armandito said:

Would it use 57th Street as a crosstown route in Manhattan? Or would another street sound better?

50 St Crosstown. The Northern Blvd Line would run under 45 Ave in LIC.

45 minutes ago, Deucey said:

If that's ever done, should there also be a connection from the Grand Street tracks to the BMT Nassau line and/or Broadway Line (south) as another redundancy for the  train in Downtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn?

Assuming the Chrystie St reconfiguration happens to connect the Jamaica Line with the 6 Ave express tracks and to run the Chrystie St line up 2 Ave, the Nassau St line should be converted into a shuttle operation between Delancey / Essex Streets and Broad St.

Long-term, the BMT Nassau Line should continue north under 2 Ave as the SAS express. I think it makes more sense to have the Nassau / SAS line stop only at Houston St / 2 Ave and Canal St, with Bowery station closing. That said, I can see an argument for an alignment via Chatham Sq and Park Row, which would stop at Grand St.

[bobtehpanda]

13 minutes ago, Caelestor said:

50 St Crosstown. The Northern Blvd Line would run under 45 Ave in LIC.

Assuming the Chrystie St reconfiguration happens to connect the Jamaica Line with the 6 Ave express tracks and to run the Chrystie St line up 2 Ave, the Nassau St line should be converted into a shuttle operation between Delancey / Essex Streets and Broad St.

Long-term, the BMT Nassau Line should continue north under 2 Ave as the SAS express. I think it makes more sense to have the Nassau / SAS line stop only at Houston St / 2 Ave and Canal St, with Bowery station closing. That said, I can see an argument for an alignment via Chatham Sq and Park Row, which would stop at Grand St.

A shuttle between Delancey-Essex and Broad St is not very useful. It's just not a trip generating a huge amount of demand.

I would rather just keep the space out of use, and rehab Nassau St to eventually clear the loading gauges of railroad stock for future use as the downtown segment of a regional trunk line.

[Armandito]

24 minutes ago, Caelestor said:

50 St Crosstown. The Northern Blvd Line would run under 45 Ave in LIC.

Once again, the drawback here is that most of 50th Street is only served by local trains. It wouldn't be as popular with riders as a crosstown line that's readily served by expresses, like 42nd Street and 14th Street. Hence why I opted for 57th Street instead, even though the trains are just 2 to 3 blocks to the north.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Armandito

[Deucey]

52 minutes ago, Caelestor said:

Assuming the Chrystie St reconfiguration happens to connect the Jamaica Line with the 6 Ave express tracks and to run the Chrystie St line up 2 Ave, the Nassau St line should be converted into a shuttle operation between Delancey / Essex Streets and Broad St.

Long-term, the BMT Nassau Line should continue north under 2 Ave as the SAS express. I think it makes more sense to have the Nassau / SAS line stop only at Houston St / 2 Ave and Canal St, with Bowery station closing. That said, I can see an argument for an alignment via Chatham Sq and Park Row, which would stop at Grand St.

I don't think you're gonna see Jamaica and 6th Av express combined ever - that would require rebuilding Jamaica for 10 car trains and might not be worth it when  is likely the 2nd or 3rd least used route after  (although I'm speaking anecdotally since I can't find ridership stats sorted by service or line anywhere).

And with the full  being shown as a local from Hanover Square to 125th St on the released map, it's likely a NYCTF hope that it'll end up having Spurs to go over the bridge to Bk - especially with the bottleneck as it exists currently (Notwithstanding there's no money to build it - pre- and post-Rona).

But a rebuild and reconfig of the feeders to the Manny B would cost less, free up capacity by needing no stops, slow go's, or switching, so that could be a viable project. And if it's connected to Nassau, a service could be created to take pax in the Bronx to FiDi and relieve . And if it's just to Nassau and not Briadway southbound, it could solve the service gap issue with  on 4th Av by running to 95th St.

That's my case for doing it.

[Armandito]

Map of my proposed H route: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1CMgsFN_N1-Q7w0sDstZ8_w78CBOmQid3&ll=40.75340388563314%2C-73.89827102269206&z=13

[eggballo]

On 8/8/2020 at 3:28 PM, Armandito said:

Agreed. Especially if the mythical SAS ever gets extended into Brooklyn via a new East River tunnel past the current site of the Transit Museum, which would require returning the museum tracks to revenue service.

Here you go, 

 

[Vulturious]

5 minutes ago, eggballo said:

Here you go, 

 

There is a lot that is going on with this map that you provided, some of which I can agree with, others being questionable as well as some just being unnecessary. I'm mainly going to focus more on South Brooklyn portion since I'm much more familiar with that area than any other part. I might also include other services that you probably brought back since it caught my attention and how you planned on having each service running.

1.)  trains being extended to Coney Island, I wouldn't mind the idea of extending it, but how you are extending it is questionable. Is this underground or above ground because I don't think having it run on 14th Av is a great idea if it's above ground, the street isn't wide enough for it and I don't think it can be underground either. Not to mention you have it turning onto Bath Av which isn't a great idea either because that street isn't wide enough either. Not to mention, is it merging onto West End line at Bay 50th? If so, that is probably going to cause a merge issue and you have to create another platform for the  because each platform at Coney Island can only hold 1 train line. 

2.) I don't mind having a Broadway Line run via West End, I'm guessing it's the  as well. At least here, you can deinterline Dekalb and not have much issues with that. I'm also guessing you extended the  as well which is running over the Culver Shuttle. That isn't a bad idea actually and you also have all Broadway lines literally taking over 4th Av too. Although, I don't know how full proof the plan is, I'll leave that to someone else.

3.) I'm guessing you extended the  and  towards Coney Island, while I do like the idea of having an A division train in Coney, I think it's too far for it, the same with extending it towards Staten Island which I will get to in a bit. From what I'm seeing, there doesn't seem to be any express service that has been constructed to make travel time from Flatbush to Coney. It would've been better to have just left it at Kings Plaza since it isn't all that necessary to extend it. Now to talk about Staten Island, I think it is too far to do that as travel time would probably be very long between whatever station was last in Brooklyn and Staten Island. Now to also bring up what you did with extending the  into Red Hook, I like the idea, but I don't like how you also extended it into Staten Island as well. If anything, it seems that you had the idea of bringing back the  because you have it running onto Eastern Parkway as well. Either that or it's the  that is doing that. The distance anywhere else other than Bay Ridge to Staten Island is way too far and unless you have the train running express, the demand for this probably wouldn't be all that high.

4.) Now with the Franklin , I have no idea what you are planning with that line as it looks like a fully-fledged running into Manhattan as well as Queens. 

There is a lot more that I want to talk about, but there is so much going on that I have no idea of what you're even thinking.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

5 hours ago, Armandito said:

Map of my proposed H route: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1CMgsFN_N1-Q7w0sDstZ8_w78CBOmQid3&ll=40.75340388563314%2C-73.89827102269206&z=13

Looks great! Though I’d like to see it go a little further east into Queens, perhaps as far as Bell Blvd. Even now, Bell and Northern is still a busy area. 

18 hours ago, Armandito said:

Once again, the drawback here is that most of 50th Street is only served by local trains. It wouldn't be as popular with riders as a crosstown line that's readily served by expresses, like 42nd Street and 14th Street. Hence why I opted for 57th Street instead, even though the trains are just 2 to 3 blocks to the north.

This is true, but honestly, I think it may not be that big of a drawback. Yes, the H misses the  and  trains, as well as the  if the current 8th Avenue service setup is retained (if CPW is deinterlined with the  and  running local instead of the  and , then all 8th Avenue service would stop at 50th St). But we don’t really have any concrete evidence that a huge number of H riders would be looking specifically to transfer to/from the express trains. Judging by past comments made about where to put a new crosstown service, my guess is that with the 50th corridor being close to the heart of Midtown, we’d be likely to see a lot more people just getting off there and walking to their jobs.

 

[Armandito]

24 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

This is true, but honestly, I think it may not be that big of a drawback. Yes, the H misses the  and  trains, as well as the  if the current 8th Avenue service setup is retained (if CPW is deinterlined with the  and  running local instead of the  and , then all 8th Avenue service would stop at 50th St). But we don’t really have any concrete evidence that a huge number of H riders would be looking specifically to transfer to/from the express trains. Judging by past comments made about where to put a new crosstown service, my guess is that with the 50th corridor being close to the heart of Midtown, we’d be likely to see a lot more people just getting off there and walking to their jobs.

Any disadvantages with routing it along 57th instead of 50th?

[bobtehpanda]

14 minutes ago, Armandito said:

Any disadvantages with routing it along 57th instead of 50th?

57th is farther from the "core" job areas (but not really that far), and more of the walkshed consists of Central Park, which obviously doesn't contain jobs or homes.

The way I see it, 50 St would be useful for a subway service, and 57th St useful for regional railroad service.

[B35 via Church]

8 hours ago, Armandito said:

Map of my proposed H route: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1CMgsFN_N1-Q7w0sDstZ8_w78CBOmQid3&ll=40.75340388563314%2C-73.89827102269206&z=13

Cool, but perhaps you could've added the stops it'd make in Manhattan as well.

6 hours ago, eggballo said:

Here you go, 

...and there I went 🚪

Good lord at this monstrosity.

Edited September 6, 2020 by B35 via Church

[loveofelevators]

Line: SAS

Stations:

Ditmas Blvd Sq-LGA Airport:

94 St:

Hazen St

Steinway St

Astoria-Ditmars:

Astoria Blvd:

30 Av

Bdwy

36 Av

39 Av

Queensboro Plz:

55 St:

42 St:

14 St:

2 Av:

Grand St:

Chatham Sq

Seaport

Hanover Sq

Court St:

Hoyt-Schermerhorn:

Nostrand Av:

Utica Av:

Bdwy Jct-E NY:

 

: 2 Av Exp

: 2 Av Lcl

: 2 Av Lcl

 

[Armandito]

19 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Cool, but perhaps you could've added the stops it'd make in Manhattan as well.

Right now I'm in the process of editing the map so that's why you see stops removed. In the meantime I'm taking a good look at track maps to see if 34th Street could work out better. I'm looking into finding a way to align the trackage so there's no interference with existing railroad lines at Penn Station, in addition to finding a routing past the messy tangle of tracks on the IND lines in LIC.

[Armandito]

Decided to make my map editable so others could make changes as desired, so here's the link again: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1CMgsFN_N1-Q7w0sDstZ8_w78CBOmQid3&ll=40.75552482613223%2C-73.89866749999997&z=11

 

[loveofelevators]

Line: SAS

Stations:

Ditmas Blvd Sq-LGA Airport:

94 St:

Hazen St

Steinway St

Astoria-Ditmars:

Astoria Blvd:

30 Av

Bdwy

36 Av

39 Av

Queensboro Plz:

55 St:

42 St:

14 St:

2 Av:

Grand St:

Chatham Sq

Seaport

Hanover Sq

Court St:

Hoyt-Schermerhorn:

Nostrand Av:

Utica Av:

Bdwy Jct-E NY:

 

: 2 Av Exp

: 2 Av Lcl

: 2 Av Lcl

 

 goes express in Astoria

[bobtehpanda]

21 hours ago, Deucey said:

I don't think you're gonna see Jamaica and 6th Av express combined ever - that would require rebuilding Jamaica for 10 car trains and might not be worth it when  is likely the 2nd or 3rd least used route after  (although I'm speaking anecdotally since I can't find ridership stats sorted by service or line anywhere).

And with the full  being shown as a local from Hanover Square to 125th St on the released map, it's likely a NYCTF hope that it'll end up having Spurs to go over the bridge to Bk - especially with the bottleneck as it exists currently (Notwithstanding there's no money to build it - pre- and post-Rona).

But a rebuild and reconfig of the feeders to the Manny B would cost less, free up capacity by needing no stops, slow go's, or switching, so that could be a viable project. And if it's connected to Nassau, a service could be created to take pax in the Bronx to FiDi and relieve . And if it's just to Nassau and not Briadway southbound, it could solve the service gap issue with  on 4th Av by running to 95th St.

That's my case for doing it.

I'm having a hard time envisioning your Nassau reconfig in all this, but the basic problem is one of math. Right now Chrystie St is four tracks in, four tracks out. A straight reconfiguration with just the current Manny B, 6th and Broadway tunnels maintains this basic problem. But throwing Nassau into the mix is four tracks in six tracks out, which means that you're gonna have to cut service over the Manny B to serve Nassau like that. 

The FEIS did study Nassau-SAS, and Nassau/SAS was also a failure because

• extremely disruptive; Nassau would need to be shut for the duration of the project, and Essex is not great for either terminating all Jamaica and through-running Sixth Av service, or terminating all Willy B service. Plus the only realistic construction staging area available is Chrystie St park, which is 1) in a neighborhood without many parks, 2) in a neighborhood with a lot of organizing (it took over four decades for the city to develop the lots that eventually became Essex Crossing), and 3) park alienation, of any kind, requires either replacement of parkland like for like in the area, or an act of the State Legislature.
• same basic problem as any other Nassau/Jamaica reconfiguration; Nassau St platforms are not ten cars long. Except here it's a lot worse because trying to extend platforms underground is more disruptive than above ground. For example Chambers St is directly under the Muni building, so I don't even know if you could extend platforms like that.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

23 hours ago, Deucey said:

I'm sure I mentioned this somewhere here before - relocating Canal Street   and  Grand Street  in a new tunnel that makes it so the DeKalb bottleneck is cleared by having Bk-bound trains run on the south side and Uptown trains on the north side of the Manny B.

If that's ever done, should there also be a connection from the Grand Street tracks to the BMT Nassau line and/or Broadway Line (south) as another redundancy for the  train in Downtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn?

 

23 hours ago, Vulturious said:

I would say have it connected to the BMT Nassau line to have a better connection onto the Eastern Division. It kind of sucks for those that need to transfer from an express train onto a local train, better for a direct connection. Maybe it can be planned when phase 4 of SAS ever comes by. I don't know about connecting Broadway Line, at least how well the connection should be since they already have good connections in Brooklyn. Am I missing anything else when it comes to connecting to Broadway line at Grand?

I was trying to visualize how the connection to Nassau St and/or the Broadway Line below Canal would be made.

[Deucey]

52 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

 

I was trying to visualize how the connection to Nassau St and/or the Broadway Line below Canal would be made.

 

1 hour ago, bobtehpanda said:

I'm having a hard time envisioning your Nassau reconfig in all this, but the basic problem is one of math. Right now Chrystie St is four tracks in, four tracks out. A straight reconfiguration with just the current Manny B, 6th and Broadway tunnels maintains this basic problem. But throwing Nassau into the mix is four tracks in six tracks out, which means that you're gonna have to cut service over the Manny B to serve Nassau like that. 

The FEIS did study Nassau-SAS, and Nassau/SAS was also a failure because

• extremely disruptive; Nassau would need to be shut for the duration of the project, and Essex is not great for either terminating all Jamaica and through-running Sixth Av service, or terminating all Willy B service. Plus the only realistic construction staging area available is Chrystie St park, which is 1) in a neighborhood without many parks, 2) in a neighborhood with a lot of organizing (it took over four decades for the city to develop the lots that eventually became Essex Crossing), and 3) park alienation, of any kind, requires either replacement of parkland like for like in the area, or an act of the State Legislature.
• same basic problem as any other Nassau/Jamaica reconfiguration; Nassau St platforms are not ten cars long. Except here it's a lot worse because trying to extend platforms underground is more disruptive than above ground. For example Chambers St is directly under the Muni building, so I don't even know if you could extend platforms like that.

I don't feel like drawing but here's a screenshot of Chrystie Street:

Basically, after the flying junction the uses, a new tunnel would have to be built to double back from Chrystie Street's Manny B approach tunnel to at least Bowery with the Grand Street replacement between Broom and Kenmare - under the  Bowery station.

Then to get to both the Nassau line and reconfigure the bridge tracks so Southside tracks go to Brooklyn and Northside come from Brooklyn, another flying junction is needed around Mott and Hester or Mulberry to give room for the new Manny B approach and switches to get  on and off the same tracks at  to/from Brooklyn, and  for the same reason.

The Sixth Av tracks at this junction would have a spur at deep level to technically connect to the area of the abandoned uptown track beds on Centre Street before Chambers Street station. But because Uptown  uses the local tracks and crosses over to the old downtown express track, a new tunnel with a crossunder like the Uptown Eighth Av line after 103rd St would need to be built. Sixth Av trains would come in on the Chambers Street express platforms and the switches to split from the Nassau line to Fulton Street would be at the south end of the platforms.

This is all from me looking at the track map and the routing on Google Maps, and not taking into account whether all buildings there have basements or foundations deeper than the Nassau Line's depth, nor the minimum turning radius of subway cars.

The main hitch - if it's even doable, is the 8 car platform length at stations on the Nassau Line.

[bobtehpanda]

On 9/4/2020 at 8:34 PM, Deucey said:

I'm sure I mentioned this somewhere here before - relocating Canal Street   and  Grand Street  in a new tunnel that makes it so the DeKalb bottleneck is cleared by having Bk-bound trains run on the south side and Uptown trains on the north side of the Manny B.

If that's ever done, should there also be a connection from the Grand Street tracks to the BMT Nassau line and/or Broadway Line (south) as another redundancy for the  train in Downtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn?

 

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

I don't feel like drawing but here's a screenshot of Chrystie Street:

Basically, after the flying junction the uses, a new tunnel would have to be built to double back from Chrystie Street's Manny B approach tunnel to at least Bowery with the Grand Street replacement between Broom and Kenmare - under the  Bowery station.

Then to get to both the Nassau line and reconfigure the bridge tracks so Southside tracks go to Brooklyn and Northside come from Brooklyn, another flying junction is needed around Mott and Hester or Mulberry to give room for the new Manny B approach and switches to get  on and off the same tracks at  to/from Brooklyn, and  for the same reason.

The Sixth Av tracks at this junction would have a spur at deep level to technically connect to the area of the abandoned uptown track beds on Centre Street before Chambers Street station. But because Uptown  uses the local tracks and crosses over to the old downtown express track, a new tunnel with a crossunder like the Uptown Eighth Av line after 103rd St would need to be built. Sixth Av trains would come in on the Chambers Street express platforms and the switches to split from the Nassau line to Fulton Street would be at the south end of the platforms.

Okay, so I think I get what you're saying. 

I'm gonna start off my response by saying, flying junctions cost a lot of money and redundancy is not a insurance policy worth spending an extra $1B in CapEx for. So I would just dismiss your Chrystie to Nassau suggestion out of hand. Like I said, a very similar connection was investigated as part of the Second Avenue Subway, and the conclusion was it was far too disruptive, it didn't provide a whole lot of benefits, and the whole eight-car-train thing. And without SAS you have the whole "four tracks from Midtown, but six tracks going south" problem which means such a connection wouldn't be useful regularly.

I don't really get how moving the train switching from the Brooklyn side of the Manny B (today's DeKalb) to the Manhattan side (your Chrystie rebuild) is going to change things. The trains still end up switching tracks to get where they need to be going. The switching tracks itself is the problem (well, that, the outdated interlocking, and the requirements for all the services passing through to be maintaining their published schedules, and you have a higher chance of winning a record Powerball ticket.) You could probably fix things just by upgrading the current interlocking to be digital and on-the-fly; don't operators have to manually punch those in today?

Edited September 6, 2020 by bobtehpanda