Bay Ridge area politicians call for split R train

[LGA Link N Train]

13 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Maybe another idea is to extend some  trips to 86th Street, and modify the  frequency to have the  operate every 6 minutes north of Whitehall Street (10 trains per hour), and every 10 minutes (6 trains per hour) south of Whitehall.

You could but if you have both the  and  at Astoria, you can switch the signage between the two, thus migitating the not-so big of a deal Yard Issue. That way, you can boost frequencies on every Broadway Route and you get rid of all merges that cause conflict between each line. 

Deinterlining Broadway at the end of the day is still a win-win. 

[GojiMet86]

You could build a track splitting from just north of Bay Ridge Avenue, and have it turn east over the LIRR and unto the Sea Beach line if backtracking is such a problem.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

On 4/23/2019 at 10:09 AM, Porter said:

I've always liked the idea of a line.

I like it too, but it’s not my first choice. That would be to reroute the  back to Ditmars with a home yard at 36th-38th in Brooklyn and a secondary service provided by the  or K. All while sending the  fully express to 96th and 2nd and either rerouting the  to Forest Hills or creating a new  QB Local/8th Ave Express to replace the  in Queens (the  would also displace the  in the 53rd Street Tunnel and replace the  in Brooklyn, which would terminate at WTC). 

On 4/23/2019 at 11:01 AM, JeremiahC99 said:

And it would also make  service even more unreliable since this would leave the  with no yard again. The  is different since it can deadhead directly onto the 4th Avenue and Sea beach to Coney Island Yard, But the , there’s no way to do that without reversing onto another line. I know the 36-38th Street Yards is being converted for passenger service, but the reverse move could delay train traffic. Building a new yard in Astoria, not happening until  gets their costs down.

Well if they schedule those reverse moves during rush hour or midday service, then yes, that will be an issue. But can’t those yard moves be scheduled during late evenings (after 9:30, 10:00) as service is starting to peter out for the night? It’s not a perfect solution, but I think it’s better than the current setup the  has. Most importantly, it would permit the  to run far more frequently than it currently does, because it would have far less merging to deal with.

But if the above truly isn’t feasible, then I’m going to suggest the Nassau St K service as the primary 4th Ave local with the  as the secondary with the  cut back to Whitehall, like I suggested way back in this thread (for some reason, I can’t just copy and paste @Porter‘s brown K bullet, while posting from my iPhone!). The  would still run on QB and be based in Jamaica Yard under this plan, while the  would still go to Ditmars as the primary service there.

On 4/23/2019 at 8:42 PM, JeremiahC99 said:

The Pre-1987  did NOT work. According to a brochure from 1987 advertising the change, it said this:

I understand why they did it. It definitely made sense then. In 1987, they still had a significant number of crappy, graffitied-up subway cars that truly were on their last legs. Having those decrepit R27 and pre-GOH R32s and R40s then running on the  deadhead from Bay Ridge to Coney Island with a reverse move north of 36th Street just wasn’t an option. Fortunately, we don’t have that situation today (hopefully we never get back there!) and with R211s and a yard in Sunset Park, it should be even less of an issue.

Edited April 25, 2019 by T to Dyre Avenue

[R68OnBroadway]

In thinking about the  and its interlining I came up with several different ways to split it:

Option 1:  A new tunnel is built between Whitehall and Hoyt-Schermerhorn via State Street. The tracks would connect to the outer Hoyt tracks right after the diamond crossover at Court (the NYTM would remain open as relocation would be expensive and a stop between Hoyt and Whitehall would be avoided to speed up runtimes). The following pattern would take effect:

 splits RPK/FRock

 express in Brooklyn; local in Manhattan; runs to Lefferts

 rerouted to 96th/125th

 unchanged

 rerouted to Astoria (so Astoria-Euclid)

 179th or FHills - Whitehall or City Hall lower (would be reactivated with the 2 western tracks in use)

 now operates on QBL 7 days a week and from 6am-12am; late-night service runs to Essex

 skip-stop eliminated 

 Bowery/Canal- Bay Ridge

Option 2: 

The tracks that currently connect the Brighton line to the Montague tracks right by DeKalb are removed with new tracks built in place that connect to the  just before Lafayette Avenue. Once these tracks are complete the 4th local-tunnel tracks would merge split earlier so diamond crossovers could be put in to maintain a connection between Brighton and Montague. The service pattern would be the same for the  while the  would be eliminated.

Option 2 is much cheaper and easier, however, you would still interline service which could limit the  to either 15 or 20 tph based on how much service Bay Ridge would get. The other option would be to turn trains at Atlantic but that would be fiercely opposed and be an operational nightmare.

[Bay Ridge Express]

On 4/24/2019 at 11:06 AM, GojiMet86 said:

You could build a track splitting from just north of Bay Ridge Avenue, and have it turn east over the LIRR and unto the Sea Beach line if backtracking is such a problem.

Seeing as there are already (visible) provisions for it, this makes sense.

[Lance]

Just a reminder folks: any realistic scenario that fixes 4th Avenue service and the will likely come with little to no new construction. We might see some work done at Whitehall St and Chambers St / Essex St to better facilitate terminal operations if necessary, but any new tunnel construction, even for one of a relatively short distance, is wishful thinking at best. That also applies to the belief that any immediate fixes to the will result in an almost complete rearrangement of the B-Division. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this isn't the proposals thread and every time I see a new post here, I'm actually interested (perhaps others are as well) to see if there's been any movement from the MTA / elected officials on this problem.

[biGC323232]

I mean if the  needs that much help along 4 av  should just simply extend  service to serve 95st all times except late nights....

[Porter]

19 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

I’m going to suggest the Nassau St K service as the primary 4th Ave local with the  as the secondary with the  cut back to Whitehall, like I suggested way back in this thread

 

This is my first time seeing it, but I like that idea, actually. The would still have to be capped off at Chambers Street for now, which is a bit of a choke, but perhaps future renovations could bring it along through Canal and ultimately Bowery, where it would terminate at the unused/underused track(s). The Manhattan section of the line would thus be until the at Essex, a nice division of bandwidth. Otherwise, I think it would be neat to connect the to Nassau somehow, or even terminate it at 2nd Avenue alongside the (where the used to terminate) if money gets tight.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Porter

[T to Dyre Avenue]

9 hours ago, Lance said:

Just a reminder folks: any realistic scenario that fixes 4th Avenue service and the will likely come with little to no new construction. We might see some work done at Whitehall St and Chambers St / Essex St to better facilitate terminal operations if necessary, but any new tunnel construction, even for one of a relatively short distance, is wishful thinking at best. That also applies to the belief that any immediate fixes to the will result in an almost complete rearrangement of the B-Division. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this isn't the proposals thread and every time I see a new post here, I'm actually interested (perhaps others are as well) to see if there's been any movement from the MTA / elected officials on this problem.

Well, after two months, I haven’t seen much action on this idea. Hell, I even joined the Bay Ridge Transit group on Facebook thinking there’d be something new about it. But no, not much about it there either. Still plenty of complaints about how bad subway service in Bay Ridge is, though. They’re not even just limited to the ; the  and  seem to be getting them too (though the majority of the griping is about the ). And rearranging most of the B-Division probably isn’t necessary to just to get a more reliable .

4 hours ago, Porter said:

This is my first time seeing it, but I like that idea, actually. The would still have to be capped off at Chambers Street for now, which is a bit of a choke, but perhaps future renovations could bring it along through Canal and ultimately Bowery, where it would terminate at the unused/underused track(s). The Manhattan section of the line would thus be until the at Essex, a nice division of bandwidth. Otherwise, I think it would be neat to connect the to Nassau somehow, or even terminate it at 2nd Avenue alongside the (where the used to terminate) if money gets tight.

That’s one reason I suggested the 24/7 Nassau K service (well, 24/7 to Chambers; weekdays extended to Essex middle with the  moved to the outer tracks) and the weekday  to replace the  in Brooklyn. Yes, the  would still have all of the merges it currently has and would still be limited in the amount of rush hour service it can run, the  can still be based out of Jamaica Yard. And outside of the 4th Ave local corridor, everyone would still have the same trains they have now. This is not to say that just splitting the Brooklyn section of the  from the rest of the line will make it better. Fixing the signals and switches is very much needed too. I can’t tell how many times I get alerts from Transit about delays, reroutes or suspensions on the  due to signal and switch problems. Fixing those definitely needs to be done before anything else.

Edited April 26, 2019 by T to Dyre Avenue

[Porter]

11 hours ago, Lance said:

Just a reminder folks: any realistic scenario that fixes 4th Avenue service and the will likely come with little to no new construction.

 

2 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Well, after two months, I haven’t seen much action on this idea. Hell, I even joined the Bay Ridge Transit group on Facebook thinking there’d be something new about it. But no, not much about it there either. Still plenty of complaints about how bad subway service in Bay Ridge is, though.

That’s one reason I suggested the 24/7 Nassau K service (well, 24/7 to Chambers; weekdays extended to Essex middle with the  moved to the outer tracks) and the weekday  to replace the  in Brooklyn.

Well, a temporary stepping-stone solution is now clear to me: the should run through 4th Avenue to and from Bay Ridge in peak directions during peak hours. Since these peak directions are opposite those of the from Jamaica, and since the two stretches only overlap in Manhattan, they should not be in any conflict. The is underused, the Montague tunnel is underused, the 4th Avenue corridor is underused, and Bay Ridge needs more service. The would keep all of its current functions, but also assume the duties of the long retired service with a sprinkle of , except the needs no new bullets to be added or restored.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Porter

[paulrivera]

43 minutes ago, Porter said:

 

Well, a temporary stepping-stone solution is now clear to me: the should run through 4th Avenue to and from Bay Ridge in peak directions during peak hours. Since these peak directions are opposite those of the from Jamaica, and since the two stretches only overlap in Manhattan, they should not be in any conflict. The is underused, the Montague tunnel is underused, the 4th Avenue corridor is underused, and Bay Ridge needs more service. The would keep all of its current functions, but also assume the duties of the long retired service with a sprinkle of , except the needs no new bullets to be added or restored.

That would totally screw up skip-stop service in Upper Brooklyn and Queens if that portion of the service is retained in your proposal.

I think that if the  hadn’t merged with the , we would have eventually seen the  running between Metropolitan Avenue and 95th Street. The  has been very successful however (and got the  out of quite the jam with the  debacle) and hopefully they’ll have the same foresight they had in creating the  with the folks along the  line.

[Around the Horn]

1 hour ago, Porter said:

Well, a temporary stepping-stone solution is now clear to me: the should run through 4th Avenue to and from Bay Ridge in peak directions during peak hours. Since these peak directions are opposite those of the from Jamaica, and since the two stretches only overlap in Manhattan, they should not be in any conflict. The is underused, the Montague tunnel is underused, the 4th Avenue corridor is underused, and Bay Ridge needs more service. The would keep all of its current functions, but also assume the duties of the long retired service with a sprinkle of , except the needs no new bullets to be added or restored.

That would require a complete rewrite of the schedule since the currently only runs to Manhattan from Queens between 8 and 9 AM and from Manhattan to Queens from 5 to 6 PM.

I will say however that the current service pattern was clearly designed for 1989 Nassau Street and criminally underserves 2019 Nassau Street and you can kill two birds with one stone by redoing said schedule

[JeremiahC99]

2 hours ago, Porter said:

 

Well, a temporary stepping-stone solution is now clear to me: the should run through 4th Avenue to and from Bay Ridge in peak directions during peak hours. Since these peak directions are opposite those of the from Jamaica, and since the two stretches only overlap in Manhattan, they should not be in any conflict. The is underused, the Montague tunnel is underused, the 4th Avenue corridor is underused, and Bay Ridge needs more service. The would keep all of its current functions, but also assume the duties of the long retired service with a sprinkle of , except the needs no new bullets to be added or restored.

You might as well extend both the  and  to 95th Street. Since the  is just extra s in the work schedule and in the public timetable, there is really no way that they should be treated as separate services. It would just make the crews job harder.

But anyway, I have long championed for such an extension of the  and  from Broad to Bay Ridge-95th Street to help the . It actually makes sense from a passenger standpoint, since there would be more frequent service on the . Your proposal seems close to what I have advocated for, and I can bet you that the Montague Tunnel has room for both the  and .

[Porter]

Well, if it's not too long a service route for the and together, then I say go for it!

1 hour ago, Around the Horn said:

That would require a complete rewrite of the schedule

A capital idea, indeed!

[R68OnBroadway]

9 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

You might as well extend both the  and  to 95th Street. Since the  is just extra s in the work schedule and in the public timetable, there is really no way that they should be treated as separate services. It would just make the crews job harder.

But anyway, I have long championed for such an extension of the  and  from Broad to Bay Ridge-95th Street to help the . It actually makes sense from a passenger standpoint, since there would be more frequent service on the . Your proposal seems close to what I have advocated for, and I can bet you that the Montague Tunnel has room for both the  and .

Here you are again proposing these ridiculous non-starter proposals that create long, excessively interlined, and straight up unreliable routes. Any Nassau service would probably start on the abandoned sides of either Canal or Bowery as the last thing the  /  need is a longer runtime (priorities should be a third track, increasing Williamsburg cap. and killing skip-stop). Let's see all the crazy stuff you have advocated for:

-upper Culver skip-stop

-  to RPK

-  via 63rd

and now this. Don't you get it already?

[JeremiahC99]

3 minutes ago, R68OnBroadway said:

Here you are again proposing these ridiculous non-starter proposals that create long, excessively interlined, and straight up unreliable routes. Any Nassau service would probably start on the abandoned sides of either Canal or Bowery as the last thing the  /  need is a longer runtime (priorities should be a third track, increasing Williamsburg cap. and killing skip-stop). Let's see all the crazy stuff you have advocated for:

-upper Culver skip-stop

-  to RPK

-  via 63rd

and now this. Don't you get it already?

I was going to propose an alternative, which is actually a variant of the  going up Nassau Street to at least Canal Street. That can work as well.

Not to mention that i was told that a  /  extension to 95th Street somewhat makes sense.

If you don’t like it, how about we just beef up existing bus service to take those  riders in Bay Ridge to alternate stations, where trains are more frequent. That would be better.

[Union Tpke]

On 4/26/2019 at 9:48 AM, Lance said:

Just a reminder folks: any realistic scenario that fixes 4th Avenue service and the will likely come with little to no new construction. We might see some work done at Whitehall St and Chambers St / Essex St to better facilitate terminal operations if necessary, but any new tunnel construction, even for one of a relatively short distance, is wishful thinking at best. That also applies to the belief that any immediate fixes to the will result in an almost complete rearrangement of the B-Division. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this isn't the proposals thread and every time I see a new post here, I'm actually interested (perhaps others are as well) to see if there's been any movement from the MTA / elected officials on this problem.

@RR503 The terminal at Whitehall does result in delays for the , but I am not sure if there is much to be done there in improving terminal ops. Doing anything would cost a lot of money. Is there some possible improvement I am missing?

[RR503]

4 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

@RR503 The terminal at Whitehall does result in delays for the , but I am not sure if there is much to be done there in improving terminal ops. Doing anything would cost a lot of money. Is there some possible improvement I am missing?

Off the top of my head, the only improvement I can think of would be making better use of its signal system. I’m pretty sure you can give a  a lineup out NB but allow an  to pull into the platform on ST, which is generally not what’s done today — s frequently get held outside the station.  

[Union Tpke]

1 hour ago, RR503 said:

Off the top of my head, the only improvement I can think of would be making better use of its signal system. I’m pretty sure you can give a  a lineup out NB but allow an  to pull into the platform on ST, which is generally not what’s done today — s frequently get held outside the station.  

How much time do you think that would save?

[Wallyhorse]

On 4/23/2019 at 10:04 AM, Porter said:

Perhaps this has been brought up before, but why not revive the  as it had existed in 1987? This would split the from Bay Ridge and allow peak hour riders to make transfers at Fulton or Chambers without being bogged down by issues in Queens. The infrastructure and bullets already exist.

This is exactly what I would be doing with my making the (or if you would prefer, "Brown ") between 95th and Essex (with scheduled in-service yard runs that end and begin at Broadway Junction).  Only difference is here, this would be 24/7 and replace the  in the overnights (since the only station affected in such would be Whitehall).  In this case, the "Brown "/  would be a max of 8 TPH. 

[Wallyhorse]

On 4/27/2019 at 12:09 AM, JeremiahC99 said:

You might as well extend both the  and  to 95th Street. Since the  is just extra s in the work schedule and in the public timetable, there is really no way that they should be treated as separate services. It would just make the crews job harder.

But anyway, I have long championed for such an extension of the  and  from Broad to Bay Ridge-95th Street to help the . It actually makes sense from a passenger standpoint, since there would be more frequent service on the . Your proposal seems close to what I have advocated for, and I can bet you that the Montague Tunnel has room for both the  and .

 

On 4/27/2019 at 9:26 AM, R68OnBroadway said:

Here you are again proposing these ridiculous non-starter proposals that create long, excessively interlined, and straight up unreliable routes. Any Nassau service would probably start on the abandoned sides of either Canal or Bowery as the last thing the  /  need is a longer runtime (priorities should be a third track, increasing Williamsburg cap. and killing skip-stop).

This is exactly why I do a route from 95th-Essex and leave the alone (other than perhaps giving the existing part a new letter since the would in this become its own route separate from the  as I would do it unless the new route becomes a "Brown  ").  

[Porter]

With some clever modifications, the abandoned sections of Chambers, Canal, and Bowery could be used for a new service to Bay Ridge. I don't think Essex Street has the space though, does it?

[R68OnBroadway]

7 minutes ago, Porter said:

With some clever modifications, the abandoned sections of Chambers, Canal, and Bowery could be used for a new service to Bay Ridge. I don't think Essex Street has the space though, does it?

I think that a revival of a Nassau-4th service would either involve the  utilizing its current platforms and the new service using the old ones ( the  would also be cut back to Chambers and new switches would need to be built south of it). The other option is to have the  use the “local” tracks with the new service on the center (and terminating at Bowery). Essex doesn’t seem to be an option as you only have 3 tracks.

[Wallyhorse]

On 4/29/2019 at 3:19 PM, R68OnBroadway said:

I think that a revival of a Nassau-4th service would either involve the  utilizing its current platforms and the new service using the old ones ( the  would also be cut back to Chambers and new switches would need to be built south of it). The other option is to have the  use the “local” tracks with the new service on the center (and terminating at Bowery). Essex doesn’t seem to be an option as you only have 3 tracks.

This would be a max of 8 TPH and that would include as noted in-service yard runs that would end and begin at Broadway Junction.  Essex would probably be a doable terminal for that.  That can be done without the expense of doing the necessary work to reopen the abandoned platforms at Canal and Bowery (now, if you had an SAS route via Nassau, then it becomes a different story).  

[Around the Horn]

Well Andy Byford is holding a town hall on May 21st at Our Lady of Angels on 73rd Street in Bay Ridge so this most likely will be coming up then...