Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the past and present operations of the NYC Subway, PATH, and Staten Island Railway (SIRT).

Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain

 #715500  by Aselver
 
Because I have one I just made using Google Maps (I can't photoshop). Anyway, here's the link:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... =UTF8&z=10

Anyway if you want an explanation, here it is:

A: Lefferts Boulevard routing is cut because it can create headway problems under Cranberry Street. All A trains now go to Far Rockaway.
B: No changes.
C: C is extended from Euclid Avenue to the Rosedale LIRR station. Southeastern Queens lacks service, so I figured I'd just extend the C via Lefferts to Rosedale.The C uses Lefferts to access Linden.
D: I made an extension along Gun Hill Road to Co-Op City, which would otherwise not be served.
E: Extended to Belmont Park to serve Hollis and Queens Village without having to use the LIRR. Also, the E now runs local between Kew Gardens and Jamaica.
F: Runs express to its current terminus at 179th Street, then is extended to Little Neck Parkway. Also, it runs express in Brooklyn between Church Avenue and Bergen Street.
G: I keep hearing all these fights about what should go on Queens Boulevard and what not, but I try to limit the amount of services using track to 2 trains (except in the 60th Street Tunnels). So what I did was extend the G to Queens Plaza and give it a whole new routing. It would run under 31st Street (and the N and W trains) to Broadway, and then run under 21st Street to Ditmars Boulevard, and then go under the Hell Gate Bridge to end in Mott Haven in the Bronx. This also creates a Queens-Bronx connection.
J: I extended the J to serve Whitestone via Utopia Parkway
K: NEW SERVICE: To help relieve Queens Boulevard traffic, I created the K train which would run through the 14th Street tunnel and then under Metropolitan Avenue to join with the Queens Boulevard line, serving the F stations that would now be empty and end at 179th Street. I would consider running a 3-track line for peak direction expresses. I'd make this a priority.
L: The L (and the K) would be extended to 11th Avenue. The L would also be extended to Seaview Avenue in Canarsie.
M: The M would be extended using the old New York Connecting Railroad tracks to 74th Street, and then run in a new tunnel that would lead to LaGuardia Airport, which is conveniently missing. In addition the M would be rerouted where the R is today and have an extension to Staten Island, which I put in to appease some of the Streetsblog regulars (I think PATH would be better for Staten Island than the Subway, but whatever...)
N: The N now runs as a true "Sea Beach Express" in Brooklyn, using the inner tracks on the Sea Beach. In Queens, it would extend to 20th Avenue.
Q: I had the Q run up Second Avenue, then turn east at 112th Street and go under Randalls Island. It would run along Ditmars Boulevard and serve LaGuardia Airport and then run along Northern Boulevard to Little Neck Parkway.
R: The R is the new Sea Beach local to Coney Island. In addition, it would be extended from Kew Gardens to Glen Oaks in Queens via Union Turnpike.
42nd Street Shuttle: Taken out. The tracks would be used by future PATH services.
Franklin Avenue Shuttle: Extended to Bed-Sty and the G train.
T: NEW SERVICE: Second Avenue Local. The Staten Island part isn't that much of a concern, but I know how much transit advocates on Streetsblog and the Transport Politic and related websites love that tunnel that goes longways under the harbor. I'd rather see PATH via Bayonne, but I decided on this. Oh, and it would be extended across 125th Street. This wold be one of the first priorities.
U: NEW SERVICE: Second Avenue Express. It would extend into Brooklyn via a new tunnel under Schermerhorn Street that connects to where the Transit Museum is today, and then run as another Fulton Street local to supplement the headway impacted C. I'd make this a priority.
V: Extended along the R route in Queens, and along the F into Brooklyn, serving as a local. This Culver F Express project would be a priority (and would give the V a reason to exist).
W: I extended the W to Staten Island to give it some sort of meaning. Of course this would probably be the last thing I'd do if I were in charge. The line would go down Victory Boulevard to Richmond Avenue where it would connect with one of the two PATH lines that I would like to see serving SI.
X: NEW SERVICE: This would be the "outer belt" subway serving Queens and the Bronx. This would probably be not much of a priority, except for the portion between Jamaica and Flushing. This would allow easy access between eastern Queens and the Bronx that doesn't involve sitting in traffic for an hour.
Y: NEW SERVICE: The so-called "inner belt" would use the NY Connecting tracks all the way from Bay Ridge to 74th Street in Queens, where it would then go to LaGuardia. Some people have proposed something similar to this, and it would allow easy connections in Brooklyn and Queens.
Z: No more Z service. Skip-stop is annoying.
1: No changes
2: Extension in Brooklyn along Flatbush Avenue and to Rockaway park which would make it not a huge hassle to go all the way around via the Rockaway Park Shuttle
3: Extension to JFK airport via Linden and Conduit
4: No changes
5: Extension in Brooklyn to Gateway in southeast Brooklyn
6: No changes
7: If the MTA is serious about extending this, they ought to do something that's not a waste of money. This means extending it to serve Chelsea Piers and the Christopher Street PATH station. Also, note the extension to northeast Queens.
8: NEW SERVICE: I made this for two reasons. The first is because if there is gonna be a west side subway it should be consistent. Thus it would extend up 11th Avenue to meet the 1-2-3 at 72nd Street. The other is the Lower Montauk serves two commuter trains a day that could probably easily fit onto the Main Line, and in an effort to make Brooklyn and Queens more mobile, I figured this would be an easy place to have a rapid transit line, especially since it used to have a lot of stations. Rapid transit service on the Lower Montauk would be a priority. It would then go under Lefferts Boulevard.

I'm not expecting much here, but I would like some commentary on my ideas.
 #715631  by Kamen Rider
 
A: Lefferts service is not a hassel for the tunnel
F: the F riders between bergen and Church will make heads roll if it runs express
Z:it's not annoying, it works
42nd street shuttle: anyone who says that should be pulled has a major problem.

2: going the long was is not a hassel
7: and the extension to javits is worth it?

You can't have the lower montauk and the connecting railroad. those are the core of the Long Island frieght network, and FRA railroads can't share rows with the subways.
 #715907  by Aselver
 
Having two different A trains in the Cranberry Street tunnels DOES mess with headways because you now have three lines using a single service in a sense. It screws with headways once you get past Rockaway Boulevard, let alone the C in Brooklyn.

About the F, how would it make heads roll if the V runs the same route basically? You have express tracks that aren't being used; this is a problem.

If the Z works, why didn't the 9 work? It's the same thing. If they do a Z train, it should be a full peak express, not a skip-stop.

About the 2: New Yorkers have a tendency to whine if they don't get the coveted sacred one-seat ride (hell my friends would rather take the 1 all the way from Penn Station to Van Cortland Park instead of taking the A express to 168 Street and changing to the 1 there.

In its current form the 7 extension is a bad idea. If it was extended to actually serve parts of the city that people use (such as the West Village as well as provide a seamless connection to the PATH), the boondoggliness is mitigated.

Chuck freight off these lines then. Freight trains can't even get to these lines without some serious dancing around junctions and stuff. The freight lobby is one of the obstacles to bringing modern rail transit to the US.
 #715988  by Kamen Rider
 
the 9 failed because there was a shift in the ridership patterns. people were getting on at 1 stops wanting 9 stops and got on 9 at stops wanting 1 stops. The J and Z don't have that problem right now.

The 7 is worth it once construction begins on whatever is going on top of husdon yards. extending it all the way down the west side is what is worthless at the momenth because there is sufficent west side north south capacity. walking won't kill people I walk from between 8th and 10 two to for times a day. the priorty is SAS. and 33rd, 23rd,14th, and WTC are not seamless?

How does what happens at the cranberry street tunnel effects what happens at Liberty Juction? If you move all A service to the Rockaways you will not solve the problem becuase taking away those lefferts trips takes the A headway down too far. and the Ozone Park crowd have made it very clear they don't want a local.

F the makes heads roll becuase they don't want the V. they want the full time line all the time. not using the express tracks is not a problem if they conflict with the ridership demands.

whine is one thing, we do it every day about every thing. I just do not see the useage levels you're assuming are there to justify digging up a national park.

so you want hundrids of thosands of trucks clogging New York City becuase you don't see freight rail as important? when the city switched over to sending trash off SI via the Arthur Kill bridge two years ago, they took 90,000 trucks a year off the Goethals bridge alone. that's over 200 trucks a day, just trash, one bridge. Imagine what that could do for this city if expanded, not tossed out the window as you want.
 #716073  by jonnhrr
 
Has there ever been a serious proposal to extend PATH to Grand Central? Would be cool to have all major NYC area train terminals interconnected. Very expensive I'm sure.

Jon
 #716177  by M&Eman
 
jonnhrr wrote:Has there ever been a serious proposal to extend PATH to Grand Central? Would be cool to have all major NYC area train terminals interconnected. Very expensive I'm sure.

Jon
That idea was floated around back in the early 20th century when the tubes were just being constructed, but never happened for some reason. Path's current uptown terminus at 33rd st seems just a little abrupt. Extending to Grand Central (or even just Times Square) would allow access to many more jobs within walking distance of the PATH.
 #716190  by Aselver
 
I would think of a PATH tunnel around 42nd Street under the Hudson to access Grand Central. The 33rd St. line should be extended to GCT. But it can't. It's walled in by other subways. You could have it sort of curve to the left at 33rd Street and then make a very long move under the Broadway line and over the Sixth Avenue line but would that really save time? The best PATH extension is to Secaucus via the 6th Street Embankment in Jersey City and the Bergen Arches.

I don't think FRA tracks can be shared, but if two tracks are built adjacent to the existing tracks, it shouldn't be a problem (particularly if a fence between the two different types of tracks is built).

I do hate trucks crawling around NYC, but I hate private cars more. I would be very happy if the LIE and Van Wyck and BQE were restricted to trucks and buses. I'm happy with tolled East River bridges and congestion pricing.
 #716256  by Kamen Rider
 
space was (I don't know if or when that ran out) been legeily set aside for an extension from 33rd to Grand Central prior to the contrsution of the 6th ave subway the line also wasn't boxed in until the express tracks were built in the mid 60s. The mezz for the IND did once extend from Herald Sqaure to Bryant Park, ocupying the space the line would have used. there was also a legal fight between the IRT and H&M becuase one of the escliator landings for the Flushing line at GCT cut across the reserved H&M space.

So my 81 year olf grandfather should have to put up with public transit, or the even worse acess-a-ride becuase you don't beliave road travel is nessisary?
 #718053  by Paul1705
 
There was a plan to extend the Concourse subway to the Northeast Bronx in the 1930s, and the concept (not a specific plan) to go to Co-op City was suggested in recent years.

If such a thing was to be done, it should probably be along Burke Avenue, not Gun Hill Road. Then it could turn south to serve Co-op City and Bay Plaza (except maybe for "Section 5" - Einstein Loop - which is off to the side).

The idea to connect to the #6 Pelham Line is a good idea. The Pelham line could be extended above ground to Bay Plaza for the connection.
 #718224  by Paul1705
 
It's a good thing he did buy the Dyre Avenue line because, considering the lack of subway expansion after World War II, the Concourse extension would likely never have been built anyway.

Back to the fantasy map: I'm surprised there's no extension of the Second Avenue subway into the Bronx. That's something that might actually happen in our lifetimes (or our childrens' lifetimes, perhaps).