Red Hook subway station part of Cuomo’s proposal to revitalize Brooklyn neighborhood

[Around the Horn]

The  to Red Hook is picking up steam! Cuomo is endorsing the idea as part of the 2018 State of the State.

Quote

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will order the MTA to evaluate the construction of a new subway station in Red Hook as part of a neighborhood revitalization proposal in his State of the State address to be delivered Wednesday. 

The proposal also calls for the Port Authority to study the consolidation and relocation of its maritime operations from the Red Hook Container Terminal to the Sunset Park’s South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.

“Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood is full of untapped potential, and with this proposal, I am calling on the Port Authority to accelerate consideration of relocating its Red Hook maritime activities to free up this waterfront for more productive community use,” Cuomo said in a statement. “I am also calling on the MTA to take steps to improve transportation options to Red Hook, including studying the potential of a new subway line to connect Red Hook to Manhattan.”

Cuomo’s idea for subway service to a notorious transit desert of Brooklyn would entail extending a line from lower Manhattan through a new underwater tunnel, according to a news release. More details weren’t immediately available. 

The proposal appears similar to one pitched by engineering firm AECOM last year, which called for a 1 train extension from the Rector Street station that would run to three new stations in Red Hook. Cuomo, though, is only requiring for the MTA to study building one new station in the neighborhood. 

“We are eager to study expanded transportation options to Red Hook in line with the Governor’s vision,” said MTA spokesman Jon Weinstein, in a statement.

https://www.amny.com/transit/red-hook-subway-1.15756287

Quote

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today unveiled the 21st proposal of the 2018 State of the State: calling on the Port Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to study potential options for relocating and improving maritime activities and enhancing transportation access to Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood.

"Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood is full of untapped potential, and with this proposal, I am calling on the Port Authority to accelerate consideration of relocating its Red Hook maritime activities to free up this waterfront for more productive community use," Governor Cuomo said. "I am also calling on the MTA to take steps to improve transportation options to Red Hook, including studying the potential of a new subway line to connect Red Hook to Manhattan."

Improving Transportation Access

The Governor is also calling on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to study options for improving transportation access to the Red Hook area and surrounding communities, including the potential extension of subway service from lower Manhattan to a new station in Red Hook through an underwater tunnel.

Once a plan for how to potentially relocate consolidated and improved maritime activities becomes clear and the MTA study is completed, a community-based planning process with key participation by elected representatives and interested stakeholders would be expected to recommend the appropriate redevelopment alternatives for any Port Authority land no longer needed for maritime activities.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-unveils-21st-proposal-2018-state-state-taking-steps-revitalize-red-hook

[RR503]

Oh lord...

The last thing the MTA capital program needs now is an embarkation on another many billion dollar boondoggle...

Talk about messy priorities.

Bye bye RHCT

[P3F]

Even though it would be more expensive to construct, the connection should be engineered from the southern end of South Ferry (the island platform).

[RR503]

16 minutes ago, P3F said:

Even though it would be more expensive to construct, the connection should be engineered from the southern end of South Ferry (the island platform).

Impossible. Too high to get under the river. 

[P3F]

Just now, RR503 said:

Impossible. Too high to get under the river. 

Is a diagram of the area available?

[HenryB]

Would it be better to have  or  extend to Red Hook instead of any IRT line? 

[LGA Link N Train]

44 minutes ago, HenryB said:

Would it be better to have  or  extend to Red Hook instead of any IRT line? 

is a more superior option. Either way I don't agree with ANY subway going to red hook. LRT or BRT would be a more feasible option 

[Deucey]

25 minutes ago, LGA Link N train said:

is a more superior option. Either way I don't agree with ANY subway going to red hook. LRT or BRT would be a more feasible option 

Why build a tunnel across the water for one station when the problem with Red Hook could easily be solved by building a  or  spur line from between Bergen and Carroll Sts Stations. 

Do that and everyone has a quick ride to Manhattan or Williamsburg - even if one has to take three or more trains.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

1 hour ago, HenryB said:

Would it be better to have  or  extend to Red Hook instead of any IRT line? 

, maybe. That’s because it would be a line that only shares tracks with the  above the 63rd St tunnel and (ideally), the V below 63rd. So you could have up to 15  tph. , no. That’s because it currently shares tracks with the  in Queens, the  in Manhattan on the Broadway Local tracks and both the  and  from the 60th St tunnel to Times Square. The  is currently limited to 6-7 tph and I don’t think it’ll get any better than that, given that it’s a supplemental service.

The  option is probably superior to both because you can have get it to Red Hook without first having to build a brand new subway all the way down 2nd Ave, Chrystie, Pearl and Water streets, like you’d have to do for the . Like the , you can run up to 15 tph on the , because the  would be the only line the  would be sharing tracks with. But the  can be built much quicker because the route as far as Battery Park already exists. And because the  would use narrow-width trains, it might be possible to build a single-bore tunnel holding both tracks.

24 minutes ago, LGA Link N train said:

is a more superior option. Either way I don't agree with ANY subway going to red hook. LRT or BRT would be a more feasible option 

Why LRT or BRT? Especially BRT, which is no real alternative to a subway, let alone light rail. And please don’t say, “cause it’s cheaper (or easier).” That doesn’t make it better.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

19 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Why build a tunnel across the water for one station when the problem with Red Hook could easily be solved by building a  or  spur line from between Bergen and Carroll Sts Stations. 

Do that and everyone has a quick ride to Manhattan or Williamsburg - even if one has to take three or more trains.

That would take away service from stations further down the  line, including the very busy Carroll St. And they’ll want it to be the . From an operations standpoint, the  would be the easier of the two to extend there. But I can see people attending public meetings putting a huge fight over having a service that doesn’t go directly into Manhattan. Yes, they can transfer to the  at Bergen or the  at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, but no one ever willingly takes “you can transfer to...” for an answer.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

8 minutes ago, D to 96 St said:

Agree 100%. If you branched it off of Culver, this is would just feed the whole of Red Hook into the busy section of Culver, leading to overcrowding at Bergen. 

The  is the best option.  It can include a stop on Governors' Island and Battery Park City. I would have it go peak-express north of 96 St, but can VCP-242 St handle that dose of extra capacity?

I don't think the streets are wide enough in Red Hook to accommodate LRT or BRT..... There's a reason why buses like the B57 and B61 are all local down there. 

The  doesn’t have to go to 242nd. Maybe it can short-turn at Dyckman or 137th.

Did I mention I’m quite surprised to see this proposal come back from the dead? I actually went back to look at the original AECOM proposal thread from September 2016 for some background on this one.

[Deucey]

1 hour ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

That would take away service from stations further down the  line, including the very busy Carroll St. And they’ll want it to be the . From an operations standpoint, the  would be the easier of the two to extend there. But I can see people attending public meetings putting a huge fight over having a service that doesn’t go directly into Manhattan. Yes, they can transfer to the  at Bergen or the  at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, but no one ever willingly takes “you can transfer to...” for an answer.

Not if you couple it with an  express, or run  full-time to Red Hook and  to Coney Island.

You could even do like  and have one  branch to Red Hook full-time; the other  to Coney Island (and extend  to Kings Hwy during non-  express hours).

[Porter]

3 hours ago, D to 96 St said:

Oh an also, expect some crazy foamers to be like OMG  TRAIN IS BACK NOW WE RIDE SKIP-STOP!!!!

So, will I have to change my username, then? Given that it's such a long route, why not bring back skip-stop service to ease the length?

[Around the Horn]

3 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Not if you couple it with an  express, or run  full-time to Red Hook and  to Coney Island.

You could even do like  and have one  branch to Red Hook full-time; the other  to Coney Island (and extend  to Kings Hwy during non-  express hours).

The whole point of this is to get people off the LMAO

[RR503]

4 hours ago, P3F said:

Is a diagram of the area available?

No, but in this article he gives reasons (BBT) (no, I don't know how to bypass the paywall)

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2016/9/27/eagle-interview-chris-ward-man-looking-revolutionize-south-brooklyn

55 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Not if you couple it with an  express, or run  full-time to Red Hook and  to Coney Island.

You could even do like  and have one  branch to Red Hook full-time; the other  to Coney Island (and extend  to Kings Hwy during non-  express hours).

Where would this track capacity come from? Unless you make the  go back to Nassau, there is simply no way to add Culver express/ red hook  service without decreasing culver local/ non red hook   service. And anyway, branching off of culver kinda anywhere would be a disaster -- it runs under narrow streets, over gigantic viaducts, and through extremely dense areas. 

This whole red hook  thing is such a waste of time. Shouldn't we be looking after existing transit deserts before creating new ones for our beleagured MTA to solve? Or hell, make sure that the buses and subways that serve this city currently work in some facsimile of an acceptable manner?

[Trainmaster5]

Does anyone really believe that anyone in an official capacity would consider an extension built to IRT specs ? That's a DOA if there ever was one, IMO. Watch someone resurrect Bob Diamond's trolley/streetcar idea next. Actually, TBH, that idea built from the "Hook to Smith-Ninth station makes more sense than anything else being proposed so far. Maybe the mayor can get his backers to build a waterfront line down there too. Looks like Prince Andrew has thrown some red meat to the railfans. RR503 sees the big picture. Carry on.

[Around the Horn]

15 minutes ago, RR503 said:

No, but in this article he gives reasons (BBT) (no, I don't know how to bypass the paywall)

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2016/9/27/eagle-interview-chris-ward-man-looking-revolutionize-south-brooklyn

 

Here's what he said (somehow no paywall for me)

Quote

Eagle: How exactly would you extend the train?

Ward: The main challenge is getting underneath the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. You have to have the train split off from just south of Rector Street and then it would be tunnel boarded down underneath the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Our engineers have done the slope and gradient change for an MTA train, and by pulling back into Rector Street, it’s not so steep either going down or steep coming up, so it’s an appropriate sloping gradient for the [No.] 1 train.

The idea is to bring it underneath Governors Island, and just a footnote. If people were so inclined and the resources were available, you could put a deep station in Governors Island to provide really phenomenal access to that incredible asset that now is so limited by the ferry system.

Then the idea is to have a stop over in Red Hook and a final stop adjacent to the train on Ninth [Street] there, so it’s about a $3 billion price tag. If you were to do the Governors Island station, it would probably add another half a billion dollars.

 

2 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Does anyone really believe that anyone in an official capacity would consider an extension built to IRT specs ? That's a DOA if there ever was one, IMO.

To be fair, they just extended the for the same reason

[Trainmaster5]

1 minute ago, Around the Horn said:

Here's what he said (somehow no paywall for me)

 

To be fair, they just extended the for the same reason

The is an extension... to an existing line. This talk of a is something entirely different. This or whatever is a an underwater job, new construction if you will. Anything the builds is going to be to either B division or MU specs from now on. The old bang for the buck, capacity rationale. Personally I think that's the reason the Utica Avenue subway , if built, will connect to the IND Fulton St line and not use the existing bellmouths at Eastern Parkway which connect to the IRT. That's just my opinion though. Carry on.

[RR503]

16 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

The is an extension... to an existing line. This talk of a is something entirely different. This or whatever is a an underwater job, new construction if you will.

I'd argue that this is basically an extension too. Just it being underwater doesn't change its position relative to its parent line. As for specs, while I agree that in an ideal world everything would be built to B div specs, I think the agency's position must be more nuanced than that. If it makes sense to extend an A division line, and service studies show that the narrower trains can handle it, then do it! Which leads me to my example, in fact.. 

16 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Personally I think that's the reason the Utica Avenue subway , if built, will connect to the IND Fulton St line and not use the existing bellmouths at Eastern Parkway which connect to the IRT. That's just my opinion though. Carry on.

Again, in a perfect world, I'd agree. Thing is, Fulton already has three distinct branches and local stations to serve. This is to say nothing about the fact that that currently, all service has to come from a single pair of underriver tunnels. So while it'd be nice to have b div cars on Utica, the service dilution that'd result on Fulton just breaks the case. 

Connecting the tracks to Eastern Parkway would allow the line to be an extension of an existing route. The  would be sent down Utica, with the  picking up New Lots. Simple, easy, and results in no service losses/dilutions/additional merges. Of course, such construction should be coupled with a redo of Rogers, but that goes without saying. On the whole, I just think that the MTA needs to be pragmatic. If from a network standpoint (and from a service capacity one), A div extension is preferable, no blanket rule against them should stop such a project. 

That said, I still don't support this  train idiocy. Is it really time to encourage development in flood zones? Really? And have we lost all sight of the value of in-city port facilities from an economic, security, and resiliency standpoint? 

[Trainmaster5]

7 minutes ago, RR503 said:

I'd argue that this is basically an extension too. Just it being underwater doesn't change its position relative to its parent line. As for specs, while I agree that in an ideal world everything would be built to B div specs, I think the agency's position must be more nuanced than that. If it makes sense to extend an A division line, and service studies show that the narrower trains can handle it, then do it! Which leads me to my example, in fact.. 

Again, in a perfect world, I'd agree. Thing is, Fulton already has three distinct branches and local stations to serve. This is to say nothing about the fact that that currently, all service has to come from a single pair of underriver tunnels. So while it'd be nice to have b div cars on Utica, the service dilution that'd result on Fulton just breaks the case. 

Connecting the tracks to Eastern Parkway would allow the line to be an extension of an existing route. The  would be sent down Utica, with the  picking up New Lots. Simple, easy, and results in no service losses/dilutions/additional merges. Of course, such construction should be coupled with a redo of Rogers, but that goes without saying. On the whole, I just think that the MTA needs to be pragmatic. If from a network standpoint (and from a service capacity one), A div extension is preferable, no blanket rule against them should stop such a project. 

That said, I still don't support this  train idiocy. Is it really time to encourage development in flood zones? Really? And have we lost all sight of the value of in-city port facilities from an economic, security, and resiliency standpoint? 

Re: that Utica connection. The cost and disruption to Utica and Eastern Parkway coupled with the Junction rebuild at Nostrand Junction/Rogers Avenue is why I lean to the IND connection. On paper the IRT hookup does make more sense in it's entirety but the time factor to accomplish that on two sections of Eastern Parkway will lead to a guaranteed outcry from both segments of the parkway. Compare that to the slight( in comparison) connection work needed at Fulton St/ Utica/ Schenectady/ Atlantic Avenue. Lower population density, light industrial, the LIRR and the athletic field of Boy's and Girl's High. All depends on how the neighborhoods and politicians want it to play out IMO. Just speculating. Every time I think about the Utica project I try to anticipate which neighborhood or community board will scream the loudest. Nevertheless I think any Utica project is more important than a Red Hook line. Carry on.

[Lance]

Cuomo really wants to be president, doesn't he? Of course, he'd get more support if he actually did something useful, like rectify the existing problems with the current subway infrastructure. I mean, who cares that subway delays have grown exponentially over the years and on time performance has dropped like a rock. The subway to Red Hook is a must. Also, I guess actual areas where transit is insufficient, like swaths of Eastern Queens, along with the Third Ave and Utica Ave corridors in the Bronx and Brooklyn don't matter as long as the up and coming Red Hook gets first dibs on an expansion. I'm all for subway expansion, but Red Hook falls so far down the list of useful expansion projects, it's not even on the first page. Something like this, which is obviously meant to spur development in the area, should be paid for primarily by private investors and not the cash-strapped MTA. Either that or the agency should see a chunk of the subsequent revenue from the planned developments.

On the subject of which line would be extended under this resurrected proposal, there are a few options. The South Ferry branch of 7th Avenue seems most likely because it would not be impacted by an existing East River tunnel that would potentially siphon trains from a Brooklyn line like Broadway or 8th Avenue. Lower Jamaica is also an option with the two inner tail tracks that don't lead to the Montague tunnels. Of course, that option is not as sweet since Jamaica is only a Lower Manhattan line before curving east towards Brooklyn. I can't say which would be chosen, but right off the bat we can probably eliminate an extension of the 2nd Avenue line. That is unless we want to wait another hundred years for the line to be extended beyond 63rd Street.

[RR503]

9 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Re: that Utica connection. The cost and disruption to Utica and Eastern Parkway coupled with the Junction rebuild at Nostrand Junction/Rogers Avenue is why I lean to the IND connection. On paper the IRT hookup does make more sense in it's entirety but the time factor to accomplish that on two sections of Eastern Parkway will lead to a guaranteed outcry from both segments of the parkway. Compare that to the slight( in comparison) connection work needed at Fulton St/ Utica/ Schenectady/ Atlantic Avenue. Lower population density, light industrial, the LIRR and the athletic field of Boy's and Girl's High. All depends on how the neighborhoods and politicians want it to play out IMO. Just speculating. Every time I think about the Utica project I try to anticipate which neighborhood or community board will scream the loudest. Nevertheless I think any Utica project is more important than a Red Hook line. Carry on.

I don't think it'd be more disruptive. The attachment of the Utica line could be done with little effect on train service, and the Rogers rebuild, while it'd shut down those line for a while, would take place in just one tiny area of a wide street. Indeed, the reason that the Rogers insanity exists is because the IRT was forced to build the line only on the south side of the parkway. 

On Fulton, you'd have to tear up the entire street to build what I'd assume would be a junction akin to that of Archer Ave and QB. The Fulton tunnel walls would have to be destroyed, and moved outwards -- on a street much, much narrower than EP. I would be surprised if this didn't entail eminent domain. 

Anyway, our disagreement is peanuts compared to this project. Few ideas in recent years have disgusted me more than this one -- the rank ignorance of area flood conditions, the obvious grovelling to developers for funding, the ignorance and distraction from the dysfunctional that plagues the rest of our system. Shame on Cuomo. 

[Mysterious2train]

Forgive me for drifting further off topic into fantasy land, but wasn't Crown Heights-Utica Av built with a bellmouth for a potential Utica Av line? It would definitely be easier to build a junction there than from the IND Fulton St Line. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the idea of a Utica Av line branching from the Fulton St line. If the Second Avenue line through Court St/the Transit Museum were ever built, it could run down Utica Av. It would provide extra capacity on the western half on the Fulton St line at least.

[CenSin]

The Fulton Street Line was not designed with provisions for a track connection. The provisions at the Fulton Street/Utica Avenue station are for a 4-track line crossing above and perpendicular to the current station.

[Union Tpke]

I think that AECOM gave Cuomo money for his reelection campaign.