Rockaway Beach Branch

[BreeddekalbL]

To answer the question about another branch yeah I would add an lie hhe branch and I would send the there and the would go via the rbb to jfk and since we are concerned about length what would the length be if my idea was implemented

[T to Dyre Avenue]

22 hours ago, vanshnookenraggen said:

At least one sensible idea I've heard here is to reroute the along QBL and extend that instead. From Whitehall to Far Rockaway would be 25.95 miles, placing it 5th longest overall. My issue here is that the would be lacking direct yard access (although it certainly could use the Rockaway Park Yard) and the would have to be returned to Astoria (also lacking yard access). Another good reason for using the would be that the QueensLink is really only a time saver if you are coming/going to/from midtown and northern Queens. Therefore, the A will still be the dominant train to/from Lower Manhattan. It doesn't really add anything to have the serve both of these areas. The would at least swing off to Williamsburg. But the could be a better compromise.

Merges are certainly an issue, but this is a separate problem entirely. I'm fully in favor of deinterlining to remove as many merges as possible. But to suggest that we can't extend the subway because of current merges is a pretty flimsy excuse. I guess we shouldn't extend 2nd Ave either since the Q merges with the N!

This is the idea that I prefer, although I labeled it  instead of . If we do an RBB-to-Whitehall  in tandem with the South Brooklyn de-interlining proposal on your blog, I think that would work very well. The Astoria-West End service can be called  instead of  and be based in Coney Island. The RBB  train would have Rockaway Park Yard for storage. For maintenance, they can either deadhead via the  to Pitkin Yard or stay based in Jamaica. The  already has that exact same situation. Its trains have Fresh Pond Yard for storage, but have to deadhead via the  to reach ENY Yard. 

20 hours ago, mrsman said:

There are a lot of positives to the Rockaway Beach Branch being utilized as a subway branch.  It is certainly much cheaper than digging a new Woodhaven Blvd subway.  Woodhaven has shown itself to be a significant transit corridor and the fact that there is already some infrastructure inplace that can be reused is helpful.  We understand that it won't be cheap -- but it is still alot cheaper than building a whole new line somewhere else.

One very nice thing about the QBL local lines, is that it can really use a new branch to increase operations.  Currently, the QBL local is limited to 20 TPH due to Forest Hills turnbacks.  Given current operations, we can add an additional 10 TPH to the QBL local line if we provide a place for it to go to the west and a new branch to divert some of the traffic away from Forest Hills.  10 TPH coming up the RBB can merge into the existing 20 TPH coming from Forest Hills.  10 TPH can go to the  line, while the reamining 20 TPH can flow along  and  as they are currently doing.  If we are stuck with EFMRG along Queens Blvd, I'm in favor of M serving RBB and GR serving Forest Hills.  [This all assumes that every station east of Forest Hills is either an express  or  station and that is politically non-negotiable.]

But if we take an RBB proposal in a different context, it can actually make a deinterlining plan much easier!  If you wanted a "perfect" deinterlining of QBL, (and given the crowding it should certainly be considered), you will need to get all the Broadway BMT trains off QBL, assign all QBL locals to 53rd and all QBL expresses to 63rd (or vice versa) and assign all 63rd trains to the 6th Ave local and assign 53rd trains to 8th Ave.  [Doing the above would also generally require addressing CPW making all of its exrpesses to 6th Ave and all the locals to 8th Ave or vice versa.]  The problem when you look at it becomes how to actually assign the QBL trains.  If you make all the expresses on 53rd and the locals on 63rd, you cut off the QBL local stops west of Roosevelt from reaching Queens Plaza and LIC ( a growing employment center).  If you reverse it, you are making all of the 6th Ave locals into QBL express trains and there would be no feasible way to allow  to be a QBL express without significant capital spending on extending platforms in eastern Brooklyn.  These are not trivial problems and forms one reason why it is still necessary to have  service along QBL.

But the RBB can allow for us to rethink the issue.  Assign all QBL expresses to 53rd continuing on to 8th Ave express and the Cranberry tunnel.  This would allow us to have 20 TPH  and  trains emanating from Forest Hills, servicing the QBL local and continuing to 63rd and the 6th Ave local.  And the new RBB branch of the QBL local will allow a new 10 TPH service to merge into the QBL local and allow 10 TPH to divert away from 63rd to service Queens Plaza and LIC and continue as a  .  The QBL express is completely deinterlined.  The QBL local is partially deinterlined, with some interference with non-trunk lines like  and  and  .  Under such a scenario, IMO, the best operation would be  from RBB and  from Forest Hills during regular hours, and  from Forest HIlls and  from RBB during times when  is truncated to Myrtle.

 

I find myself agreeing that Woodhaven is a significant transit corridor. It’s also an important north-south spine, with a lot of car and truck traffic. It is very fortunate to have an unused parallel rail corridor a few blocks away. Other busy spine roads are not so fortunate. Philadelphia’s Roosevelt Blvd, anyone? If we had to dig this completely from scratch, the idea that there are many more corridors in the City which have more pressing need for transit improvements would certainly hold more water. But we don’t have to build completely from scratch, and there does appear to be a need so let’s address it, not dismiss it.

I do wonder how the RBB would fit into a de-interlined QBL, especially if the Broadway service is removed from QB. For me, routing the  down RBB is the easiest thing. But if there’s no longer a Broadway service on QBL, then another option has to be considered. And it has to run seven days a week. Can the MTA run four services on weekends while still doing needed maintenance? Regardless of de-interlining, I’m concerned about that if the  is rerouted via RBB. You could replace it with the  on weekends, de-interlined QBL or not. But then, you still have the same issues with weekend maintenance. 

Now, if there can be a way to run four weekend QBL services on acceptable headways (perhaps 12 minutes or less) on two or three tracks, then I can see the  as a viable option. Also, if it can be shown that a high number of riders would be willing to use an infill station on the 63rd St Tunnel Line somewhere between 21st St and Northern Blvd, then I can see the  as a viable option under a de-interlined QBL with the 63rd St trains as the locals.

11 hours ago, Vulturious said:

What's actually more odd is that you seem to have went over the part where I said it's "all local". That's basically the reason why I and whoever else have said this say that both the  and  is too long. It is because both lines are all local which I know for a fact people want to avoid as much as possible. Like I said I got no problem with the  running along the Rockaway Beach Branch, but there are other factors to consider. 

To say that it would be a pretty flimsy excuse to not extend subway service with the current merges confuses me. What's to say the  and  with whatever proposed extensions they have will be reliable? People are going to realize that service isn't really better regardless of new subway service running into areas void of any. 

I don’t see why it wouldn’t work if you run an  service that ends at Whitehall and convert Woodhaven into an express station (something they should have done long ago anyway). With an express transfer at Woodhaven, it helps mitigate the concern about being on an all-local service for too long. Riders who transfer will almost certainly get a crush-loaded train, but that’s the trade off for an express ride.

[vanshnookenraggen]

13 hours ago, Vulturious said:

What's actually more odd is that you seem to have went over the part where I said it's "all local". That's basically the reason why I and whoever else have said this say that both the  and  is too long. It is because both lines are all local which I know for a fact people want to avoid as much as possible. Like I said I got no problem with the  running along the Rockaway Beach Branch, but there are other factors to consider. 

To say that it would be a pretty flimsy excuse to not extend subway service with the current merges confuses me. What's to say the  and  with whatever proposed extensions they have will be reliable? People are going to realize that service isn't really better regardless of new subway service running into areas void of any. 

It doesn't matter if it's local or not. Locals aren't supposed to be for riding every-single-stop all the way. They are to distribute riders along the route which is exactly the market QueensLink is trying to serve. Even if a rider was to ride it local all the way to midtown it would still shave off 15 min. Realistically, they are going to transfer to the express. So what's the problem?

You make merge issues sound like a zero-sum problem when they aren't. Yes, merge issues cause delays and reduce capacity. But the system still functions; it would just function better with these problems solved! You also make it sound all dramatic that "people are going to realize that service isn't really better" when if you ask anyone in Rockaway they'll tell you it can't get any worse.

RBB works regardless of deinterlining, and it would work even better with deinterlining. All of these small issues don't disqualify the overall project.

[ActiveCity]

If the RBB is going to be restored as a subway line, then the MTA should consider converting the Woodhaven Blvd station into an express stop as part of the reactivation process for the RBB because Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue is insanely overcrowded during the AM/PM rush hour and it's mainly due to the fact that express trains are easily accessible at that station and it's only going to get worse if we attract more riders onto the Queens Blvd line. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by ActiveCity

[Amiri the subway guy]

Here’s my idea. 

Rebuilt the branch. Then remade the Shuttle the (H)  and extend it to WTC via Queens Blvd Local 8th Avenue Local. The M train would be move over to 63rd street tunnel and then add new switches at 50th street and 42 street the C train would become Express. The H train would run to Rockway Park allowing all Rockway A trains to be diverted to Far Rockway 
 3 locals sound overkill at first but both the M and R run under capacity causing crowding so this leaves plenty of space for the H train. The H Train announcements should be Kathleen Campion Feedback please.

[Vulturious]

7 hours ago, Amiri the subway guy said:

Here’s my idea. 

Rebuilt the branch. Then remade the Shuttle the (H)  and extend it to WTC via Queens Blvd Local 8th Avenue Local. The M train would be move over to 63rd street tunnel and then add new switches at 50th street and 42 street the C train would become Express. The H train would run to Rockway Park allowing all Rockway A trains to be diverted to Far Rockway 
 3 locals sound overkill at first but both the M and R run under capacity causing crowding so this leaves plenty of space for the H train. The H Train announcements should be Kathleen Campion Feedback please.

The reason why the  and  are under capacity is because of what is interfering with it from running more trains. The  and  trains all directly interfere with them, unfortunately it's not just those lines either. 

Even with the  taking up the empty slots of where the  and  aren't operating, there is still the issue of trains maybe arriving early or late. The  already has the issue of running along a line with 2 other lines, not really with the  since the  is pretty much a . I just don't know how well QBL can handle mainly around Queens Plaza and 36 St.

[mrsman]

13 hours ago, Vulturious said:

The reason why the  and  are under capacity is because of what is interfering with it from running more trains. The  and  trains all directly interfere with them, unfortunately it's not just those lines either. 

Even with the  taking up the empty slots of where the  and  aren't operating, there is still the issue of trains maybe arriving early or late. The  already has the issue of running along a line with 2 other lines, not really with the  since the  is pretty much a . I just don't know how well QBL can handle mainly around Queens Plaza and 36 St.

This is all true.  Some form of at least partial deinterlining would be needed to accommodate additional QBL local service, which would give space on the local line for Rocakaway Branch Service.

At minimum, getting rid of the  local to express shift on the Broadway line (by running  to 96th and increasing  Astoria service), and reducing intermingling on QBL, (at minimum  to 53rd and  to 63rd) would help a lot here.

I think doing the above would allow a few more local train on QBL.  At the same time, I think even the most ardent RBB proponents acknowledge that there will be a reduction in  QBL local service to Manhattan for the stations between Forest Hills and Woodhaven as there is a natural limit to the amount of trains that can be run on the QBL local.  Right now, pre-COVID cuts, there is generally a 20 TPH frequency on the line.  If the above clean-up can increase the overall frequency to about 24 TPH (which is generous), you will have to divert at least 10 TPH to RBB, so now the easternmost QBL local stations will only get 14 TPH service.

Only ways to get full 30 TPH on the QBL local would be a) reinstating  service to Forest Hills to get more trains, but not more trains to Manhattan or b) a full complete deinterlining of QBL which would mean all expresses to 53rd and all locals to 63rd (or vice versa) and would probably also mean other service rearrangements to run service so high.  You simply can't have 30 TPH to WTC, so likely the QBL trains that lead to 8th Ave will probably have to run express on 8th Ave.  This also means no  service on QBL either.

[ActiveCity]

The 63rd St line was meant to be a Queens Blvd bypass via the LIRR right of way. The plan called for a 6th Avenue service (M), as well as a 2nd Avenue service (Y). The line would've had a station at Northern Blvd and 41st Avenue, with a passageway transfer to the underground Queens Plaza station. In addition, the 63rd St line would've ramped up to the local tracks at 75th Avenue with a lower level station at 71st Avenue. As a result, this would've shifted the (E) and (F) services from local to express east of 71st Avenue. Finally, it would've allowed (G) service to terminate at 71st Avenue with (R) service to the Rockaways. It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

[Amiri the subway guy]

31 minutes ago, ActiveCity said:

The 63rd St line was meant to be a Queens Blvd bypass via the LIRR right of way. The plan called for a 6th Avenue service (M), as well as a 2nd Avenue service (Y). The line would've had a station at Northern Blvd and 41st Avenue, with a passageway transfer to the underground Queens Plaza station. In addition, the 63rd St line would've ramped up to the local tracks at 75th Avenue with a lower level station at 71st Avenue. As a result, this would've shifted the and services from local to express east of 71st Avenue. Finally, it would've allowed service to terminate at 71st Avenue with service to the Rockaways. It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

 sounds like the word why you think that would’ve worked 

[CenSin]

4 hours ago, ActiveCity said:

The 63rd St line was meant to be a Queens Blvd bypass via the LIRR right of way. The plan called for a 6th Avenue service (M), as well as a 2nd Avenue service (Y). The line would've had a station at Northern Blvd and 41st Avenue, with a passageway transfer to the underground Queens Plaza station. In addition, the 63rd St line would've ramped up to the local tracks at 75th Avenue with a lower level station at 71st Avenue. As a result, this would've shifted the and services from local to express east of 71st Avenue. Finally, it would've allowed service to terminate at 71st Avenue with service to the Rockaways. It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

Not 💯. The super express becomes a local east of Forest Hills? But why? Seems counterintuitive. I would expect a tapered/graduated “demotion” of super-express to express and express to local, not a complete switcheroo where both services end up taking the same amount of time to get to Manhattan, taking away the possibility of an actual faster service.

[ActiveCity]

18 minutes ago, CenSin said:

Not 💯. The super express becomes a local east of Forest Hills? But why? Seems counterintuitive. I would expect a tapered/graduated “demotion” of super-express to express and express to local, not a complete switcheroo where both services end up taking the same amount of time to get to Manhattan, taking away the possibility of an actual faster service.

That's what it was called in the 1968 program for action plan, but the IND Queens Blvd line east of 71st Avenue is 4 tracks so it would be logical sense to use them.

[ActiveCity]

4 hours ago, Amiri the subway guy said:

 sounds like the word why you think that would’ve worked 

sounds like bee, sounds like see, and sounds like tea. 🤷‍♂️

[Amiri the subway guy]

17 minutes ago, ActiveCity said:

sounds like bee, sounds like see, and sounds like tea. 🤷‍♂️

And  sounds like end and  sounds like are

Edited February 20, 2022 by Amiri the subway guy
Edit

[CenSin]

20 minutes ago, ActiveCity said:

That's what it was called in the 1968 program for action plan, but the IND Queens Blvd line east of 71st Avenue is 4 tracks so it would be logical sense to use them.

Forest Hills wasn’t even supposed to be a terminal…

The more logical thing to do would be to connect the super-express tracks to the express tracks or both via the yard leads to Union Turnpike. As opposed to locking the super-express tracks to the local tracks.

The most logical thing to do, however, would be to keep the LIRR-adjacent subway line completely separate from the Queens Boulevard line, running it straight from 63 Street to Jamaica–Parsons–Archer.

Edited February 20, 2022 by CenSin

[Vulturious]

5 hours ago, Amiri the subway guy said:

 sounds like the word why you think that would’ve worked 

1 hour ago, Amiri the subway guy said:

And  sounds like end and  sounds like are

What exactly is your point? Because what you're saying is that trains should not be letters, period.

 

[Amiri the subway guy]

1 minute ago, Vulturious said:

What exactly is your point? Because what you're saying is that trains should not be letters, period.

 

According to the Wikipedia the reason why P U and Y aren’t used because they sound like pee you and why. And I and O isn’t used cause it looks like 1 and 0. 

[bobtehpanda]

2 hours ago, CenSin said:

Not 💯. The super express becomes a local east of Forest Hills? But why? Seems counterintuitive. I would expect a tapered/graduated “demotion” of super-express to express and express to local, not a complete switcheroo where both services end up taking the same amount of time to get to Manhattan, taking away the possibility of an actual faster service.

"Super express" became kind of a misnomer as the project evolved over the years to become more useful.

The original iteration was one track with no stops. It was about as useful as the possibility of running QBL 3/1 in the peak direction; not very, because what goes in must come out.

Later it became two tracks and stopped at Woodside for the  . This is no net stop reduction; the makes one stop between Queensbridge and Forest Hills and so would the super-express. At that point, the speed improvements would pretty much just come from rolling stock, but there's an additional wrinkle there as well; higher speeds lower your max TPH because it takes longer to come to a full stop. All the NTTs have 55MPH limits anyways so in practice we would've never taken advantage.

When you consider all of those things, the switch at 75th becomes an equivalent or bigger time saving than the new route.

Edited February 20, 2022 by bobtehpanda

[Vulturious]

8 minutes ago, Amiri the subway guy said:

According to the Wikipedia the reason why P U and Y aren’t used because they sound like pee you and why. And I and O isn’t used cause it looks like 1 and 0. 

I and O are pretty reasonable, but you're pointing out current services that also sound similar to words like the N and R. It's pretty much contradicting yourself regardless of whether wikipedia says so or not.

[bobtehpanda]

4 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

I and O are pretty reasonable, but you're pointing out current services that also sound similar to words like the N and R. It's pretty much contradicting yourself regardless of whether wikipedia says so or not.

Eh, so at least Y makes sense as well; there's a whole famous skit based on confusing the word "why" as the question word rather than a statement

[Theli11]

On 2/20/2022 at 10:59 AM, Amiri the subway guy said:

 sounds like the word why you think that would’ve worked 

 

On 2/20/2022 at 3:33 PM, ActiveCity said:

sounds like bee, sounds like see, and sounds like tea. 🤷‍♂️

 

On 2/20/2022 at 3:36 PM, Amiri the subway guy said:

And  sounds like end and  sounds like are

 

On 2/20/2022 at 5:11 PM, Vulturious said:

I and O are pretty reasonable, but you're pointing out current services that also sound similar to words like the N and R. It's pretty much contradicting yourself regardless of whether wikipedia says so or not.

All this, we could just use or   

[mrsman]

On 2/20/2022 at 3:29 PM, ActiveCity said:

That's what it was called in the 1968 program for action plan, but the IND Queens Blvd line east of 71st Avenue is 4 tracks so it would be logical sense to use them.

I remember reading that as well.  The super express would be linked to the Hillside local and the Hillside express would be linked to the regular QBL express and the QBL local would emanate from Forest Hills.

In some ways, it seems somewhat nonsensical, but I'll put it in another way and it may have a better distinction.  

In many cities there is a distinction between a limited bus and an express bus.  A limited bus wil only stop at the major streets - it will skip many of the local stops throughout the journey.  An express bus likely will make every stop at the two ends of the route, but then have a long non-stop section (often on an expressway) in the middle.  The regular express train would be like the limited bus, it will help people making long distance journeys within Queens by skipping many local stops.  The super-express would be like the express bus, servicing all of the local stops east of Forest Hills and then providing a non-stop (or near non-stop) service to Manhattan.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 2/20/2022 at 3:29 PM, ActiveCity said:

That's what it was called in the 1968 program for action plan, but the IND Queens Blvd line east of 71st Avenue is 4 tracks so it would be logical sense to use them.

The 1968 plan also called for it to be a single track, which made no sense. Eventually, it evolved into a double track line along the LIRR Main Line, which made far more sense. Even back then, QBL had capacity issues. If they wanted to be able to truly add capacity, that second track plus a new trunk line in Manhattan (i.e., 2nd Ave) would have been key. But, to increase tph on QBL, I think a de-interlined service pattern should be tried before we spend $$$ to build two new tracks on the next to the LIRR Main Line and connect them to the 63rd St tunnel upper level.

Edited February 26, 2022 by T to Dyre Avenue

[mrsman]

On 2/25/2022 at 11:47 PM, T to Dyre Avenue said:

The 1968 plan also called for it to be a single track, which made no sense. Eventually, it evolved into a double track line along the LIRR Main Line, which made far more sense. Even back then, QBL had capacity issues. If they wanted to be able to truly add capacity, that second track plus a new trunk line in Manhattan (i.e., 2nd Ave) would have been key. But, to increase tph on QBL, I think a de-interlined service pattern should be tried before we spend $$$ to build two new tracks on the next to the LIRR Main Line and connect them to the 63rd St tunnel upper level.

Agreed.  Let's do the cheaper fixes to increase service and capacity, like deinterlining, before we embark on large capital campaigns.

Another important piece for QBL would probably be improving travel from Jamaica to Manhattan by alternate means.  This means that the subway will be less crowded if more people can be convinced to taking the LIRR (by making fares cheaper).  Additionally, any eastern queens travel to Lower Manhattan would be better served via  or  or LIRR Atlantic lines (and then subway from Brooklyn), so those services need to be made more attractive as well.

 

[BreeddekalbL]

The new article from rpa on the daily news is the biggest conflict of interest and shilling i have ever seen when one of the queensway members is on the rpa board, very biased 

So much entitlement in the article

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by BreeddekalbL

[LGA Link N Train]

7 hours ago, BreeddekalbL said:

The new article from rpa on the daily news is the biggest conflict of interest and shilling i have ever seen when one of the queensway members is on the rpa board, very biased 

So much entitlement in the article

 

 

 

 

Had my fun with that thread….

 

Apart from wanting to see Rail Service be reactived, main reason I’d like to see this ROW be used again is so that I can use it for my own day to day commutes. Beats walking to Continental, Dealing with Woodhaven or the delays of the 23