Subway to Co-Op City?

- The long planned extension of the Second Ave Subway to Co-Op City will officially open July 12, 2079.
-would someone please refresh me on the details why the Pelham Bay El line was not extended quickly and cheaply to a huge new neighborhood of the city. I remember vaguely there was a fight about this.
- is it still a viable option, considering the wait for the Second Ave Line?
-would anyone be interested in doing it?

Roger

I'm not sure that subway extensions to Co-op City ever got beyond the speculative phase. For example, the 1968 MTA master plan doesn't include anything specific about it.

I think the latest idea involves a commuter rail service along the Amtrak line; this service would be a Metro-North project and would cross the Hell Gate Bridge and connect to Penn Station. This too is in the speculative stage.

-I have never seen a professional study of extending Pelham Bay line to CoOp City. Was one done, at the time the development was planned?
-logically, building an el line on stilts would allow it to cross over various traffic arteries and involve minimal damage to the environment. It would be much cheaper than a lot of digging through swamp and fill land to do a subway. Since CoOp city is now a major shopping center as well as a residential center, I suppose that in addition to commuters going downtown, there would be mid day shoppers going uptown. This sounds like a lot of rail customers.
-a direct connection would reduce bus pollution and might induce more residents to use mass transit rather than cars. It could relieve pressure on Bruckner Boulevard and the Cross-Bronx Expressway.There might be subsidies available that were not originally available.
-given improvements in subway security, and a changeover in the ethnic and social make up of CoOp City, putting a terminal in there might be much more agreeable to residents. What would local politicians or the Bronx Borough President say?
-is it worth restudying as a future project which could be accomplished in a fraction of the time and cost of other projects such as the Second Ave. Subway or the LIRR Grand Central connection?

Roger

The Regional Plan Association had a plan (not official for the MTA) that required three subway stations for Co-op City; the approximate locations were at Einstein Loop, Bartow Avenue, and Dreiser Loop.

An extension of the Pelham line would probably have one station, around Bartow and Baychester Avenues. That would be affordable. However, many residents would still have to take short bus rides to get there.

Theoretically, they could make one big loop in the Bronx by extending the # 6 and the # 5 trains, and hooking up the tracks somewhere in Coop City. Then there's the question as to whether Metro North will ever stop there if service starts on the Hell Gate Route. Lots of pie in the sky, probably.

Paul1705 wrote:The Regional Plan Association had a plan (not official for the MTA) that required three subway stations for Co-op City; the approximate locations were at Einstein Loop, Bartow Avenue, and Dreiser Loop.

That was also my plan for a Bronx extension of the SAS, splitting off a line going up the Amtrak ROW (see here). The problem is with tunneling under Co-op City; the land was swamp and landfill, creating issues for subway construction.

One thing I noticed about your Bronx plans: it might be worth extending the W train beyond Fordham Plaza to a new underground station at Burke Avenue and White Plains Road. There could be one intermediate station under Webster Avenue near the Botanical Gardens.

The D train could also be extended to the new Burke Ave. terminal.