Original Expansion Plans Discussion

[Bay Ridge Express]

22 hours ago, Lex said:

The distance between these two streets is approximately 880 feet. The full platform length would be about 525 feet. In order for this to be remotely feasible, the station would need to be a mid-block station.

That's totally fine. I was thinking of the big 2 Av stations in place while writing this.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

On 1/23/2021 at 5:10 AM, Lawrence St said:

In all fairness, Court St was suppose to connect to a new East River tunnel that would have doubled the capacity of the Fulton Line had it actually gone through.

 

Maybe that new tunnel could still be built and connect to the Second Avenue Line. 

[bobtehpanda]

On 2/6/2021 at 7:40 AM, Gotham Bus Co. said:

 

Maybe that new tunnel could still be built and connect to the Second Avenue Line. 

There's nothing to prevent it after we get to Hanover Square in 2150.

[Lawrence St]

8 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

There's nothing to prevent it after we get to Hanover Square in 2150.

That's if teleportation hasn't been invented by then...

_____________________________________________________________

I still don't understand why it was necessary to remove the original Jamaica Line to 168th St just to reroute it to Archer Ave for an additional 3 stops. I get that the  somewhat replaced service at some of the stops. I would have seen the reason had the gone to Ozone Park instead of Archer Av so the can serve Archer Av by itself.

[R10 2952]

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

I still don't understand why it was necessary to remove the original Jamaica Line to 168th St just to reroute it to Archer Ave for an additional 3 stops. I get that the  somewhat replaced service at some of the stops. I would have seen the reason had the gone to Ozone Park instead of Archer Av so the can serve Archer Av by itself.

Politics, that's why.  Local politicians and businessmen from the late '50s onwards kept bitching about the Jamaica El and its supposed effect on business and quality-of-life; same situation as what caused the Third Avenue El in Manhattan to come down.  Eventually they got the ear of Mayor Lindsay, and by the time the "Program for Action" came around in 1968, replacing the el with a tunnel was added to the list of projects. 

The Transit Authority wasn't all that interested in demolition, but political meddling (as always) forced their hand.  The biggest irony is that a lot of these same businesses along Jamaica Avenue actually lost a lot of customers and eventually went under once the el was gone. 

[Deucey]

41 minutes ago, R10 2952 said:

Politics, that's why.  Local politicians and businessmen from the late '50s onwards kept bitching about the Jamaica El and its supposed effect on business and quality-of-life; same situation as what caused the Third Avenue El in Manhattan to come down.  Eventually they got the ear of Mayor Lindsay, and by the time the "Program for Action" came around in 1968, replacing the el with a tunnel was added to the list of projects. 

The Transit Authority wasn't all that interested in demolition, but political meddling (as always) forced their hand.  The biggest irony is that a lot of these same businesses along Jamaica Avenue actually lost a lot of customers and eventually went under once the el was gone. 

Life lesson: be careful what you wish/pray for because you just might get it.

Should’ve prayed for a tunnel instead of tear down.

[bobtehpanda]

23 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Life lesson: be careful what you wish/pray for because you just might get it.

Should’ve prayed for a tunnel instead of tear down.

The Jamaica El was replaced by a tunnel. That would be today's Archer Avenue  .

A stubby shabby tunnel, but a tunnel nonetheless. (And I say shabby because I don't think I've ever seen an escalator panel made entirely of duct tape until I ventured down to the lower level ). 

[Deucey]

1 hour ago, bobtehpanda said:

The Jamaica El was replaced by a tunnel. That would be today's Archer Avenue  .

A stubby shabby tunnel, but a tunnel nonetheless. (And I say shabby because I don't think I've ever seen an escalator panel made entirely of duct tape until I ventured down to the lower level ). 

I meant one on Jamaica Avenue. Could’ve kept some of those businesses that closed open and flush with cash from subway patron traffic vs most of it being bus-bound past Sutphin Boulevard.

[Lawrence St]

3 minutes ago, Deucey said:

I meant one on Jamaica Avenue. Could’ve kept some of those businesses that closed open and flush with cash from subway patron traffic vs most of it being bus-bound past Sutphin Boulevard.

Not to mention that the Jamaica El also had 5 more stops compared to the 1 that we have now, and 2 in the completely opposite direction.

What exactly was the deal with people wanting to tear down el's anyway? This is exactly why its so hard in today's world to extend a line anywhere. If we had the infrastructure, it wouldn't cost nearly as much to restore service on a line. (I'm looking at you, 3rd Av Elevated.)

Point; if we still had the Culver Connection, it would bring so much flexibility to the B divison that wouldn't result in such ridiculous G.O's. 

Look at Cincinnati, even though they never finished their subway its still being used for other things and no one is rushing to demolish it. The only demolished portion was that section between the tunnel portal and the next station because they had to use it for the interstate construction, other then that, it would have stayed. 

Why is NYC so backwards, we will never know.

[Deucey]

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

What exactly was the deal with people wanting to tear down el's anyway? This is exactly why its so hard in today's world to extend a line anywhere. If we had the infrastructure, it wouldn't cost nearly as much to restore service on a line. (I'm looking at you, 3rd Av Elevated.)

Same reason why it’s kinda hard to rent apartments in Bushwick near Broadway - you hear every train and stuff’s always falling on you.

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

Look at Cincinnati, even though they never finished their subway its still being used for other things and no one is rushing to demolish it.

Did they fill in the Rochester subway?

[Lawrence St]

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

Same reason why it’s kinda hard to rent apartments in Bushwick near Broadway - you hear every train and stuff’s always falling on you.

Did they fill in the Rochester subway?

Speaking of stuff falling on you, those nets that are beneath the 7th Av Elevated are already ripped. Not sure what thats suppose to catch with broken nets lmao.

And im not sure about the Rochester Subway, I think they still haven't filled it. 

[bobtehpanda]

3 hours ago, Deucey said:

I meant one on Jamaica Avenue. Could’ve kept some of those businesses that closed open and flush with cash from subway patron traffic vs most of it being bus-bound past Sutphin Boulevard.

They didn't die because the subway moved the traffic. They died because of the extended period of construction.

Macy's went through all the trouble of pushing for a subway, and then proceeded to fold a year into the construction. NYT

[T to Dyre Avenue]

7 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Not to mention that the Jamaica El also had 5 more stops compared to the 1 that we have now, and 2 in the completely opposite direction.

What exactly was the deal with people wanting to tear down el's anyway? This is exactly why its so hard in today's world to extend a line anywhere. If we had the infrastructure, it wouldn't cost nearly as much to restore service on a line. (I'm looking at you, 3rd Av Elevated.)

Point; if we still had the Culver Connection, it would bring so much flexibility to the B divison that wouldn't result in such ridiculous G.O's. 

Look at Cincinnati, even though they never finished their subway its still being used for other things and no one is rushing to demolish it. The only demolished portion was that section between the tunnel portal and the next station because they had to use it for the interstate construction, other then that, it would have stayed. 

Why is NYC so backwards, we will never know.

What’s backwards is that Cincinnati is not running trains in their subway. If they were actually running subway trains - or even streetcar/light rail trains - in their subway, plus continuing to expand rail, then you could say NYC is being backwards compared to Cincy. This is what was supposed to happen in Cincy if politics and the Depression hadn’t conspired to stop it - 

https://cincinnati-transit.net/subway.html

It’s very much a tragedy that Cincinnati has never run even a single train through those tunnels and currently has no official plans to do so. We can only wonder what might’ve been. Same as if we had kept up the 3rd Ave el and the outer part of the Jamaica Ave el in its namesake area of Queens.

Edited February 9, 2021 by T to Dyre Avenue

[Lawrence St]

2 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

What’s backwards is that Cincinnati is not running trains in their subway. If they were actually running subway trains - or even streetcar/light rail trains - in their subway, plus continuing to expand rail, then you could say NYC is being backwards compared to Cincy. This is what was supposed to happen in Cincy if politics and the Depression hadn’t conspired to stop it - 

https://cincinnati-transit.net/subway.html

It’s very much a tragedy that Cincinnati has never run even a single train through those tunnels and currently has no official plans to do so. We can only wonder what might’ve been. Same as if we had kept up the 3rd Ave el and the outer part of the Jamaica Ave el in its namesake area of Queens.

When I meant backwards I meant in terms of demolishing non-used transit infrastructure.

[bobtehpanda]

19 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Not to mention that the Jamaica El also had 5 more stops compared to the 1 that we have now, and 2 in the completely opposite direction.

What exactly was the deal with people wanting to tear down el's anyway? This is exactly why its so hard in today's world to extend a line anywhere. If we had the infrastructure, it wouldn't cost nearly as much to restore service on a line. (I'm looking at you, 3rd Av Elevated.)

Point; if we still had the Culver Connection, it would bring so much flexibility to the B divison that wouldn't result in such ridiculous G.O's. 

Look at Cincinnati, even though they never finished their subway its still being used for other things and no one is rushing to demolish it. The only demolished portion was that section between the tunnel portal and the next station because they had to use it for the interstate construction, other then that, it would have stayed. 

Why is NYC so backwards, we will never know.

At one point NYC was actually good at tearing down els and replacing them with perfectly fine subways. The Ninth, Sixth, and Fulton Els are long gone, two and three track five-car els with flat junctions replaced by four-track, ten-car subway lines.

Then costs went up and the rest is history. I don't think anyone would have agreed to the subway replacement if they had known that costs would spiral out of control and force early termination of building. The  was supposed to go to Hollis and the was supposed to go to Rochdale, but they never made it that far. In that NYT article I linked earlier they though these full lines would finish by 1982. We ended up opening today's short line in 1988.

The original sin is the failure to build lines at a reasonable cost in reasonable time. SAS Phase I at least opened on budget, but we got there by significantly blowing up budgets to match reality, not by trying to learn from our mistakes and cutting costs.

[R10 2952]

Pretty much; if I recall correctly, all the projects that were proposed by NYCTA during the '50s and '60s to realign the el east of Broadway Junction and add a third track mostly fell through due to cost.

Why the BMT failed to eliminate the Crescent Street bottleneck during the Dual Contracts in the 1910s is beyond me. 

Edited February 9, 2021 by R10 2952

[Lawrence St]

I'm surprised the city wanted to have both A & B division trains stopping at the same platform at the same station.

[bobtehpanda]

5 hours ago, R10 2952 said:

Pretty much; if I recall correctly, all the projects that were proposed by NYCTA during the '50s and '60s to realign the el east of Broadway Junction and add a third track mostly fell through due to cost.

Why the BMT failed to eliminate the Crescent Street bottleneck during the Dual Contracts in the 1910s is beyond me. 

IIRC they tried but on their first go determined that just putting in the third track would cause excessive vibration.

I believe the later plans involved some type of reconstruction of the el, avoiding that problem.

4 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I'm surprised the city wanted to have both A & B division trains stopping at the same platform at the same station.

When did they want that?

It's not an inherently bad idea. Cross-platform transfers are convenient and redoing the loading gauge across a line is more trouble than it's worth. We already have this at QBP.

[Lawrence St]

16 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

IIRC they tried but on their first go determined that just putting in the third track would cause excessive vibration.

I believe the later plans involved some type of reconstruction of the el, avoiding that problem.

When did they want that?

It's not an inherently bad idea. Cross-platform transfers are convenient and redoing the loading gauge across a line is more trouble than it's worth. We already have this at QBP.

Look at the Utica Av subway, both the and were suppose to have shared trackage. Same with the and along Nostrand Av.

[bobtehpanda]

6 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

Look at the Utica Av subway, both the and were suppose to have shared trackage. Same with the and along Nostrand Av.

The massive Vanshnooken map I would take with a grain of salt, because I have never seen proposed track maps of the Second System, and what his map tries to do is take the various proposals from over the years (1929, 1939, '68, etc.) and combine them all into one big map. I don't think anyone has actually seriously proposed anything like this, at one singular point in time.

[Trainmaster5]

1 minute ago, bobtehpanda said:

The massive Vanshnooken map I would take with a grain of salt, because I have never seen proposed track maps of the Second System, and what his map tries to do is take the various proposals from over the years (1929, 1939, '68, etc.) and combine them all into one big map. I don't think anyone has actually seriously proposed anything like this, at one singular point in time.

That's why quite a few of the old time (decade+) posters looked at the renderings and never took them seriously. They were/are interesting but are not based in anything the  has on their agenda. Carry on.

[bobtehpanda]

19 minutes ago, Trainmaster5 said:

That's why quite a few of the old time (decade+) posters looked at the renderings and never took them seriously. They were/are interesting but are not based in anything the  has on their agenda. Carry on.

Indeed.

A picture is worth a thousand words (and it gets real hard reading the bullet points of where things are supposed to go, particularly on alignments or roads that changed names or don't exist anymore) but this is mostly historically-based fiction.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

7 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I'm surprised the city wanted to have both A & B division trains stopping at the same platform at the same station.

As long as they’re on separate tracks, it really shouldn’t be much of an issue outside of delays and maintenance-related General Orders. 

[LGA Link N Train]

On 2/9/2021 at 9:32 PM, bobtehpanda said:

When did they want that?

It's not an inherently bad idea. Cross-platform transfers are convenient and redoing the loading gauge across a line is more trouble than it's worth. We already have this at QBP.

I remember seeing the 1968 plan showing the SAS Bronx Extension overlapping with the  near Brook Avenue and 138th Street. Could that have been a potential example of a Cross Platform Transfer between the A and B Divisions?

[T to Dyre Avenue]

8 hours ago, LaGuardia Link N Tra said:

I remember seeing the 1968 plan showing the SAS Bronx Extension overlapping with the  near Brook Avenue and 138th Street. Could that have been a potential example of a Cross Platform Transfer between the A and B Divisions?

I thought the SAS Bronx extension was going to run parallel to the  along existing railroad right-of-way up to Hunts Point Avenue where it would then capture the Westchester Ave El for the rest of the way to Pelham Bay Park. I can’t see how B-Division sized SAS trains would have been able to run on the same tracks as the , and they would have had to, since the subway part of the  in The Bronx only has three tracks.