Department of Subways - Proposals/Ideas

[Vulturious]

1 hour ago, Theli11 said:

I meant the comment as in IND and BMT, but i made it too general which is my fault. I usually think of the as 8th/Fulton, as 6th, as Jamaica,  as Brighton, so yeah I get the letters thing. I was saying it wouldn't matter in terms of service not familiarity. 

 

Eliminating the  would make you extend the to Euclid (Which would be pretty bad since it's the most reliable and flexible service on the QBL.) and make the local on CPW (because the  can't handle the line on it's own). This would also make you run the local past 145 St and I'm not exactly sure how that would work in terms of switches. All of this is dependent on whether the runs local on 4th Av or not. If it does run local, you can probably add more service. 

Personally, I wouldn't like it in this scenario regardless of if  trains are running local on 4th Av or not anyways. It's not just CPW that is also being affected, but practically the entire  line would be affected. Maybe not much in Brooklyn as  trains can finally stop being rerouted local on 4th Av which would lead it to be forced to run express on West End while running on the local tracks, but it would affect 6th Av in general, CPW as stated already, along with the Bronx. The Bronx from what I hear and I've heard a lot about the Bronx, it's not going to be enough with  trains running it's regular weekend/weeknight service alone. Without the  to back up the , it would be even worse which would be a domino effect.

[bobtehpanda]

22 minutes ago, Armandito said:

Opted for fewer stations with greater catchment areas as opposed to more stations spaced closer together with smaller catchment. These would be the proposed locations for the entrances and exits:

Lexington Av/50 St: at 3 Av and Park Av

6 Av-Rockefeller Ctr: at 5 Av and 6 Av

8 Av: at 8 Av and 9 Av (and 7 Av via transfer passageway)

Clinton-42 St: at 44 St and 42 St

That's fine in a less dense area, but I would imagine that in Midtown with transfers this would put too much passenger load on too few stations, in addition to the whole "less convenient access to destinations" problem.

[Armandito]

12 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

That's fine in a less dense area, but I would imagine that in Midtown with transfers this would put too much passenger load on too few stations, in addition to the whole "less convenient access to destinations" problem.

So what you're saying is, instead of stops at 6th and 8th Avenues, have them at 5th, 7th, and 9th Avenues? In that case, I'd locate the entrances and exits at these locations:

Lexington Av/50 St: at 3 and Lexington Avs (transfer to )

5 Av-Rockefeller Ctr: at 5 and Madison Avs

7 Av/50 St: at 6 and 7 Avs (transfer to )

9 Av: at 8 and 9 Avs (transfer to )

Edited October 8, 2020 by Armandito

[Armandito]

For those who favor a extension, wouldn't it be ideal to extend it to Whitestone instead of Bayside? That's another transit desert you have there.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Armandito

[bobtehpanda]

28 minutes ago, Armandito said:

For those who favor a extension, wouldn't it be ideal to extend it to Whitestone instead of Bayside? That's another transit desert you have there.

Whitestone isn't very dense, and most bus connections to Flushing are pretty rapid relatively speaking, and would be even faster with a extended Northern Blvd line or subway-like PW line. I don't really see how it provides much value.

There's a case for College Point, but it's awkward to have them on the same radial line as Flushing, splitting frequency is very undesirable, and for new lines going to Flushing for connections is more important. IMO College Point is best served with a Flushing-Fordham link with a tunnel connecting College Point and Soundview.

Edited October 8, 2020 by bobtehpanda

[Bklyn Bound 2 Local]

18 hours ago, Armandito said:

Clinton-42 St: at 44 St and 42 St

Maybe rename it to Hell's Kitchen/Clinton - 42nd St, or just Hell's Kitchen - 42nd St

Edited October 9, 2020 by Bklyn Bound 2 Local

[engineerboy6561]

18 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Whitestone isn't very dense, and most bus connections to Flushing are pretty rapid relatively speaking, and would be even faster with a extended Northern Blvd line or subway-like PW line. I don't really see how it provides much value.

There's a case for College Point, but it's awkward to have them on the same radial line as Flushing, splitting frequency is very undesirable, and for new lines going to Flushing for connections is more important. IMO College Point is best served with a Flushing-Fordham link with a tunnel connecting College Point and Soundview.

Honestly, for serving College Point I'd be tempted to run either a Fordham-Flushing-Jamaica crosstown line or a Co-Op City-Flushing-Kew Gardens-Far Rockaway crosstown with a connection to QBL at Forest Hills. Considering how full the Q44 runs, trainstituting it with extensions to Fordham and down Merrick Blvd would likely be a viable route in its own right, the extension to Fordham should increase ridership further, and an extension down Merrick Blvd should take a pretty big load off the Q4/5/84/85. Alternately, crossing QBL at Forest Hills and then taking over the Rockaway Beach Branch would do something useful with the Rock Park shuttle. I'd love to hear feedback:

Map with alignments here

 

[Union Tpke]

Have it go to Jamaica! There is tons of ridership on the Q44, and there would be little demand to the Rockaways.

[Reptile]

56 minutes ago, engineerboy6561 said:

Honestly, for serving College Point I'd be tempted to run either a Fordham-Flushing-Jamaica crosstown line or a Co-Op City-Flushing-Kew Gardens-Far Rockaway crosstown with a connection to QBL at Forest Hills. Considering how full the Q44 runs, trainstituting it with extensions to Fordham and down Merrick Blvd would likely be a viable route in its own right, the extension to Fordham should increase ridership further, and an extension down Merrick Blvd should take a pretty big load off the Q4/5/84/85. Alternately, crossing QBL at Forest Hills and then taking over the Rockaway Beach Branch would do something useful with the Rock Park shuttle. I'd love to hear feedback:

Map with alignments here

 

I'd rather a Parkchester - Throgs Neck - College Point - Main St - Jamaica light rail line, terminating at the AirTrain's Jamaica stop. This could transfer to some cross - bronx line on Fordham Road, so you can get all the away across the bronx on one and get all the way to the airport on the next line.

And speaking of light rail I have a few more lines I'd like to put out later when I get more ideas.

[Bklyn Bound 2 Local]

23 minutes ago, Reptile said:

I'd rather a Parkchester - Throgs Neck - College Point - Main St - Jamaica light rail line, terminating at the AirTrain's Jamaica stop. This could transfer to some cross - bronx line on Fordham Road, so you can get all the away across the bronx on one and get all the way to the airport on the next line.

But how would it get across the Long Island Sound? A tunnel is out of the question, and another bridge would not be the best either.

[Theli11]

12 minutes ago, Bklyn Bound 2 Local said:

But how would it get across the Long Island Sound? A tunnel is out of the question, and another bridge would not be the best either.

How is a tunnel/another bridge out of the question?

[bobtehpanda]

54 minutes ago, Reptile said:

I'd rather a Parkchester - Throgs Neck - College Point - Main St - Jamaica light rail line, terminating at the AirTrain's Jamaica stop. This could transfer to some cross - bronx line on Fordham Road, so you can get all the away across the bronx on one and get all the way to the airport on the next line.

And speaking of light rail I have a few more lines I'd like to put out later when I get more ideas.

I prefer Soundview just because Soundview is very dense and also a transit desert. Plus it's just across the water from College Point.

The Whitestone approach via Throgs Neck is notable for the fact that there just isn't a lot there.

30 minutes ago, Bklyn Bound 2 Local said:

But how would it get across the Long Island Sound? A tunnel is out of the question, and another bridge would not be the best either.

The East River (as the Sound is known Throgs Neck and west) is only ~30 feet deep.

[Reptile]

8 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

I prefer Soundview just because Soundview is very dense and also a transit desert. Plus it's just across the water from College Point.

The Whitestone approach via Throgs Neck is notable for the fact that there just isn't a lot there.

The East River (as the Sound is known Throgs Neck and west) is only ~30 feet deep.

Good points, I think the Jamaica light rail should run to Soundview and the cross-bronx line to Throgs Neck.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 10/8/2020 at 1:25 PM, Theli11 said:

I meant the comment as in IND and BMT, but i made it too general which is my fault. I usually think of the as 8th/Fulton, as 6th, as Jamaica,  as Brighton, so yeah I get the letters thing. I was saying it wouldn't matter in terms of service not familiarity. 

 

Eliminating the  would make you extend the to Euclid (Which would be pretty bad since it's the most reliable and flexible service on the QBL.) and make the local on CPW (because the  can't handle the line on it's own). This would also make you run the local past 145 St and I'm not exactly sure how that would work in terms of switches. All of this is dependent on whether the runs local on 4th Av or not. If it does run local, you can probably add more service. 

 

22 hours ago, Vulturious said:

Personally, I wouldn't like it in this scenario regardless of if  trains are running local on 4th Av or not anyways. It's not just CPW that is also being affected, but practically the entire  line would be affected. Maybe not much in Brooklyn as  trains can finally stop being rerouted local on 4th Av which would lead it to be forced to run express on West End while running on the local tracks, but it would affect 6th Av in general, CPW as stated already, along with the Bronx. The Bronx from what I hear and I've heard a lot about the Bronx, it's not going to be enough with  trains running it's regular weekend/weeknight service alone. Without the  to back up the , it would be even worse which would be a domino effect.

This is why I’ve mostly stayed silent on the speculation of which trains would be targeted for complete elimination if the  implements service cuts (we’ve had quite a lot of that already). Because there really aren’t a whole lot of easy targets. Take the  and  for example (both of which didn’t run during the early weeks of the pandemic). Like @Vulturious said, if the   goes, it could wreak havoc on  service in The Bronx and  service in Manhattan. But if the  goes, then like @Theli11 said, the  has to replace it in Brooklyn, which could make it an unreliable service. And then, the  ends up having problems shouldering the CPW local on its own. And don’t forget, while ridership is way down compared to this same time last year, it is up compared to six months ago and will probably continue to climb. If they go through with service cuts, expect crowded platforms and trains, which will spread Covid, not contain it like we’re trying to do.

Edited October 9, 2020 by T to Dyre Avenue

[Bklyn Bound 2 Local]

1 hour ago, Theli11 said:

How is a tunnel/another bridge out of the question?

Too expensive for a tunnel and another bridge would be too close to the other bridges in the area

[Vulturious]

45 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

This is why I’ve mostly stayed silent on the speculation of which trains would be targeted for complete elimination if the  implements service cuts (we’ve had quite a lot of that already). Because there really aren’t a whole lot of easy targets. Take the  and  for example (both of which didn’t run during the early weeks of the pandemic). Like @Vulturious said, if the   goes, it could wreak havoc on  service in The Bronx and  service in Manhattan. But if the  goes, then like @Theli11 said, the  has to replace it in Brooklyn, which could make it an unreliable service. And then, the  ends up having problems shouldering the CPW local on its own. And don’t forget, while ridership is way down compared to this same time last year, it is up compared to six months ago and will probably continue to climb. If they go through with service cuts, expect crowded platforms and trains, which will spread Covid, not contain it like we’re trying to do.

In this scenario, yes it is hard to even make a guess of what the  decides to cut as it could be drastic. However, this isn't necessarily a scenario I was talking about, more of a scenario in general not talking about the whole service cut stuff, just mainly talking about service improvements. You are still right no matter what anyways even if I was still talking about just normal service in general. Like I said earlier to whoever proposed cutting the  in place of the  who also decided to for  trains to run local the entire time too, it's a bad idea in general as it ends up making more problems instead of solutions and would hurt in both the short and long run.

[bobtehpanda]

1 hour ago, Bklyn Bound 2 Local said:

Too expensive for a tunnel and another bridge would be too close to the other bridges in the area

We're in the fantasy thread, nearly all the fantasy proposals are "too expensive".

Compared to other tunnels it would be about the same size; the shore to shore distance is slightly less than Montague.

Edited October 9, 2020 by bobtehpanda

[Deucey]

5 hours ago, Bklyn Bound 2 Local said:

Too expensive for a tunnel and another bridge would be too close to the other bridges in the area

Laughable in the context of “you spent HOW MUCH over 30 years building that spur from Hunterspoint Ave to Grand Central Terminal?”

[T to Dyre Avenue]

8 hours ago, Vulturious said:

In this scenario, yes it is hard to even make a guess of what the  decides to cut as it could be drastic. However, this isn't necessarily a scenario I was talking about, more of a scenario in general not talking about the whole service cut stuff, just mainly talking about service improvements. You are still right no matter what anyways even if I was still talking about just normal service in general. Like I said earlier to whoever proposed cutting the  in place of the  who also decided to for  trains to run local the entire time too, it's a bad idea in general as it ends up making more problems instead of solutions and would hurt in both the short and long run.

Oh, okay. I assumed with the mention of cutting the , it would be a Covid-related service cut. We have had quite a lot of postings about that. But I agree making the  local is unnecessary and will hurt more than help. For what it’s worth, they did get away with the  running express in Manhattan (between Canal and 34th, leaving only  trains running local there) from Memorial Day to June 8th when the  was restored. 

But for a normal, non-Covid service proposal to untangle DeKalb, as I’ve stated up-thread, it would be to do Broadway express to/from Brighton (  express to Brighton Beach,  current service) and 6th Avenue expresses to Sea Beach and West End (  to Sea Beach,  current service).

[Theli11]

52 minutes ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Oh, okay. I assumed with the mention of cutting the , it would be a Covid-related service cut. We have had quite a lot of postings about that. But I agree making the  local is unnecessary and will hurt more than help. For what it’s worth, they did get away with the  running express in Manhattan (between Canal and 34th, leaving only  trains running local there) from Memorial Day to June 8th when the  was restored. 

But for a normal, non-Covid service proposal to untangle DeKalb, as I’ve stated up-thread, it would be to do Broadway express to/from Brighton (  express to Brighton Beach,  current service) and 6th Avenue expresses to Sea Beach and West End (  to Sea Beach,  current service).

Not just the local, but the via Montague so it could run local.. Whole idea was a mess.

Manhattan Bridge lines, CPW* and QBL all need to be detangled within the B-Division. 

Queens Blvd needs that train off the line. My solution is to have 25% of  trains go to Sea Beach and end at 86 St, while the rest go to Bay Ridge.
Now the  will end at Astoria and  trains will end at 96 St (which will just make it the  but full time, and  can probably just split frequencies (or just more locals than expresses) since they're running on the same track from 96 to Prospect Park). and Queens Blvd will have and trains. this way trains run local, that have the same frequency as the *, run express while  trains run express and  trains run local via 63 St. 

*For CPW, any plan that's put in place [  express, local being the best possible one without any Northern terminals changing] would either lengthen the  or  trains. Of course, the  would have to be express in the bracketed scenario, unless you make a switch to the express tracks pre-50th st, then the  can be the local line (and more reliable.) service would be the express until Hoyt where they split into current day service. You'll probably be able to run a lot more service since there are less merges between , , , ,  trains. Whatever plan in place, it might screw some passengers over, while helping others. 


 

[Trainmaster5]

On 10/9/2020 at 1:46 PM, T to Dyre Avenue said:

 

This is why I’ve mostly stayed silent on the speculation of which trains would be targeted for complete elimination if the  implements service cuts (we’ve had quite a lot of that already). Because there really aren’t a whole lot of easy targets. Take the  and  for example (both of which didn’t run during the early weeks of the pandemic). Like @Vulturious said, if the   goes, it could wreak havoc on  service in The Bronx and  service in Manhattan. But if the  goes, then like @Theli11 said, the  has to replace it in Brooklyn, which could make it an unreliable service. And then, the  ends up having problems shouldering the CPW local on its own. And don’t forget, while ridership is way down compared to this same time last year, it is up compared to six months ago and will probably continue to climb. If they go through with service cuts, expect crowded platforms and trains, which will spread Covid, not contain it like we’re trying to do.

The strangest (funny/not funny) part to some of us older folks is the assumptions some people are making about service reductions. As one of my coworkers pointed out he can do a 40% service cut in the IRT by reusing our old work programs from the late ‘70s - mid ‘80s era. No elimination of lines or any stations needed. He laughed at some posts he glanced at and reminded me that our mentor called some old time posters “ my “ little Lionels when I joined this site years ago. Seems like many people ignore the terms frequency and headway. Maybe some of us should rethink and revise some of these ideas. Just a thought. Carry on.

[Theli11]

2 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

The strangest (funny/not funny) part to some of us older folks is the assumptions some people are making about service reductions. As one of my coworkers pointed out he can do a 40% service cut in the IRT by reusing our old work programs from the late ‘70s - mid ‘80s era. No elimination of lines or any stations needed. He laughed at some posts he glanced at and reminded me that our mentor called some old time posters “ my “ little Lionels when I joined this site years ago. Seems like many people ignore the terms frequency and headway. Maybe some of us should rethink and revise some of these ideas. Just a thought. Carry on.

I don't think people realize why trains like the or even the * are important to service. I think the only elimination I'd agree with is of the  because screw that skip stop train just make it express. There always needs to be adequate replacement, and with and trains, there aren't any adequate replacements for daytime service without screwing over any other route. I've said this earlier, any service cuts will look like what happened during the middle (or beginning depending on how long this goes on) of COVID. Also what would the 40% cut in the IRT look like now?

[Trainmaster5]

2 hours ago, Theli11 said:

I don't think people realize why trains like the or even the * are important to service. I think the only elimination I'd agree with is of the  because screw that skip stop train just make it express. There always needs to be adequate replacement, and with and trains, there aren't any adequate replacements for daytime service without screwing over any other route. I've said this earlier, any service cuts will look like what happened during the middle (or beginning depending on how long this goes on) of COVID. Also what would the 40% cut in the IRT look like now?

Let me put it in the simplest terms. There was no IRT express service in Brooklyn except for the commission hours.  or  to Atlantic Avenue. The BMT ran the Brighton with express and local services. Fourth Avenue had the Sea Beach  running express to 59th St while West End had a Montague/ Fourth Avenue service non rush and an Astoria Broadway express service in the rush hours. This was before the 6th Avenue connection with the Manny B. The IND ran no express service in Brooklyn except for the commission hours. Commission hours means rush hours in my school car training. BTW rush hours were 6:30-8:30 am and 4:30-6:30 pm daily. Can the NYCTA do the same thing today? If the funding isn’t coming there’s no choice. If the ridership doesn’t come back to 1980-2000 levels there’s no reason to run more service even if the pandemic problem is over. Businesses dictate the service levels of bus and subways. The NYT, WAPO, WSJ, and other business outlets have already made it clear that they see downsizing or relocation as the smart move. No one except the fanning community is trying to justify an increase in service from pre-pandemic levels. This is what my contemporaries and mentors see for future. None of us claim to be Nostradamus but they all agree that this is the likely path for Transit. Just a collection of opinions from some very knowledgeable folks. I’m just the messenger. Carry on. 

[Armandito]

Revised  train maps with relocated stops in Manhattan, plus a new station at 5 Av and 50 St

 

Subway map:

 

Track map with Flushing Yard:

 

Strip map:

Edited October 11, 2020 by Armandito

[Reptile]

2 hours ago, Armandito said:

Revised  train maps with relocated stops in Manhattan, plus a new station at 5 Av and 50 St

 

Subway map:

 

Track map with Flushing Yard:

 

Strip map:

Love it! Routing is perfect, and I forgot how many blurbs/station details there were on old subway maps.