Subway station depths, widths and how they fit under narrow streets

[U-BahnNYC]

Something that I've always wondered about but could never find info on was: what are the exact depths of each subway station? There's a few resources on the deepest stations but I'm curious if there's any official data like how deep each station is precisely.

Additionally, how wide are the stations and tunnels, especially in Manhattan on the 4-track express trunk lines? For example, most midtown avenues like 6th and 8th are only about 90 feet wide from building to building. The IND stations are especially massive and spacious, so how on earth did they fit in just 90 feet? How did they manage to do that using a cut and cover method? It would seem impossible because you'd have to dig under a building and that would seem to be a huge structural risk. 

Anyway, if anyone has any info or numbers, I would appreciate it. 

[HenryB]

many 8ave IND local stations are bi-level and look like this

 

----platform----[northbound local][northbound express]

----platform----[southbound local][southbound express]

 

(i might switch the direction but you get the idea)

[U-BahnNYC]

15 hours ago, HenryB said:

many 8ave IND local stations are bi-level and look like this

 

----platform----[northbound local][northbound express]

----platform----[southbound local][southbound express]

 

(i might switch the direction but you get the idea)

Yes that's pretty much every Central Park West station. 

But what about the normal Local-Express-Express-Local stations? 8th Ave (aka Central Park West) doesn't get any narrower by the park, so how did giant express stations fit within a 90 foot avenue? Or am I just being visually deceived and even a station as wide as 14th St - 8th Ave is actually narrower than 90 feet across? 

[iron1050]

On 1/16/2023 at 8:05 PM, U-BahnNYC said:

Yes that's pretty much every Central Park West station. 

But what about the normal Local-Express-Express-Local stations? 8th Ave (aka Central Park West) doesn't get any narrower by the park, so how did giant express stations fit within a 90 foot avenue? Or am I just being visually deceived and even a station as wide as 14th St - 8th Ave is actually narrower than 90 feet across? 

Yeah I've wondered the same thing with the Fulton Street line. How can they fit 4 tracks under that narrow street?

[N6 Limited]

On 1/16/2023 at 8:05 PM, U-BahnNYC said:

Yes that's pretty much every Central Park West station. 

But what about the normal Local-Express-Express-Local stations? 8th Ave (aka Central Park West) doesn't get any narrower by the park, so how did giant express stations fit within a 90 foot avenue? Or am I just being visually deceived and even a station as wide as 14th St - 8th Ave is actually narrower than 90 feet across? 

I think some stations go under the building line and you may see “extra strength” columns in those areas. Sometimes you’ll notice where there are wide stations, there are Parks, Parking Lots, or newer buildings adjacent to the station/area. 

For example, Hoyt - Schemerhorn is pretty wide, part of the subway is under the buildings on the north side. But most of the station goes past the southern edge of Schermerhorn  street. There were parking lots there for years until they built new apartments in their place recently.

19 hours ago, iron1050 said:

Yeah I've wondered the same thing with the Fulton Street line. How can they fit 4 tracks under that narrow street?

Sometimes when you’re on Fulton Street,  you can look down into the subway grate and see the inward side of the local tracks . So the subway width is basically from building line to building line.

[U-BahnNYC]

On 1/30/2023 at 10:53 AM, N6 Limited said:

I think some stations go under the building line and you may see “extra strength” columns in those areas. Sometimes you’ll notice where there are wide stations, there are Parks, Parking Lots, or newer buildings adjacent to the station/area. 

For example, Hoyt - Schemerhorn is pretty wide, part of the subway is under the buildings on the north side. But most of the station goes past the southern edge of Schermerhorn  street. There were parking lots there for years until they built new apartments in their place recently.

Sometimes when you’re on Fulton Street,  you can look down into the subway grate and see the inward side of the local tracks . So the subway width is basically from building line to building line.

That's pretty insane. I guess I'm just in disbelief that you can actually go underneath buildings using just cut and cover. Logically one would conclude the buildings would collapse unless deep tunnel boring is used - but I guess they had methods of overcoming that. To think they did this with essentially 19th century Technology.  

[mrsman]

It is quite amazing.  And it is also amazing how they were able in most cases to maintain the conveninet 4 track desing that facilitates the local-express cross platform transfer, even in situations where the street was narrow.  [The only exceptions that come to mind are upper Lexington where local and express were on separate levels.]

[Wallyhorse]

On 2/6/2023 at 6:23 PM, mrsman said:

It is quite amazing.  And it is also amazing how they were able in most cases to maintain the conveninet 4 track desing that facilitates the local-express cross platform transfer, even in situations where the street was narrow.  [The only exceptions that come to mind are upper Lexington where local and express were on separate levels.]

Upper Lexington was done that way I believe because I believe south of around 98th Street there were many high-rises already built by the time the Lexington Avenue portion of what became the Lexington line was built, making it impossible to go four tracks across south of there.  Also, there originally was only one express stop between Grand Central and 125th Street at 86th Street.  59th Street was not added until late 1962 as that area was not close to what it became, also the BMT stop on 3rd-Lexington and 60th didn't yet exist I believe when the line was built (or was in the process of being built and also contributed to why they could not go four across).  Being able to transfer to the Broadway line to/from the express at 59th along with by then 59th-60th becoming a major shopping district heavily contributed to why that stop was added.