Prices start at $8!

The NYC Subway Diagram set is a new series of posters which show the lines of the subway as they are geographically.  Each line is geographically to scale to itself (meaning no two posters are at the same scale) and not abstracted.  The lines themselves are taken out of their context and set against a sold color background, the color of the line, and beautifully contrasted.  All stations are show; single stations as an open circle and transfer stations as a solid circle.  The the tops is the name of the trunk line and each branch line as well as the famous “bullets” with each train.  At the bottom is a short description with some history as well as statistics about how each line compares to the entire system.

You can purchase different sized prints from my new store at Zazzle, http://www.zazzle.com/vanshnookenraggen

History of Franklin Ave Shuttle

Franklin Ave Line in 1920 , 1924, and 1951.

The Franklin Ave Shuttle has quite an interesting history. Like with the many of the subways in Brooklyn the line started off as a steam railroad to bring people to Coney Island in the summers. The Brooklyn, Flatbush & Coney Island Railway was born in 1878 and ran from the Long Island Railroad terminal at Flatbush Ave to the former Bedford Terminal (long since demolished now), then made a 90 degree turn south and cut it’s way through that glacial moraine that runs through the center of Long Island (the slope in Park Slope, the heights in Crown Heights), popping out just past Flatbush Ave. From here the line ran straight to Brighton Beach along the very same right-of-way that the BMT Brighton Beach B and Q trains take (the line was originally built at grade and eventually expanded and grade separated as this section of Brooklyn began to develop).

In 1899 the line was rebuilt and connected to the Fulton St elevated train which ran along Fulton St to the Brooklyn Bridge. This allowed passengers a direct link to downtown Manhattan. This connection didn’t last long as in 1920 the subway under Flatbush Ave was built out to the Prospect Park station and even quicker subway service began running to Brighton Beach. The Franklin Ave line still ran to Fulton St over the elevated track for 8 more years until the Fulton St elevated line was closed and replaced by the current subway, the IND Fulton St A and C trains. Interestingly service still ran between Brighton Beach and the new truncated Franklin Ave station at Fulton St until 1963 when the current shuttle service was born.

Franklin Ave Shuttle Extension from Fulton St to Lafayette Ave.

In 1999 the entire shuttle line was rebuilt with new stations. The original line was two tracks with stations at Fulton St, Dean St, Park Pl, and Consumers Park (rebuilt as Botanical Gardens). Due to the short distance between Dean St and Park Pl stations the Dean St station was completely demolished. The line now runs mostly on one track, from Franklin Ave to Park Pl, then two tracks to Prospect Park.

Source: BMT Franklin Ave Line

Although the line is not that heavily used it does provide an important connection for commuters coming from southern Brooklyn to the subways coming from eastern Brooklyn. If you are commuting, say, from Midwood, and you want to connect to the A or C train, the only other connection possible would be to transfer at DeKalb Ave to the R train, take that one stop to Jay St-Metro Tech, and transfer again. Keep in mind that this transfer only opened in February 2011. To transfer to the IRT 2,3,4, or 5 trains, someone coming from southern Brooklyn would need to change at Atlantic Terminal, not that convenient given how large and disconnected that station is. Because of the legacy of three different companies competing against one another, transfers are difficult or non existent in the case of the IRT and IND lines in Brooklyn. Where do you switch from the 4 train to the A train? In Manhattan only. Another legacy is that of Manhattan-centric service patterns. The subway system is geared more towards people commuting into and out of Manhattan every day than from Brooklyn to Queens (or another borough). Ask anyone who lives along the G train and they will tell you how inconvenient it is.

Interestingly, transit planners have long seen the potential of using the Franklin Ave right-of-way as it parallels both Bedford and Nostrand Avenues, both important north-south thoroughfares. As far back as 1922 when the city first proposed building it’s own subway system (back then there were only two private, competing systems, the IRT and BMT) there were plans to utilize this small section of track. What today is known as the IND Crosstown Line G train had a much grander origin.

From NYCSubway.org

Brooklyn Crosstown Line

The so-called Brooklyn Crosstown Line was originally projected as an elevated [line] when the dual system was laid out, but its construction was deferred because of local objection to elevated construction, and because of the fact that the city’s resources for the more expensive alternative of subway building had been exhausted. It is the opinion of the [Transit] Commission that the line should be built as a subway without further delay; first, as a means of articulating all of the rapid transit lines at present traversing Brooklyn and Queens, so that any one of these can be reached conveniently and quickly from any other one; second, as a means of access to the shore front of Brooklyn and Queens north of the Navy Yard; and third, as a direct means of carrying passengers from Manhattan and Queens to Brooklyn and Coney Island without traversing the congested district of lower Manhattan.

Such a line will tend further to decentralize traffic by building up another prosperous business thoroughfare north and south in Brooklyn, and will save the Queens traffic bound for Brooklyn from a long detour through Manhattan. Through Long Island City the line will follow Jackson Avenue, one of the widest and most important thoroughfares in the business section of Queens.

Through the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, it will follow Manhattan Avenue, the principal business street of that section, and thence through Roebling Street, Williamsburgh, and by the cutting of a new street, of about three blocks in length, from Roebling Street to Bedford Avenue, to a connection with the Brighton Beach Line at Fulton Street and Franklin Avenue. In its progress it would furnish points of transfer to the stations of all the other lines it would intercept-the Broadway, Myrtle and Lexington Avenue elevated lines, and the 14th Street-Eastern subway.

The Commission has also in view a further connection between this line by way of Flushing Avenue or Park Avenue and Jay and Smith Streets, to the Borough Hall section of Brooklyn. At some future time, no doubt, it will also be desirable to connect the northern end of the line directly with the Astoria branch of the Queensborough System, thence into Manhattan at 125th Street and across 125th Street to Fort Lee Ferry.

The estimated cost of the line as now proposed is $24,000,000, and the time to complete from three to three and one-half years.

NEW SUBWAYS: Proposed Additions to Rapid Transit System to Cost $218,000,000; 1922

The proposed crosstown subway would have run from Coney Island to Harlem via Bedford-Stuyvesant, Greenpoint, Long Island City, and Astoria. The subway was eventually built was far less grand and ultimately poorly designed as it runs a serpentine path through Brooklyn into Long Island City (it once ran out to Forest Hills but was service was cut back to Court Sq, Long Island City in 2001). The IND Crosstown Line was built, almost completely, as a two track local service. That is except for one small section between the Classon Ave station and the Bedford-Nostrand station. Here, for seemingly no reason, there exists a third center track which runs past Bedford-Nostrand under Lafayette Ave and splits into two tracks, quickly dead-ending at Marcy Ave.

There are two good theories for this: first, much like with many other parts of the IND system, many sections were built out to allow for further extensions and new lines. A subway from downtown Brooklyn to Bushwick under Lafayette Ave had been on the planning boards since the original subway was extended into Brooklyn in 1905. In the 1930s the city was building a line from Brooklyn to Queens along Lafayette Ave and left provisions for an easy extension. Second, the third track allows for quick layups for trains in the event of construction or for storage. The MTA does this from time to time where service will only run from Hoyt-Schermerhorn to Bedford-Nostrand due to track work further down the line.

This extra single track now allows for an ingenious new connection, the purpose of this post. The plan would to rebuild the Franklin Ave Shuttle as a subway from just past Botanical Gardens (where it runs along an elevated track) to Fulton St and then extending it to Lafayette Ave (with a new station at Gates Ave) turning east and merging into the current IND Crosstown Line using the existing middle track. This short connection would finally allow commuters to connect to the IND Crosstown Line without having to first go all the way to downtown Brooklyn and allow for commuters on the IRT Eastern Parkway Line to connect to the IND Fulton St and Crosstown Lines.

Franklin Ave Shuttle track map showing the current set up and the proposed extension. Not to scale.

This new subway would be at first built with just one track but with space for a second. At Gates Ave there would be two tracks and an island platform to allow for shuttle trains to pass one another. The current Franklin Ave Shuttle runs a quick route with only two train cars. The new stations would be built for four cars but space would be provided to allow for easy expansion to six cars. This way if the service proved successful then a second track could be added and it would be feasible to run subway trains from Coney Island up to Long Island City (and further out to Forest Hills). At first, though, the line would still run as just a shuttle service from Prospect Park station to Bedford-Nostrand.

Current Bus Rapid Transit Plans

Proposed BRT routes in Brooklyn. Light Blue is the Bedford Ave-Nostrand Ave BRT Line.

At first glance you might wonder why it would make any sense to connect two lines with some of the lowest ridership in the entire system with a new subway. Like I mentioned before, these lines parallel the main north-south arteries of central Brooklyn, Bedford Ave and Nostrand Ave. These two avenues are some of the few roads which span the entire borough, from Sheepshead Bay in the south to Greenpoint in the north. They serve as a backbone for many of the communities through which they run. A subway connection along this route was proposed almost a century ago and the growth since then has only made improved rapid transit more desirable.

The city is currently experimenting with the idea of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), buses which run in their own dedicated lanes and have pre-paid boarding systems designed to speed up service. Already these buses are running across the northern Bronx and along 1st and 2nd Aves on the east side of Manhattan. While mostly a success (not without some initial adjustment time by locals) the next BRT line proposed along Bedford and Nostrand Aves have come up against stiff resistance. Unlike the more transit dependent east side of Manhattan, this section of Brooklyn has developed without good subway access and many more people drive. The new bus lanes would take away many parking spaces along their route and this has business owners up in arms.

A true BRT system spanning Brooklyn from Greenpoint to Sheepshead Bay would cost only a few million dollars (full: dedicated lanes, pre-payment systems, camera enforcement, marketing) and no one would imagine that a new subway, however short, would be that cheap. But extending the Franklin Ave Shuttle may still be a more viable alternative. The extension would connect southern Brooklyn with northern Brooklyn using mostly existing tracks and rights-of-way. Construction would only impact a small section of the city. Even with the extra transfers, going by subway would still be faster than a bus, even a bus with less stops. While buses are more flexible than trains, a complete subway connection would do more to facilitate north-south travel than a bus would.

NYC Subway Expansion plans from 1951

In my last post I outlined the ambitious plan to massively expand the New York City subway system. For various reasons (the Great Depression, World War II, rise of suburbia, etc) the plans were, for the most part, never realized. After World War II many plans were scrapped as limited resources were diverted to building new highways. Plans for the Second Ave subway stayed on the table but were cut back again and again as the years went on (this will be covered further in my next two posts). Some minor expansion took place but the system also lost many miles of track as older elevated lines were removed.

In 1968 the city developed a new, much less ambitious, plan to expand subway service and rebuild aging infrastructure. In an unfortunate case of history repeating itself the city immediately faced a financial crisis causing the plans to be scrapped and subway service to be cut. For the next 20 years the city planned, for the first time ever, to decrease in size and services. It wasn’t until the 1990s, when the population stabilized and the economy of the city began to grow, when serious plans for expansion were brought back.

But just as things were looking up for the city the terrible events of September 11th caused many to fear that these gains were to be temporary and that the city would continue its former population exodus. Due to the resolve of the people of New York and strong political leadership the exact opposite has happened; Today the city has a larger population than at any point in its history and for the first time in decades it is needing to plan for expansion of services and infrastructure. The Second Ave subway, which had broken ground twice in its 80 year history, finally has funding and is well under construction. The same for an extension of the 7 Line to the Far West Side of Manhattan, and the long awaited East Side Access project to bring Long Island Railroad cars into Grand Central Terminal.

Chrystie Street Connection

Chrystie St Connection: Before and After. Click for animation.

The Chrystie Street connection was a small but very significant expansion project that more than any other after World War II changed how the New York City subway was operated and, due to foresight, left the door open for connections to Brooklyn from a still-to-be-built Second Ave subway.

To understand the implications of such a project you need to see what the system looked like before 1967. When the BMT first built it’s subway into downtown Manhattan it did so in 3 parts. The section known as the Broadway line which, as the name suggests, runs under Broadway and then under Church St, runs through the Financial District where it dives under the East River to downtown Brooklyn (today’s R,W line). The second part was via the Williamsburg Bridge, a connection already established when the bridge was completed, with a new subway under Delancey and Centre Streets to a major terminal at Chambers St (today’s J,Z line). With the construction of the Manhattan Bridge, with a capacity of 4 subway lines, the BMT was able to connect the previous two subways with a third over the bridge. One line would use the bridge and head north via Broadway (today’s N,Q line) while the other would use the bridge to head south via Centre St. A new subway under Nassau St would then allow trains to loop from the Manhattan Bridge, through downtown, and back into Brooklyn via the tunnel (this was known at the time as the Nassau Loop).

1951 plans for the Second Ave subway and connection to Brooklyn

Due to the growth of midtown Manhattan in the middle of the 20th Century, the Nassau Loop soon began to lose ridership and was eventually cut back to part-time service. Planners saw the need to increase service to midtown and saw the tracks on the Manhattan Bridge as underutilized. Elsewhere in the system was a section of subway that was able to increase in capacity, the IND 6th Ave line, recently outfitted with an express track from West 4th St to 34th St. As outlined in the Second System plan, this express track was to be used for trains to Williamsburg but that subway was never constructed. Seeing an inexpensive way to improve service from Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan, the new Transit Authority developed plans to connect the 6th Ave subway to both the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge with a new subway under Chrystie St in the Lower East Side. A very forward-thinking benefit to this short subway is that it allows further connection to the Second Ave subway so that trains can connect directly to Brooklyn via the Manhattan Bridge. A new station at Grand St is said to have been built to allow 2 additional tracks to be built on the outsides of the platforms when the Second Ave subway is constructed. This new connection allowed for more trains to travel from southern Brooklyn to midtown and also allowed for direct service from northern Brooklyn to midtown. The latter service, known at the time as the “K” train, was only used for a few years due to rapid depopulation in neighborhoods in northern Brooklyn (I talk about the possibility of bringing this service back in an earlier post).

63rd St Tunnel and Archer Ave Subway

Transit Authority plan for mass transit expansion.

The 63rd St tunnel (today’s F Line to Queens) and Archer Ave subway (E,J in Jamaica) were planned as part of a much larger project to build a super-express subway from Jamaica, Queens to midtown Manhattan. As Queens grew in population after World War II new subway service lagged far behind. To address this, a new subway line to run parallel to the Long Island Railroad Mainline through Queens was to be built with connections to Jamaica and Far Rockaway. Many different plans bounced back and forth for years (the 63rd St tunnel was planned as far north as 76th St and as far south as 59th St). In 1963 a patchwork of various plans were brought together to connect midtown Manhattan to Queens with a super-express subway and to connect the Long Island Railroad into Grand Central Terminal with a new 4 track tunnel under the East River.

The first part was a new tunnel into Manhattan that would connect with the BMT Brodaway Line, IND 6th Ave Line, and a commuter rail connection to Grand Central. Starting construction in 1969 this project is actually still under construction! The line terminated at Queensbridge until December 2001 when it was finally extended to connect with the Queens Blvd line. The tunnels and new stations (Lexington-63rd St, Roosevelt Island, Queensbridge-21st St) were opened in 1989, 20 years after construction started due to many delays and funding problems. Today the only train running along the line is the F Line to Queens. A connection to the BMT Broadway Line was constructed from 57th St-7th Ave to 63rd St-Lexington Ave and is only used for storing Q Line trains which terminate at 57th St.

Track map showing 63rd St tunnel and unused tracks. Map by Peter Dougherty.

The station at 63rd St-Lexington Ave has a false wall, behind which is an unfinished platform and tracks that are only open to MTA employees. This non-revenue service track is planned to be connected to the first phase of the Second Ave subway, at which point the unused platform will be opened to the public. If you go to 63rd St station, on the platform, look through the holes in the black doors along the wall and you will see the unused platform, maybe even a train too.

At the same time a second set of tracks were constructed below the subway tracks with the intent to connect the Long Island Railroad with Grand Central Terminal. Though the tracks through the tunnel were built, no connections with either railroad were ever completed. It was only in 2006 when the first new tunnel contract was awarded. Construction has continued and can be viewed by passengers along the N/W line after Queensboro Plaza and a new terminal is being carved out below Grand Central Terminal. Service plans have not been finalized but this project goes a long way towards completing the next phase of the original project, a super-express line through Queens.

East Side Access map. New connections to bring the LIRR into Grand Central.

While a super-express subway was planned to connect with other lines, not as a commuter rail, soon riders from Queens will have a quicker route into midtown Manhattan. The original super-express line was to connect to the 63rd St tunnel in Long Island City and a new subway in Jamaica along Archer Ave. With this subway in place the MTA could have converted some of the Long Island Railroad right-of-ways from commuter rail (or abandonment) into subway service. Routes planned included out to the Rockaways through central Queens and through Locust Manor, along the Main line to Queens Village, and possibly out to St. Albans along the Hempstead line.

None of these plans (save for the Archer Ave subway) ever got out of the planning stages and central and southern Queens still remain lacking in broader subway service. As built the Archer Ave subway connects subways headed to Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan to subways headed to Queens and midtown Manhattan into one terminal. A bi-level tunnel was built, which interestingly does not allow for direct train connections between the two subways, along with 3 new stations.

Planned Queens Super-Express Line. Click for animation

The connection to the Queens Blvd line used an unused stub of track that had been planned for a never built subway under Van Wyck Blvd. The connection the BMT Jamaica line allowed for the elevated tracks running though downtown Jamaica to be torn down. The new tunnels and stations allow for further extension into Jamaica but no serious plans have come forth to do so.

7 Line Extension

Map of 7 Line extension from Times Sq to Hudson Yards (pink square)

The 7 Line extension from Times Sq-42nd St to 34th St and 11th Ave is living proof that subway expansion is possible when there is enough political will. The project as originally planned would extend the line under 41st St with a station at 10th Ave, turning south at 11th Ave with a station at 34th St, and layup tracks as far south as 25th St. The extension was proposed as part of the Hudson Yards redevelopment site, the Long Island Railroad train yards past Penn Station. Original proposals for redevelopment included a new Jets football stadium and a new stadium for the New York City 2012 Olympic Games (which went to London instead). After this, the MTA accepted bids for commercial redevelopment over the yards similar to the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Eventually a bid was accepted from the Related Companies, however due to the economic recession no work has been done.

Construction on the subway extension has been continuing during this time. Due to lack of funding the station at 10th Ave-41st St was dropped from the final plans, although support for finding funding for the station has begun to build. The extension is rather short but brings up an interesting anecdote about the subway system. In order to build the extension the MTA had to demolish an abandoned subway platform underneath Times Sq. When the IND was building their subway under 8th Ave they built the Times Sq station with three platforms, the two that are in use today, and a third below these. The peculiar thing about it was that there didn’t ever seem to be a reason for the extra platform. The IND built many parts of its system that it intended to build out later (see the previous post on the Second System) but this platform wasn’t one of them. Due to the track configuration the only trains that could enter this extra station were trains coming from Queens which could just as easily stop at the upper platforms (like they do today). The platform was used briefly to shuttle passengers out to the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens but hasn’t seen service since the 1980s. There is an urban legend about this platform, however, from NYCSubway.org:

An oft-repeated story offers this as a reason the lower level was built: The Independent subway was being built by the city to compete directly with routes owned by the IRT and BMT companies. The #7 crosstown IRT line terminates at Times Square; it is said that the bumper blocks of the #7 are directly against or very close to the eastern wall of the lower level of the 42nd St. IND station. The construction of the lower level therefore blocked any potential extension of the #7 line to the west side of Manhattan. If this is true, it would have been done only in the spirit of crushing the competition, for the IND had no plans to construct a competing crosstown line.

This is likely not the case, though the IND did build lines in direct competition to the other systems. Today the superfluous third platform has been demolished and the 7 train will one day soon be extended to the Far West Side of Manhattan, hopefully to help spur development since there isn’t anything there now.

More Information
If you are looking for more information on these projects here are some links that will help you.

• MTA Director calls for ambitious expansion; NYTimes 03/03/08
• IND 63rd St Line, Wikipedia
• Archer Ave Subway, Wikipedia
• 7 Subway Extension, Wikipedia
• 7 Line Extension Project Website, MTA
• East Side Access Project Website, MTA
• East Side Access, Wikipedia
• 1968 MTA Program For Action
• Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel

The futureNYCSubway

1. Introduction
2. IND Second System
3. Post War Expansion
4. The Second Ave Subway: History
5. The Second Ave Subway: To The Bronx and the Nassau Line
6. Brooklyn: Bushwick Trunk Line
7. Manhattan: West Side and Hudson Crossings
8. Queens: Flushing Trunk Line
9. Staten Island: The Last Frontier
10. TriboroRX and Atlantic Ave Super-Express
11. Conclusion: the vanshnookenraggen plan

NYC Subway IND System 1939 via nycsubway.org

The problem with trying to lay out an entire system-wide plan for subway expansion is that the history of New York City’s subway is so complex that, in order to fully understand why certain lines go where they do, you must understand the whole history of the system. There are many many books and websites written about the subway, how it started with 2 companies and then the city built their own line, then combined into the Transit Authority in the late 40s, the creation of the MTA in 1968, the decline of the subway in the 70s and 80s, and how it has came back. There is far too much to have to write about here of the history of the system. Because of this I am going to be jumping right into the first major “future” system plan first dating from 1929, but if you would like some context then there is only one place you need to go:

http://www.nycsubway.org/

This here is the single greatest website on the subject of the NYC subway anywhere on the internet. Everything you would like to know is on there in more detail than you could imagine. For my futureMBTA website I needed to write little histories of each line first but NYC isn’t Boston, there are plenty of transit nerds out there than have written at length about the subway so I’m not going to cover well worn territory.

I realize that many of the neighborhoods and streets covered in this post may not be familiar to even life-long New Yorkers. To help you follow along, if you have Google Earth you can download a version of these maps I made along with my original “New York City subways with other transit”.

• New York City subways with other transit.kml (for Google Earth)
• 1929-1939 IND Second System Proposals.kml (for Google Earth)

The Independent Subway: A Brief Introduction

For a full history of the Independent Subway, see NYC Subway.org

NYC Subway IND (Click for animation)

Before the Independent Subway (IND) there were two transit companies that ran the subways in NYC; the Interborough Rapid Transit Co (IRT) and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Rapid Transit Co (BMT). The MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) phased out these names long ago but old timers still call each line by their original names: The IRT Lexington Ave Line (4,5,6), the IRT 7th Ave Line (1,2,3) and the IRT Flushing Line (7), the BMT Broadway Line (N,Q,R,W), the BMT Canarsie Line (L), the BMT Jamaica Line (J,Z), and the BMT West End, Seabeach and Brighton Beach Lines, among others.

These dueling systems (one had to pay extra to transfer to a different company’s line) were the lifeblood of the city but were not properly serving large sections of the fast growing metropolis. The citizens had a love/hate relationship with the companies and after years of overcrowding the city decided to step in and fund their own, independently run subway system, the Independent (IND).

The IND today is best known as the 8th Ave Line (A,C,E), the 6th Ave Line (B,D,F,V), the Fulton St Line (Brooklyn A,C), the South Brooklyn or Culver Line (F), the Queens Blvd Line (E,F,R,V), and the Crosstown Line (G). Two subways proposed originally in 1922 but never built were a line from Bay Ridge to Staten Island and an extension of the BMT Broadway Line from 7th Ave/59th St to Harlem (both will be discussed here).

From NYC Subway:

John F. Hylan was Mayor for two terms from 1918 to 1925. Legend has it that, as a young locomotive engineer for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT, predecessor to the BMT), he was fired because he exceeded the posted speed operating his train around a curve. He was studying for the bar exam while employed at the BRT. Once he was mayor, he was in a position of power to get even. He regularly made it difficult for the IRT and BRT to expand their lines or obtain funding (the 5 cent fare was a losing proposition and could not be changed without city approval). To get even with the private operators, he wanted a subway run by the city “independent of the traction interests”. In fact, many of the lines the Independent opened were in direct competition with existing lines of the time, and those existing lines ended up being torn down in favor of the Independent lines.

The IND was an instant hit and even inspired the Billy Strayhorn/Duke Ellington hit “Take the A Train”. First proposed in 1922 and opened beginning in 1932, the IND was a modern marvel in terms of planning and design; the stations were larger and were built with express and local stops designed to eliminate the bottlenecks that older express stations had created. While it would be decades until the original IND system was complete, the city early on saw the new system as a huge success and immediately began planning a second system that would reach areas of the city still unserved by the current subways. This plan was known as the IND Second System.

The IND Second System

• Second Ave Trunk Line (Manhattan)
  

  1939 IND Second System plan showing Second Ave subway and Morningside Ave line.

  The most famous, or infamous, part of the Second System was a 4 to 6 track trunk subway running from the Harlem River to Pine St in downtown. It may seem obvious for the need for a second subway line through the east side of Manhattan today but at the time there were actually 3 lines, the Lexington Ave subway and two elevated trains running up 3rd and 2nd Aves. The reason that the Second Ave subway was put off for so long was because the east side was already well served until the 1940s and 1950s when the elevated lines were torn down.

  Because plans for the Second Ave line have been around for so long they have been subject to the most change. Originally the line was to be a 2 track subway from Downtown until Houston St where a second set of tracks joined until 61st St where a planned connection to the 6th Ave line was to come in on another set of tracks, bringing the total tracks through to Harlem to 6. Here the line would continue on to the Bronx as 4 tracks. The idea was for a super-express line that would connect to the 6th Ave line. It is interesting to note that in the original plans there were no connections from Queens. I will cover more of this in my post about the Second Ave Subway (coming soon).

  Two connections that were planned as part of the Second Ave subway were the 61st St line (mentioned above) and a spur at Houston St that would connect with the 6th Ave line as it headed into Williamsburg (to be explained below). Updated proposals for the next 30 years moved this tunnel further north with a connection to Queens and was eventually the only major section constructed. The 61st St tunnel proposal eventually morphed into the 63rd St tunnel which connects the F line to Queens, opened in 2001. When this tunnel was built there were provisions made to connect the 63rd St tunnel to a future Second Ave subway and to connect the Second Ave subway to the tunnel to Queens.

• Morningside Ave Line (Manhattan)

  Details on this are sketchy but it seems that plans for a line branching off the BMT Broadway Line at 57th St to run into Harlem were proposed even back when the Broadway Line was under construction. In early BMT maps there is shown a small stub past 57th St which represented the actual stub end of the express tracks terminating past the station. The plans called for a 2 track tunnel to run north under Central Park (the park, not Central Park West) and then swing west somewhere in the West 80s. From here the line would head north under, presumably, Columbus Ave and into Morningside Park along Morningside Ave. From here the line would presumably run north along Convent Ave until terminating at 155th St. What is peculiar is that plans for this line were included in the original IND system, dropped in the 1929 plan, but then added again in the 1939 plan.The stub end tracks at 57th St were eventually rerouted so they now link up with the 63rd St tunnel (F) as so to allow Broadway trains to run on the Second Ave line when constructed. More about this in my upcoming Second Ave Subway post.

• Utica Ave and Rockaway Lines (Brooklyn)
  

  1929 IND Second System plans with Manhattan connections to the Utica Ave and Rockaway Lines.

  One of the most impressive proposals from the Second System was for a massive 4 to 8 track subway line through Williamsburg with two 4 track spurs branching out into unserved parts of Brooklyn and Queens. The first part of the line was the Utica Ave line which branched off from the 6th Ave line in Manhattan at 2nd Ave and traveled along East Houston and under the East River to Grand Ave in Williamsburg. South of this was the Rockaway Line which branched off the 8th Ave line in Manhattan and swung east under Worth Ave and along East Broadway, under the East River and under Broadway in Williamsburg. These two lines then met up under South 4th St and traveled to Union Ave in an, at one point 4 track and then expanded to 6 track, trunk line. These lines then connected to the Crosstown Line (G) in a massive 4 platform station which was actually built and remains abandoned under the streets of Williamsburg! (Click here for more information)

  From here 8 tracks were planned to run under a new street parallel to Broadway to Beaver St, Bushwick Ave and Myrtle Ave. At Myrtle Ave the two lines branched off in two, 4 track lines; the Utica Ave line tunning south along Utica Ave through Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and East Flatbush, and the Rockaway line traveling east under Myrtle and Central Aves through Glendale, turning south after Woodhaven Blvd along the LIRR right-of-way to connect to the Rockaways. The Utica Ave line, when it reached Ave S in Flatbush, turned west to connect with an extension of the IRT Flatbush Line (2,5) under Nostrand Ave and together these lines ran to Voorhese Ave in Sheepshead Bay. At one point an additonal tunnel was proposed to branch off here and travel to Queens under Flushing Ave.

  

  1929 IND Second System plan for Rockaways connections. Note that it was assumed that Jamaica Bay would have been built up as a seaport.

  Later plans also included a connection to the Williamsburg Bridge to replace the BMT Jamaica Line (J,M,Z) and added a subway from the Myrtle Ave junction along Bushwick Ave to Broadway Junction. Additional plans included a subway branching off the Crosstown Line (G) under Lafayette Ave which would connect to the Rockaway Line under Myrtle Ave.

  As mentioned, a shell station was actually constructed at the Broadway stop on the Crosstown Line (G). A partial shell station was also constructed at the Utica Ave station on the IND Fulton Ave line (A,C) to service connections to the Utica Ave line. Eventually a subway connection was created to the Rockaways but instead of running into Queens it was truncated back to the Fulton Ave (A,C) line in Ozone Park.

• The Bronx

  The Bronx was and still is one of the better served areas of the city in terms of subways but the eastern portion, which at that time had not developed as fast as the western Bronx, was still under served. To address this the Second System proposed a 4 track trunk line into the eastern Bronx. Continuing from the Second Ave subway at the Harlem River, a 4 track subway would have snaked its way north under Alexander Ave and Melrose Ave to 163rd St where the line would split. One branch would head due east under 163rd St to Unionport where it would run under Lafayette Ave to East Tremont St in Throggs Neck.

  

  1929-1939 IND Bronx Lines. The addition of the Dyre Ave line killed plans for a subway under Morris Park Ave.

  The other branch would run north under Boston Post Road to the IRT yards at 180th St. Here the line would run east under Morris Park Ave until about Seminole Ave where it would turn north and run under Wilson Ave to Boston Post Road, turning east to finally terminate at Baychester Ave. However right before the line turned onto Boston Post Road it would connect with an extension of the Concourse Line (B,D) which was to be extended from its terminal at 205th St under Burke Ave to Boston Post Road.

  If you look at the map of the subway today it would seem peculiar to extend the subway into an area that is already covered by the IRT Dyre Ave line (5). What you don’t realize is that the Dyre Ave line (5) wasn’t part of the subway at all at that point and was actually a section of the New York, Westchester, and Boston Railroad. This right-of-way was “captured” by the city after the railroad went bankrupt in 1935. Because of this addition the plans for a subway through this area were dropped and are not found on the updated 1939 map.

• Northern Queens
  

  1939 IND Second System plan for Long Island City

  Keep in mind that most of Queens was developed after World War 2. This means that even before the IND had built its first line Queens was only served by two subway lines, a few commuter railroads, and a number of streetcar lines (as opposed to the innumerable lines that served Manhattan and Brooklyn). The only lines the original IND built were the Queens Boulevard line (E,F,G,R,V) and its extension down Hillside Ave (F), and these stuck close to the LIRR ROW which was already developed. So knowing that Queens was the next place where development was going to occur, the IND proposed extending already built lines out into northern Queens.

  The two subways already there were jointly operated by the IRT and the BMT per agreement in the Dual Contracts (the two contracts the city gave to these competing transit companies in 1913 to stop them from building redundant and competing subways.) The Astoria line (N,W) and the Corona (7), todays Flushing line went through some pretty barren territory but by the 1920s people were streaming out the packed tenement districts into new garden apartments and single family homes in Queens. The IND Second System, which at this point had no control over these two companies, proposed extending both lines further out into northern Queens.

  The Astoria line, which terminated (and still does) at Ditmars Blvd, would have been extended down Ditmars Blvd to Astoria Blvd where it was go from 2 to 4 tracks. It would run down Astoria Blvd through East Corona, elevated, to 112th St where it would turn south and then east across the Flushing River. At this point Flushing Meadow Park was nothing more than a marsh and dumping ground (Robert Moses built the park for the 1939 Worlds Fair). From here it would travel along Horace Harding Blvd, which today is the Long Island Expressway, to Nassau Blvd, todays Francis Lewis Blvd. Later these plans were altered so that instead of extending the elevated line, a new subway would run from Queensboro Plaza under 21st St in Long Island City, then following this same path as a subway but continuing under Horace Harding Blvd to Marathon Parkway.

  The other line, the Corona line, originally terminated at 111th St but had been extended to Flushing/Main St. In the Second System plan it was to be continued parallel to the LIRR Port Washington commuter rail branch out to Bayside, 221st St. Before that, at 149th St, a branch north to Whitestone and College Point was planned. There had at one point been a steam railroad that branched off from the Port Washington track before Flushing and traveled north to College Point and east to Whitestone. The city had debated buying the line after trains were discontinued but in the end nothing came of it. The proposed right-of way would have served more people as it traveled through level ground rather than wetlands. These plans were kept in updated plans but the area soon developed without the expanded subways.

• Jamaica and Eastern Queens
  

  1939 IND Second System plan for eastern Queens.

  The first IND system terminated its only Queens line in Jamaica which, like Flushing, was once a separate town until Queens County was consolidated into greater New York City in 1898. Jamaica had a long history of development with improved transportation as the first railroad in the city connected it to Brooklyn in 1834. Because the city knew that the farms surrounding Jamaica would soon turn into housing the IND built the Queens Blvd line with the expectation that it would be extended in the future. The Hillside Ave branch is 4 tracks until it terminates at 179th St, unusual until you understand that the subway was intended to be extended out to Little Neck Road. There was also a set of tracks that dead-ended before Hillside Ave, originally these were intended for a subway south under Van Wyck Blvd to Rockaway Blvd. These plans were kept even with the building of Idlewild (JFK) Airport but were not shelved until Robert Moses built the Van Wyck Expressway down the same right-of-way and, ignoring the pleas from city planners, intentionally left no room for a subway along the median of the highway (Chicago had done this successfully with a subway extension out to O’Hare Airport). These extra tracks were eventually used when the MTA built the Archer Ave subway to replace the elevated tracks through Jamaica Center.

  Southern Jamaica was sparsely settled but growing quickly at this time. The only section served by rapid transit up until then was the end of the Liberty Ave elevated line which ran through Ozone Park to 119th St. The IND, which had built its Fulton Ave subway (A,C) in direct competition to the elevated Fulton Ave and Liberty Ave lines, was keen on “capturing” the Liberty Ave elevated line and incorporating it into the Fulton Ave subway (which it did). The Second System then planned to extend the line, elevated, down Liberty Ave to Sutphin Blvd where it would snake its way south and then east along 110th Ave to 180th St. Here the line would split, with one branch running along the LIRR right-of-way north and then doubling-back west to terminate at the Jamaica Center LIRR station, while the other branch continued east along Brinkerhoff Ave to Hollis Blvd, finally terminating at Springfield Blvd. This was a rather serpentine route and the plans were eventually altered so that the extension of the Fulton St subway would run east under Linden Blvd to 229th St instead.

• The Winfield Spur and 120th St
  

  1929 IND Second System plan for the Winfield Spur to the Rockaways.

  The subway known as the Winfield Spur is one of the more peculiar instances of transit planning in New York City. It is peculiar for two reasons, the first being its serpentine, meandering path through central Queens, and the second is that an actual station complete with tile tile work was constructed for the line. The concept was to kill two birds with one stone; to provide subway service to areas of central Queens such as Maspeth, Middle Village, and Glendale while also connecting the Rockaways to downtown and midtown via subway service. The area of central Queens through which the line was to run is home to many large cemeteries and because of this planners had to route the line around the cemeteries while trying to service the most number of people.

  From NYCSubway.org:

  It would have been a two track line arising from the Roosevelt Avenue station (the never-used upper level station, but also would have track connections to the main line), and curving southeasterly between 78th and 79th Sts. to Queens Blvd., then along the LIRR ROW into Garfield Avenue to 65th Place, then along 65th Place to Fresh Pond Road, and then along Fresh Pond Rd and Cypress Hills Avenue to a connection with the Central Avenue line outlined above. The line would be 2 tracks, and would be subway to 45th Avenue, then elevated to Fresh Pond Road, then subway again to Central Avenue. In looking at the map, the rationale for the circuitous route becomes a little more apparent, since it appears to skirt some large cemeteries, thus staying in the residential/commercial areas.

  Note the part about the never-used upper level station. At Roosevelt Ave on the Queens Blvd line there is a part of the station that is out of reach to regular people that is actually a single platform station for trains to terminate from the Rockaways. Additional tracks would have connected the line to the Queens Blvd line. Work on these extra tracks was completed up to 78th St and land that was taken for construction of the line was eventually turned into Frank O’Connor playground.

  After connecting up with the proposed Rockaways subway under Central Ave, the line would turn south past Woodhaven Blvd along the LIRR right-of-way. Tracks would continue to the Rockaways so that passengers could go downtown via South 4th St in Williamsburg or into midtown via the Winfield Spur. At 120th St in South Ozone Park, 2 tracks would branch east to serve southern Jamaica and Cambria Heights. The line would have cut a new road though a sparsely settled area to Linden Blvd but would have meant that now southeastern Queens had evenly spaced subway service to downtown and midtown.

  Sometime in the 1930s it was decided that the Winfield Spur was just about too ridiculous and a better connection was drawn up which would branch off the Queens Blvd line after 63rd St rather than Roosevelt Ave. The branch would head due south until it reached the LIRR junction at Rego Park. Here it would continue on to the Rockaways using the same LIRR Rockaways right-of-way. Plans for the 120th St subway were dropped at this point.

• Ft Hamilton subway and Staten Island
  

  1939 IND Second System plans for Ft Hamilton subway and tunnel to Staten Island.

  The South Brooklyn line (F,G) of the first IND system ended short after weaving its way through South Brooklyn, Park Slope, and Windsor Terrace. The line is built with 4 tracks so presumably it was expected to be extended southernly. Since it was built right up to the BMT Culver Line it was no surprise that the IND “captured” the elevated line and combined the two. But the elevated Culver line is only 3 tracks while the IND South Brooklyn is 4. This leaves the room for another branch and in the Second System the IND decided to reach out to the only borough not serviced by a subway, Staten Island.

  The Ft Hamilton/Staten Island line would have branched off from the South Brooklyn line after the Ft Hamilton Parkway stop and continue in a 4 track tunnel to Bay Ridge Ave where one branch would continue south to 86th St and the other would head west under Bay Ridge Ave, under New York harbor, to St George on Staten Island. Here the line would split and some trains would head north along the Staten Island Railroad North Shore Branch while the other would head south along the main line. The plans for this connection were not in the 1929 plan, though a proposed vehicular tunnel was present, but added in the 1939 plan. In fact plans for a train/vehicular tunnel had been proposed as far back as at least 1910! I wish I knew more about what happened to the plans for these lines as it was 30 years later that Robert Moses finally did built a connection between Staten Island and Brooklyn via the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. But true to form he left no room for rapid transit.

Conclusion
The purpose of this post was to give some context and prep your mind for the proposals to come. Much has been written about the IND Second System and I was elated when I first discovered the plans. I have to give thanks where they are due and most of my information came from these sources:

• Proposed New York City Subway expansion (1929–1940)
• IND Second System – 1929 Plan, NYCSubway.org
• Subway Expansion in Williamsburg, Waterfront Preservation Alliance
• Dreaming of the Second System, Second Ave Sagas
• Abandoned Stations, by Joseph Brennan

Also, for you maps lovers out there, you can see the full versions of the 1929 and 1939 plans below. The super-big versions of these maps are located here.

1929 IND Second System

1939 IND Second System

The futureNYCSubway

1. Introduction
2. IND Second System
3. Post War Expansion
4. The Second Ave Subway: History
5. The Second Ave Subway: To The Bronx and the Nassau Line
6. Brooklyn: Bushwick Trunk Line
7. Manhattan: West Side and Hudson Crossings
8. Queens: Flushing Trunk Line
9. Staten Island: The Last Frontier
10. TriboroRX and Atlantic Ave Super-Express
11. Conclusion: the vanshnookenraggen plan

But taking a step back, one realizes that there are miles of unused subway tracks that could be used for new service or part-time (i.e. rush hour) service all throughout the system. While expanding service along the Culver Line is a fantastic idea (not to mention much needed), why stop there? Just this past June the MTA experimented with express 4 train service in the Bronx at rush hour. The results of that program have not been made public but if it proved successful it could open the door for much improved service across the city that would not cost too much more to the cash strapped MTA.

F Express to Coney Island

On the table already, the F Express would, for now, only serve Brooklyn south of Church Ave, stopping at 18th Ave, Kings Highway, Ave X, Van Sicklen Ave, W.8th St, and finally Stillwell Ave. Due to there being only a single express track service would be only at rush hour, towards the city in the AM and towards Brooklyn in the PM.

Because of reconstruction on the Culver Viaduct the double track express track from Bergen St to Church Ave will not be available to use. One reconstruction is complete, however, there could be more permanent F Express service, with stops at Bergen St (which would have to be rebuilt) and 7th Ave.

V Local to Metropolitan Ave

In 1968 the MTA opened what was known as the Chrystie Street Connection where a new subway tunnel was built to connect the IND 6th Ave line with the Manhattan Bridge (allowing the B and D lines to travel to Coney Island). A second part of this connection was another tunnel that is now unused which connects the IND 6th Ave line to the BMT Jamaica line over the Williamsburg Bridge. For a short time in the late 1960s there was service from Broadway Junction to 57th St/6th Ave, known as the K line. Due to the depopulation of the areas this new line served at the time, the line was ended after just 10 years of service.

With these areas now seeing new waves of immigrants and then artists (read: gentrification) the neighborhoods along the JMZ have seen an increase in ridership which will most likely continue. Right now the area is only served by a new trains, the J, the M (which is cut back to Myrtle Ave at night), the Z (which may or may not be cut entirely), and the L (which is becoming more crowded by the day). To better serve this growing area the V Local should be rerouted through the unused section of tunnel to replace the M, which would either be eliminated or cut back to part-time service (even more so). The V would terminate at Metropolitan Ave in Queens

W Express to Astoria, Bay Parkway

In the 1980s there was rush hour service along the express track from Astoria Blvd to Queens Plaza along the BMT Astoria Line (now the N/W). With the recent and steady influx of new residents and housing construction that continues despite the recession, the area would be better served with rush hour W Express service.

On the other side of the line, the W currently terminates at Whitehall St. The W would then be extended to Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst and would run along the single express track, making stops at 9th Ave and 62nd St as well. The service would run only at rush hour. The part-time M service would continue running local, as is.