Introduction

Jackson Heights, Queens under development in 1924. The Corona Line (7 train) Subway is seen running east at the bottom.

The borough of Queens came late to rapid transit development. Even after Queens was created out of Nassau County when New York City consolidated into five boroughs it remained farmland well past World War II. Some areas did grow thanks to the introduction of railroads, the Rockaways had summer resort communities.  Some early railroads cut through Queens to serve already established towns like Flushing and Jamaica and some were built as real estate ventures that went bust, but by the turn of the 20th Century all of these had been consolidated into the Long Island Railroad or been abandoned. Queens began to develop after transportation improved with the opening of the Queensborough/59th St Bridge and the construction of the Steinway or Belmont Tunnel which allowed elevated and subway trains to be built to Astoria and Corona. A well repeated fact is that the first radio advertisement ever was for new garden apartments in Jackson Heights which were built after the Corona Subway (todays Flushing 7 Line) opened up the countryside.

Planners knew that Queens would eventually grow with development and as neighborhoods like Jackson Heights and Forest Hills began to pop up the need for improved rapid transit also grew. When the city built the IND Queens Line along Queens Boulevard it was designed to be the major trunk subway which future new lines would connect with to reach Manhattan. New connections were planned to Jamaica and Far Rockaway. A new subway was also being considered along Horace Harding Boulevard which would run through central and eastern Queens. Because much of the area was still farmland the subways could be built cheaper than waiting until the area was developed.

After World War II development shifted along with new transportation technologies, the car and the truck. With developers no longer needing to wait for subways to build their homes the farmlands of Queens filled up quickly. Robert Moses famously built his highways to exclude mass transit. The subways planned along Horace Harding Boulevard and Van Wyck Boulevard instead became the Long Island Expressway and the Van Wyck Expressway. Instead of a dense urban development pattern seen in the Bronx or Brooklyn, Queens embodied the new suburban sprawl development that was quickly changing the fabric of the entire metropolis.

Many of the proposals I’ve talked about previously in this series have looked at subway expansion along existing lines or new subways to replace older, out dated service. Because Queens developed around the car and not the train the new subways through Queens will have to be designed differently than in older areas of the city. I’ve already talked about the Myrtle Ave/Union Turnpike Subway which would service central Queens, and I’ve also talked about expanding the Second Ave Subway into southern Queens and Jamaica. Now I want to look at the last section of Queens, northern Queens and Flushing where a third and final new trunk line subway will knit the farthest reaches of the borough into the subway network.

Queens Plaza

Flushing Trunk Line through Queens Plaza and Sunnyside Yards.

The Flushing Trunk Line begins in Long Island City. In the last post I talked about a new Manhattan crosstown subway which would run into Long Island City and connect with the existing IND Crosstown G Line. Because the existing Queens Blvd Subway is already at capacity a new 4 track subway, the Flushing Trunk Line, would be built parallel to Queens Plaza with 2 tracks serving Manhattan trains and 2 tracks serving a rerouted IND Crosstown G Line. The actual subway would be constructed inside the Sunnyside railroad yards which is owned by the MTA. A second station would be built at Queens Plaza serving the Flushing Trunk Line with a free transfer to the Queens Blvd Line.

Just past Queens Plaza a new connection will be built to allow trains using the 63rd St tunnel to access the new subway. On the map to the right there is a station inside the Sunnyside Yards. Over the years there have been many plans floated for air rights development over the yards (much like the Hudson Yards and Atlantic_Yards) but ultimately nothing has ever been built. This station may be built as a shell at first in anticipation for future development. At the end of the yards the subway will split with 4 tracks running under Northern Boulevard and 2 tracks running under 37th Ave. The tracks under 37th Ave will be the first section of a super-express subway out to the Rockaways and will go as far as Broadway-Roosevelt Ave. After Roosevelt Ave the super-express line will head south along 78th St until it reaches the Long Island Railroad tracks at which point it will surface and run to the Rockaways along the abandoned LIRR Rockaways Line (see my previous post about a Second Ave Subway super-express subway).

Northern Boulevard and Alternatives

Flushing Trunk Line along Northern Boulevard and alternatives.

Northern Boulevard is a major highway through northern Queens (it runs out along the north shore of Long Island as NY25 all the way to the tip of the north fork at Orient Point). Because it cuts through such a substantial section of city and is wider than other avenues in Queens it makes the perfect route for a new subway. The Flushing Trunk Line would make a straight shot down Northern Blvd with one express station at Junction Blvd (this station would be specially designed for travelers transferring to shuttles to La Guardia Airport). The subway would snake south at 114th St where it would meet up with the existing station at Willets Point Blvd serving Citi Field, Flushing Meadows Park, and the National Tennis Center. Here will be a major transfer station as it also serves the LIRRs Port Washington Line. After this point the subway splits into two branches.

Though Northern Boulevard would be the preferable alignment there are two other options which would serve other parts of central Queens which at present the subways only skirt.  Central Corona used to have two commuter rail stations on the LIRR Port Washington Branch but these were taken out of service decades ago (Corona Station in 1963 and Elmhurst Station in 1985).

A Port Washington Alignment would run a branch of the Flushing Trunk Line along the Port Washington Branch right-of-way, splitting from the trunk line in the Sunnyside Yards so that it would run through Woodside before turning east into Corona.  Another branch would run along Northern Boulevard and at Willets Point Blvd both branches would meet up before splitting again in Flushing.  The right-of-way along the Port Washington Branch would not be wide enough for subway and commuter rail tracks.  Either eminent domain would be needed to take buildings along the tracks or the Port Washington LIRR Branch would have to be totally converted to rapid transit (neither are preferable options).

The southern most alignment would run along 57th Ave.  This alignment would go further in reaching under served areas of Queens but would have to contend with tight, winding, narrow streets.  Transit planners knew that this area would require mass transit at some point and began studying ideas for extending subway lines along Horace Harding Blvd as early as 1929.  Horace Harding Blvd was expanded by Robert Moses in the 1950s and 1960s to create the Long Island Expressway.  He ignored the cries of planners when he neglected to provide room along the median of the expressway for a future subway line.  The 57th Ave alignment would serve this same area but would be better integrated into the fabric of the city.  Subways built along highways are less expensive but require pedestrians to traverse a rather inhospitable landscape to reach them.  A subway built under 57th Ave would be better for pedestrians and businesses along the avenue and would not require taking a travel lane out of the Long Island Expressway (either permanently or during construction).

Flushing and College Point

Flushing Trunk Line into Flushing with branch alternatives to College Point.

The Flushing Trunk Line splits after Willets Point Blvd and becomes two, 2 track subways, one north to College Point and one south to Auburndale and Oakland Gardens along the Kissena Park corridor. The Flushing Trunk Line proposal also calls for the extension of the 7 Line east to Bayside. This extension has been proposed as far back as 1929 and also included a branch to College Point (I’ve incorporated this branch into the new trunk line).

College Point and Whitestone once had a rail connection to Long Island City with a branch off the LIRR Port Washington Branch just past Willets Point (a great write up about the Whitestone Branch over at ForgottenNY).  The old line ran up to College Point near 130th St, turning east along 11th Ave to the docks in Whitestone.  The line was abandoned in 1932.  The city at one point tried to buy the right-of-way for rapid transit conversion but no deal was ever finalized and the right-of-way was eventually sold and built over.

The modern College Point subway would continue down Northern Boulevard to 154th St where it would make a 90 degree turn north up to 14th Ave in Whitestone where it would make another 90 degree turn back west, creating a giant “hook” shape, out to 127th St in College Point.  This is pretty close to the original proposal by the city in the 1930s.  This alignment would serve more residential areas than the original, western alignment which would run along or through the old Flushing Airport (closed in 1982), now mostly soggy abandoned marshland.  A third alternative would be to run the subway along the Whitestone Expressway at grade.  While this alignment would not serve as many neighborhoods as the 154th St Alignment, it would be less costly and would have the space for large parking facilities along the highway.  It would also allow for possible extension of the subway across the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, something I talk about in the next section.

Flushing Trunk Line branches through Bayside and eastern Flushing.

The 7 Train extension west would be a 2 track subway under Roosevelt Ave to the point where it reaches Northern Boulevard.  Here the subway has three alternatives, the first would be to continue under Northern Boulevard to Crocheron Ave and continue west under 35th Ave to Bell Blvd in Bayside.  The second would be to have the subway, after Northern Boulevard, run at grade along the Port Washington LIRR Branch out to Bell Blvd (where the existing Bayside LIRR station is).  The final alignment would have the subway run entirely under Northern Boulevard out to Bell Blvd.

The second branch of the Flushing Trunk Line would make a quick turn southeast after Willets Point Blvd.  Like College Point, this area too once had a railroad running through it that was eventually abandoned, the Central Railroad of Long Island, the right-of-way for which was redeveloped as the Kissena Park corridor.  The southern branch of the Flushing Trunk Line would follow closely this alignment.  The subway would run under the park making construction much cheaper and less disruptive.  An important feature of this proposal are large underground parking garages.  Eastern Queens is much more suburban than other parts of the city and any subway expansion into Queens needs to take this into account.  This part of the city did not develop around walking, elevated trains, or streetcars like much of Manhattan, Brooklyn, or the Bronx, and because of this it wouldn’t work to build a subway without adequate parking.  The park space is perfect because when construction is complete the park will be restored and no buildings would need to be taken.  The eastern end of the branch would run along the Long Island Expressway to Bell Blvd.

An alternative to the Kissena Park corridor would be to run the subway under Parsons Blvd to 46th Ave to Hollis Court Blvd.  This alignment would run through residential and smaller commercial areas and would not serve drivers with large parking garages like the park plan would.  Both alternatives could also be extended south along the Clearview Expressway to meet up with the Union Turnpike Subway which I proposed in a previous post.

Long Island Sound Bridges

Subways between the Bronx and Queens via the Long Island Sound Bridges.

Like his highway, Robert Moses left no room on his bridges for mass transit.  When we was planning his bridges between Queens and the Bronx planners begged him to provide space for mass transit but he refused.  Because of his hard-headed short sightedness the only way to get between eastern Queens and the Bronx is by driving, taking a bus which is caught in the bridge traffic, or by taking the subway into Manhattan and back out.

At first it might not make much sense to connect the Bronx and eastern Queens, an expensive option since neither places are large employment centers with central business districts with their own traffic patterns.  But a subway connection would offer an alternative and faster ride into the city for residents of the eastern Bronx.  Presently there is only one subway, the congested 6 train and 6 express, at rush hour, serving this large area.  Express buses pick up the slack but are forced to sit in rush hour traffic.  The most congested sections of the NYC Subway are along the Lexington Ave Line to the eastern Bronx.  Even with a Second Ave Subway, residents of the eastern Bronx won’t have much of an improved commute (the current plan for the Second Ave Subway does not even extend into the Bronx).

A subway over one of the East River/Long Island Sound bridges would be a great improvement for commuters.  Large parking garages could be built along the highway or under interchanges where today there is just vacant land or parking lots.  Trains would collect commuters who might otherwise be stuck on the Bruckner or Cross Bronx Expressways and whisk them into midtown Manhattan via Flushing and Long Island City.  This would take considerable pressure off the Triboro/RFK Bridge and FDR Drive as well as the Lexington Ave Subway.  An added benefit to such a connection would be that travelers headed to La Guardia Airport would have a better mass transit option than driving through Manhattan or in Queens.

The two options for a bridge alignment would be as a branch of the Flushing Trunk Line (which would be faster into the city with fewer express stations) or an extension of the 7 Train (slower with rush hour-only express trains).  Either bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone or the Throgs Neck, would need to be retrofitted or replaced for this to be possible.  It is this fact which makes subway expansion over the bridges less attractive.  However, at some point in the future these bridges will need to be replaced.  Knowing this, I am not proposing that the city actively plan on extending subway service over these bridges now but only prepare for the eventuality and correct the mistake Moses forced on the city when he built the bridges.  Much like the planned replacement Tappan-Zee Bridge across the Hudson, space would be provided on a new bridge for mass transit (bus, light rail, heavy rail, or commuter rail).

Astoria Line Extension

Extension of the BMT Astoria Line to La Guardia Airport.

An extension of the elevated BMT Astoria Line (N/Q trains) east is much less far fetched as it sounds.  In the original 1929 IND Second System plan the Astoria Line was to turn east at Ditmars Blvd (the current terminal) and wind its way through Elmhurst to Horace Harding Blvd (now Long Island Expressway).  The area at the time was still largely undeveloped (see the picture of Jackson Heights at the top of this post) so an elevated line extension would not have caused much of an uproar (on the contrary, land owners at the time were fighting for improved transportation).  Like the rest of the Second System this extension never came to fruition.

As recent as the late 1990s, however, the idea was floated again as a way to reach La Guardia Airport.  At the time the city was looking at ways to connect mass transit to JFK and La Guardia Airports.  Many ideas were floated, an automated light rail system was proposed to connect both airports with subways and commuter rail (but was only built out for JFK as the AirTrain), an extension of commuter rail from JFK into downtown Manhattan, and an extension of the BMT Astoria to La Guardia.

The Astoria Line extension proposal had the elevated subway extended north along 31st St to 19th Ave (which is not an actual intersection because this land is owned by ConEdison and is not a street), turning right along 19th Ave where it would travel to a new terminal located near the La Guardia Marine Air Terminal.  This alignment would have avoided most of the residential areas and run through a mostly industrial neighborhood to reach the airport.    The proposal, which was very seriously considered, was shot down by residents who didn’t want the elevated trains running though any more of their neighborhood.

The map at the right shows a slightly altered proposal for extension, one that is closer to the original 1929 plan.  Here the Astoria Line would turn at Ditmars Blvd and run down to the Grand Central Parkway.  It follows the parkway, elevated, up to the La Guardia Terminals with stations at Steinway, Hazen, and 82nd streets (the 1990s MTA proposal had no additional stations besides the La Guardia terminal).  The subway could be extended further east to terminate at the Willets Point-CitiField station so that travelers coming from Long Island could have a mass transit option when going to La Guardia Airport.

Conclusion

Northern Queens is the best served section of Queens in terms of rapid transit today (which isn’t really saying much).  But the few subways which run through it are filled to capacity with no space left for extensions further east.  Most of the borough is miles from any subway and if there are going to be any more subway extensions to serve Queens then a new trunk line will be necessary.  Queens is growing in population and if New York City is to be able to take in an addition 1 million residents in the next 20 years then Queens will have to grow denser than it is today.  The only way this will be sustainable is if mass transit is extended out to reach all sections of the borough.

The Flushing Trunk Line is my proposal to address these issues in northern Queens.  It would take pressure off of the 7 Line and the Queens Blvd Line at the same time as serving large sections of the city.  With the growth of Long Island City as a residential and commercial neighborhood the congestion along the existing subways will just get worse.  New capacity is the only sustainable answer to address transportation issues in Queens.  This will require new zoning as well and the Queens of the future will be much less suburban than it is today, but then this was always going to be the case.  Like when the elevated trains came to the farmlands of old Queens, new transportation will go hand and hand with future transformation.  New subways will allow for a denser, more sustainable Queens and could even be a model for how other suburbs around the nation adapt to rising old prices and congestion.

Subway Diagram

Subway diagram showing Flushing Trunk Line

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

Introduction

Elevated Train, 9th Ave, 1940 by Andreas Feininger

Manhattan is the only borough of New York City where major subway expansion is actually taking place. The Second Ave Subway and the 7 Line extension are the first major subway expansion projects in almost 40 years. I’ve covered both in previous posts so I want to look further into what might be possible for expanded service in Manhattan. The areas along the west side of the island are still far away from subway service (elevated trains once rumbled up 9th Ave but were replaced in the 1930s by the 8th Ave Subway). The 7 Line extension, as it is currently being built, will not include a station at 10th Ave/41st St which will mean that trains will bypass a large residential section of town, Hells Kitchen and Clinton, in order to serve a neighborhood which is not even built yet, the Far West Side and Hudson Yards.

While over on the west side let’s look across the Hudson River and realize that there are many commuters who pour into New York from New Jersey every day through the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and over the George Washington Bridge, the most heavily trafficked bridge in the world. There are also rail connection between New York and New Jersey via the PATH system and New Jersey Transit into Penn Station. Construction of a new 2 track tube under the river from New Jersey to Penn Station has recently begun which will double capacity along the Northeast Corridor (check out the ARC Tunnel). The PATH system went through an identity change in the 1970s when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey took over the defunct Hudson & Manhattan Railroad which was built to shuttle passengers from various train terminals in Hoboken and Jersey City into downtown and midtown Manhattan. As service grows between the two states and as capacity along the automobile lanes is stretched to capacity, new rail connections seem inevitable.

Another inevitability is that Manhattan will need a new crosstown subway line soon. Planners have seen this as an issue for over 70 years as crosstown subways have been proposed from 57th St to 23rd St. Any new subway lines into Queens will have to enter Manhattan at some point and even with a completed Second Ave Subway there will be little extra capacity on existing East River tunnels. A new crosstown subway in midtown Manhattan would be ideal for adding the additional capacity needed and could be extended out into Queens.

Flushing Line 7 Train Extensions

7 Line extensions into the Far West Side of Manhattan.

Currently under construction from 8th Ave/41st St to 11th Ave/34th St with layup tracks extending south to 11th Ave/25th St, I covered the history of the 7 Line extension in a previous post. Now I want to look at some past proposals for extension and some future possibilities.

• High Line and West Side Highway

  Before the High Line was a park it was just another abandoned railroad line though a major city which most people didn’t even know about (you can see my pictures from before the park was built on my“A Walk on the High Line” post). In the 1980s and 90s when the West Side Highway was being torn down and replaced by the Hudson River Park and a landscaped boulevard, many transit advocates called for using this opportunity to build a new transit line along the west side to the World Trade Center. A transit option had been proposed as an alternative to the plans for the Westway, a massive highway tunnel system along the Hudson River to replace the decaying West Side Highway. When the Westway was killed in 1985 it was hoped that the new replacement would have space from transit of some kind, be it a subway, elevated rail, or bus lanes.

  The proposal to extend the 7 Line south along the west side would have brought the 7 Line west from Times Sq down to the Hudson Yards where it would have connected to the High Line at the point where the High Line tracks enter the ground along 34th St at 11th Ave. From here the 7 Line would have looped around the train yards and made its way through the middle of the block along the High Line. Since the High Line was built only for freight trains it never had stations (though each building through which it ran did have loading platforms for freight). New stations would have meant that many warehouses and residential buildings would have needed to be demolished. The High Line had originally run south to West Houston St where it terminated in a large meat packing facility. The portion of the High Line from Gansevoort St to West Houston St was demolished in the 1990s for new housing development. Had this section not been removed then it could have been extended along an elevated structure from West Houston south along the West Side Highway to a new terminal at the World Trade Center.

  History has written a different story. Though the West Side Highway was replaced by a landscaped boulevard and park system, no space for transit was made available. The High Line was in danger of being demolished entirely but was saved by creative community activists and a new mayor.

  Please note: I am not in favor of replacing the High Line Park with active rail transit. This was merely an historical proposal.

• 23rd St Crosstown
  

  7 Line extension into Hoboken and Jersey City.

  The current extension of the 7 Line will end at West 25th St at 11th Ave. Since 11th Ave starts/ends at West 22nd St there are only two options for where the line could be extended from here.

  The first option would be to turn the line back east at 23rd St and create a new crosstown subway. Crossing the East River at 23rd St the line would be pointing directly to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The 7 Line could possibly be extended southeast into North Brooklyn or could be sent northeasterly back into the southern tip of Long Island City to connect back with the 7 Line to Flushing thereby creating a large loop through midtown Manhattan.

• Hoboken and Jersey City

  The second option for extending the 7 Line past 25th St would be to send it west under the Hudson River into Hoboken, New Jersey. There are jurisdictional and bureaucratic issues with building anything across the Hudson River since it is a state boundary. The Port Authority was set up to build and maintain all interstate crossings inside a 25 mile radius area from the Statue of Liberty. Knowing this it is easy to understand why the New York City Subway has never crossed the Hudson River, but this does not mean the need does still not exist.

  The subway extension would leave Manhattan at 23rd St and head straight across the river to Hoboken at 12th St. The subway would curve south at Main St and head down to the Hoboken Terminal. Here there would be a transfer point for the PATH, Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, and New Jersey Transit. After Hoboken Terminal the subway would run parallel to the PATH down to Pavonia/Newport station, then down to 6th St where it would turn west. Jersey City was once covered in train tracks as it was the eastern most place trains could travel before they hit the mighty Hudson River. Jersey City was the home of many terminal buildings which allowed people and freight to transfer to barges headed to Manhattan. Because of this there are more than a few ruins left over from the railroad days. Like the High Line, Jersey City has a large abandoned railroad embankment running through the old residential neighborhood between 6th and 5th St. The 7 Line subway would ascend to the surface along 6th St here and run elevated along the embankment. The right-of-way leads directly to Journal Sq which is where the 7 Line extension would terminate, along side the PATH station.

• Union City and the Upper West Side
  

  7 Line extension into Clinton, Union City, and the Upper West Side.

  Back in Manhattan, instead of continuing the existing 7 Line south, an alternative would be to turn the 7 Line north into the Clinton/Hells Kitchen neighborhood along 10th Ave. On 10th Ave the 7 Line would run north to 72nd St where it would merge with the existing 7th Ave Subway at Broadway. From here north the 7 train would run along side the 1 train as a local service up to the Bronx. 10th Ave is interesting in this case since just west of 10th Ave, running through the block, is the depressed Amtrak right-of-way built at the same time as the High Line. This below grade rail line runs up the west side of Manhattan under Riverside Park and by Inwood before skirting the coast of the Hudson River up to Albany. This would allow for the 7 Line to act as a super-express subway for the west side of Manhattan up to Inwood. An actual current proposal for a similar transit expansion would have MetroNorth trains use this right-of-way with stations at 66th St, 125th St, and Dyckman St. MetroNorth trains would require no new tracks like a subway would so this is a much preferable and economical option.

  Alternatively the 7 Line could jump the Hudson River at 55th St and head into Union City, New Jersey. There is currently a train tunnel through the high cliffs on top of which Union City is built. The tunnel is currently being used for the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. If these tracks were converted to subway service the 7 Line would have a ready to use tunnel into New Jersey. At the portal to the tunnel there could be built a large park and ride station which would attract commuters who might normally drive into Manhattan.

10th Ave and Crosstown Subways

10th Ave Subway and Crosstown alternatives.

As I stated above planners have seen the need for new crosstown subways for decades. In the 1960s an underground people-mover system was envisioned that would connect Grand Central Terminal with Rockefeller Center. Because the Midtown Central Business District (CBD) is so important to the economy of the region it is crucial that it is served well by transit. Since there is no more room for cars in this dense area the best option at the moment is mass transit. Currently there are crosstown subway lines at 59th St (N/Q/R trains), 53rd St (E), and 42nd St (7/Shuttle).

A new, 2 track, crosstown subway would serve an additional purpose, that of new capacity. Even if the 2nd Ave Subway is fully built out there will new capacity on existing lines in Manhattan but no new capacity in Queens. In my next post I will talk more about new subways in Queens but for these to be possible they need a place to go. A new crosstown subway in midtown Manhattan would be the perfect connection for a new subway to Queens. The 63rd St tunnel was built for this very reason but due to lack of funding no new capacity was constructed in Queens and the current 63rd St tunnel is operating under capacity because of this (read more about the history of the 63rd St tunnel here.)

The two best options for a new crosstown subway would be at 57th St or at 50th St. The 57th St alignment would connect with Columbus Circle, major express subway stations, and the hotel areas above midtown but the 50th St alignment would directly serve the CBD and still connect with major subway lines. A benefit to the 50th St alignment would be that an underground pedestrian mall could be constructed and connected into the existing concourse at Rockefeller Center. An underground concourse connecting Times Sq, the Midtown CBD, and Grand Central Terminal would reduce pedestrian traffic on the streets and allow for substantial retail which could help pay for the subway.

A cheaper alignment may be along 53rd St where the existing IND subway runs. The problem with this alternative is while the tunnel segment from 8th Ave to 6th Ave is 4 tracks, the tunnel from 6th Ave to the East River is only 2 tracks. Queens bound trains would have to be cut back to allow for an additional train, though an additional crosstown train at 53rd St would have the benefit of being able to directly connect to the 8th Ave Subway and add additional express service along the west side of Manhattan to downtown.

Crosstown subways from midtown Manhattan entering Long Island City.

Where ever the crosstown subway is built it will have end up somewhere. Like the existing 14th St-Canarsie Line it could terminate at 8th Ave but because there is a large residential neighborhood just west of 8th Ave (Hells Kitchen/Clinton) it would make more sense to extend the subway over to 10th Ave and run it south to 14th St to connect with the 14th St-Canarsie Line. This would mean trains could enter from Brooklyn and unload passengers heading south, then swing north to serve the proposed Hudson Yards development and the Hells Kitchen neighborhood, then turn back east into midtown and on into Queens. Due to the commuting habits at rush hour it is foreseeable that there would be three different trains running on this subway: an all local train running from Brooklyn to Queens via 10th Ave, a Brooklyn only train at 14th St which would terminate at 10th Ave, and a Queens only train at 50th St (or another alignment) which would also terminate at 10th Ave. Off peak hours could run one or two all local trains from Brooklyn to Queens.

On the Queens side of the East River the new 10th Ave-Crosstown subway would need a place to enter Long Island City, a growing mixed use neighborhood. This fact has more to do with affecting the location of the new subway in Manhattan than anything else. Because existing subways in Long Island City are at capacity a new 4 track subway would need to be built. Currently the IND Crosstown G Line is cut back to Court Sq instead of connecting to the Queens Blvd Line and running to Forest Hills. Because of the ridership demand for midtown Manhattan service G train riders must transfer to the E/M trains to get to Queens Plaza. A new tunnel under the East River servicing a 10th Ave-Crosstown train would allow for the G train to finally get a proper terminal.

Depending on the alignment, a new 2 track tunnel under the East River would enter Long Island City and head towards Queens Plaza. A more southern alignment, like the one at 50th St, would meet up with the IND Crosstown G Line before Court Sq, thereby allowing a new tunnel and station to be built which would combine the two subways into a 4 track trunk line built parallel to the Queens Blvd Line to Queens Plaza. The new subway would be built inside the Sunnyside Rail Yards so no buildings would need to be demolished for this expansion to take place. A new 4 track terminal station would be built adjacent to the existing Queens Plaza station for transfers.

Morningside Ave Line

Proposals for a super-express subway to Morningside Heights.

One of the more peculiar proposed subway lines from the original IND Second System was for a super-express subway under the west side of Central Park to Morningside Heights that would terminate at 145th St. The subway would have only had stations from 110th St to 145th St and would have connected with the BMT Broadway Line at 57th St. Early BMT subway maps actually show a small stud aimed this way at 57th St. While a new subway line through the Upper West Side was very much needed around this time, the peculiar thing is that this subway was still being proposed well after the 8th Ave Line opened, serving this same are.

My theory, and I have nothing to base this on, was that a Morningside Ave super-express subway was planned to compliment a pair of super-express tracks which were planned for the 2nd Ave Subway. Originally the 2nd Ave Subway was planned with 6 tracks through the Upper East Side, 2 local, 2 express, and 2 super-express with no stops until the line reached the Bronx. The subways through the Upper West Side were older, the original NYC Subway ran up Broadway, had two express stations at 72nd and 96th Sts, and only a third track for rush hour express trains after 103rd St. The areas around Morningside Heights, meanwhile, were rapidly developing at this time because of the improved transportation the new subways were bringing; in a sense the subways were too popular too handle the growing demand. A super-express subway would have taken considerable stress/directly competed with the IRT (keep in mind that the subways were still operated by three different companies at this time).

Today the shortcomings of the early subway designs are as evident as ever (for instance there is no express station at 125th St at Broadway). Already I’ve suggested three options for a super-express subway through the Upper West Side: a 7 Line extension along the Amtrak Hudson River tracks, a MetroNorth alternative along the same way, and a subway up Amsterdam Ave which would be an extension of the 14th St-Canarsie Line up 10th Ave.

Let’s add the original proposal into the mix, a branch off the BMT Broadway Line along Central Park. This would be the least disruptive option of them all since it would only require digging through the park. At the north end of the park the subway could swing west, like originally proposed, and run under Morningside Ave and Convent Ave to 145th St. Here the subway could terminate or merge with the IND 8th Ave Line and add super-express service directly to the IND Grand Concourse (B/D) Line in the Bronx. Alternatively, the subway could run under Lenox Ave in Harlem to 148th St (the IRT 7th Ave 3 train terminal) or connect to the IND Grand Concourse Line at Yankee Stadium.

George Washington Bridge Subway

George Washington Bridge with subway connection.

The George Washington Bridge (GWB) is notable for many reasons, but one that is almost never mentioned is that it was the first major bridge built in New York City which was not built with a mass transit connection. The Brooklyn (1883), Williamsburg (1903), Queensboro/59th St (1909), and Manhattan (1909) bridges all were built with some form of mass transit but the GWB (1931), completed almost 30 years after the Manhattan Bridge, did not. What has been noted many times was that it was overbuilt (the original design called for a skin of brick and granite) and space was left over for a second deck which would have allowed for mass transit. A second deck was added in the 1960s but no mass transit option was built, not even a bus lane which could have served the busy bus terminal on the Manhattan side of the bridge. Because the bridge spans the Hudson River the bridge is owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey there are legal, jurisdictional, and bureaucratic issues that need to be dealt with if mass transit is to be a reality on the GWB.

There are two ways that mass transit could operate on the GWB, both of which would require the removal of a travel lane in each direction. This may seem counter productive since the GWB is the most heavily trafficed bridge in the world but mass transit would only cut down on the amount of space for cars; many more people could cross the bridge if mass transit was added.

• Bus Lanes

  A bus-only lane along the top deck would better serve the bus terminal on the Manhattan side. The GWB Bus Terminal is a strategic part of the region’s transportation network which diverts traffic away from the main Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd St. A bus-only lane would also allow charter buses, which would normally cross along at one of the tunnels further south, a quicker way into Manhattan.

• Subway

  An extension of the IND 8th Ave Line from 168th St (the current terminus for 8th Ave local trains) across the lower deck of the bridge to a new transportation facility/relocated bus terminal in Fort Lee, NJ. There exists, underground, a train yard under Broadway at 174th St to serve 8th Ave trains. The tracks connecting the yard to the 8th Ave Subway could be extended up Broadway a few blocks and curved west to run along the lower deck of the bridge (see map). On the New Jersey side a large new bus terminal and park-and-ride facility would be built where commuters would transfer to express trains to Manhattan. The facility would be built above the existing highway when space is freed up from the removal of the tool booth plazas (which would be replaced by automated license plate readers currently being installed on other bridges). The air-rights on the New Jersey side and the air-rights from the removal of the existing GWB Bus Terminal in Manhattan would be a way to finance the subway.

Conclusion

The unfortunate fact about all the subway expansion going on in New York City right now is that when it is all finished the Far West Side, Clinton, and Hells Kitchen neighborhoods won’t be that much better off. New subway connections which would extend existing lines through these neighborhoods are needed when the planned developments (and current developments along W42nd St) start to bring thousands more people into this area. This being the case it only makes sense to look at these transportation needs in a broader context. Subways in Manhattan are already close to (and in some places surpassing) their designed capacity. If other boroughs of the city are to grow (an additional 1 million people are expected to move into the city within the next 20 years) they will need a way to get around. New subways are the only desirable answer.

I’ve talked about new crosstown connections into Queens and in my next post I will discuss just where those new subways will lead to: the Flushing Trunk Line.

Subway Diagram

Subway diagram showing 10th Ave Subway, 7 Line to Hoboken, Bushwick Trunk Line, and Second Ave Subway systems.

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

The Second Ave Subway: An Introduction

Ask an old time New Yorker about the many great myths about the city and you’ll hear the standard ones about alligators in the sewers, rats the size of cats, and up until a few years ago even a subway that the city built under 2nd Ave but boarded up. The Second Ave subway was for a very long time vaporware (a computer term for software that is always talked about but never seems to become a reality.) I’ve touched on some of the history of the Second Ave subway in previous posts and much has been written about the subway over time. From my previous post:

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 much change. Originally the line was to be a two 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 six. 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.

The line was first proposed back in 1929, weeks before the stock market crashed and sent the nation into the Great Depression. Construction started twice on the line over the years, most recently in 2007. That’s a long time of waiting and dashed hopes. Lets put that into some perspective:

A more detailed timeline can be found over at SecondAveSagas.com, a blog set up originally to track progress on the line but now deals with all things MTA (one of the best blogs on the subject IMHO).

The First Second Ave Subway

1939 IND Second System plan showing Second Ave subway.

The need for a subway under 2nd Ave seems obvious today but one of main reasons that subways under 8th and 6th Aves were constructed first was due to the fact that at the time (1920-30s) mass transit in Manhattan was lopsided in favor of the East Side. A number of elevated lines ran up through Manhattan, on 9th Ave, 6th Ave, 3rd Ave and 2nd Ave. The 6th Ave elevated line combined with the 9th Ave at 53rd St meaning that residents of the West Side only had one elevated line while residents on the East Side had two. This is one reason the original subway (in 1904) ran through the Upper West Side, not the Upper East (until the Lexington Ave subway was opened in 1918). Two decades of residential growth along the Upper West Side meant that the city, when planning their Independent (IND) subway, focused on the West Side over the East.

But the point of building a subway wasn’t just to alleviate congestion, it was also primarily to allow for the destruction of the much hated elevated lines that darkened streets, threw dirt and trash on pedestrians below, made living near one a painful and dangerous experience, and kept real estate values down (this being New York that last one was a major factor.) Because two elevated lines ran through the East Side the city soon set its sights on transforming this half of the city like it had done on the West Side. So in 1929 the city announced plans for a major subway expansion that focused on a new trunk line running under 2nd Ave that would alleviate congestion and allow for the elevated lines to come down.

The original proposal called for a subway with four tracks (express and local) from the Harlem River to 125th St, six tracks from 125th St to 61st St (for super-express service), four tracks from 61st St to Chambers St, and finally two tracks from Chambers St to Wall St. Back at 61st St the additional set of tracks for super-express would cut off to the west to 6th Ave where they would connect to the 6th Ave line (a rare section of the Second Ave subway which was eventually constructed and is todays F Line). At the Harlem River the four track subway would head into the South Bronx up to Melrose where the line would split into two, two track lines, one which would run to Throgs Neck and the other which would run to Eastchester (click here to see the full description). It should be noted that at this time there were no plans to connect the line to any Brooklyn or Queens lines.

Due to the Great Depression the line was shelved but ten years later the plans were dusted off and reproposed. In the 1939 plan the line would be simpler, a four track line from Throgs Neck to Melrose, Bronx, then south to 2nd Ave in Manhattan to just south of Hanover Sq in Downtown where it would make a sharp turn east and head into Brooklyn under the East River to connect with the IND Fulton St subway at Hoyt-Schermerhorn (or more acuaratly, at Court St which is today the New York Transit Museum, but was at the time an active subway station). The plans at the time show the IND Fulton St subway (A,C) continuing further into South Jamaica and connecting to the Rockaways so one assumes that these extensions may have connected to the Second Ave subway. An interesting note about the 1939 plan is that the 61st St connection between the 6th Ave and 2nd Ave subways is no longer a direct connection, instead there would be a second East River tunnel at about 72nd St which would connect the 6th Ave subway with the Queens Blvd subway in Long Island City. This connection was eventually constructed, but further south at 63rd St.

The Post War Subway Plans

1951 plans for the Second Ave subway and connection to Brooklyn

With the nation coming out of the Great Depression and World War II winding down, New York City was, arguably, at the zenith of its might and prestige. Over the next decade the city threw itself into transforming itself into a new world capital and city of the future. It says something about American culture that throughout the government spending of the 1930s New Deal and the post War urban renewal/highway building boom that not a mile of new subway was constructed. Many books have been written about how Americans at this time drove out of cities for new government subsidized suburbs. It seems like this was a time when city planners were only focused on the car and the subdivision but this was not entirely the case.

After the war the plans for a subway under 2nd Ave were again dusted off. The need for a subway was even greater now that the 2nd Ave El had been torn down in 1940 and the 3rd Ave El was to be torn down in 1955, both because city officials thought the subway was about to be constructed. The plans ranging from 1944 to 1955 called for a six track subway from 125th St to 57th St with a connection east to the 6th Ave subway and, added later, a spur to Queens. South of 57th St the line ran four tracks to a giant new interchange south of Houston St which would connect the 6th Ave subway with the 2nd Ave subway to the Williamsburg Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. Some plans called for an additional two tracks running south to Wall St, though plans for this subway were dropped. More details on this large interchange, which was eventually constructed, are in my last post on the Chrystie Street Connection.

These plans came very close to coming to construction. In 1951 a $500M bond was passed by voters to build the subway, order new cars, and fix the crumbling system. So confident were Transit Authority officials that brand new state of the art subway cars, the R11 dubbed the “million dollar train” due to the cost, were ordered (this train can be viewed at the Transit Museum). However, much like the last two times the subway was slated for construction, an international crisis, the Korean War, drove material costs sky high and in 1957, the year construction was supposed to commence, from SecondAveSagas.com:

Transit Authority Chairman Charles L. Patterson used most of the $500M bond issue for improvements to the current system, leaving only $112M for the Second Ave. subway. The New York Times reported on Jan 17, 1957 (page 1): “It is highly improbable that the Second Ave. subway will ever materialize.”

Second Ave Subways Second Act

Governor Rockefeller and Mayor Lindsay break ground for the Second Ave subway in 1972. Source: New York Times

The primary reason that after World War II that the United States built so many highways throughout the nation was that in 1956 President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Highway Act which promised states that the Federal government would pay the states 90 cents on the dollar for the cost of building them, which were normally high and through cities especially high. If they wanted to build a mass transit line the Feds would pay nothing.

Second Ave Subway map showing previously completed sections. Source: New York Times

In 1964 this changed. Throughout the 1950s and 60s many people were coming to realize just how destructive building highways were to cities. Not only were neighborhoods often destroyed but, instead of connecting the cities to their suburbs, these new roads were draining cities of the middle and upper classes, on whom cities relied for taxes to pay for the majority of services. In 1950 many cities had all time highs in population but ten years later almost all major industrial cities had lost large percentages of population and future trends pointed to continued loss. In 1964 progressive Democrats were swept into Congress and Lyndon B. Johnson was elected President. President Johnson proposed a wave a new progressive legislation aimed at fighting poverty and building up education, health, and cultural infrastructure, known as the Great Society. One aspect of the Great Society was the Urban Mass Transit Act which promised states 50 cents on the dollar to build mass transit systems. Many aging systems benefited from this act including San Francisco and Washington D.C. which built entirely new systems (BART, Metro).

New York saw an opportunity to finally find financing for the Second Ave subway and in 1967 voters passed a $2.5B bond measure with $600M allotted for the Second Ave subway. The next year the newly formed Metropolitan Transit Authority released its Program for Action in which the agency outlined a massive overhaul of the aging system by upgrading older lines, eliminated the 3rd Ave elevated line which still ran in the Bronx (fun fact: this line was known as the 8 train), capturing Long Island Railroad right-of-ways for new subway lines, and building a scaled down version of the Second Ave subway. The new version would only be a two track line, with Phase 1 running from 126th St to 34th St, connecting to a new crosstown Queens tunnel at 63rd St, and a Phase 2 running from 34th St to Broad St. Future connections would then be made to the Bronx along a rehabilitated Pelham Bay line (6 train) and a new subway along the Metro North right-of-way to Fordham.

In 1972 ground was broken and construction began on small sections at 99th and 105th, 110th and 120th Sts, and between Chatham Sq and Canal St (this section was supposedly destroyed with the construction of Confucius Plaza.) Three years later yet another financial crisis, this time of the city of New York, stopped progress.

A fantastic video from a PBS program in 1975 covers the debate of the day.

Shut off from the world, the only section eventually opened was that of the 63rd St tunnel to Queens. The other small sections were sealed for decades with a politician now and then proposing uses for them. Due to the population decline of the city during the next 20 years and the fragile financial situation of the city and MTA no serious plans were ever brought forth to construct the Second Ave subway.

“The Second Avenue subway is to all intense and purposes dead.” -Carl H. Abraham, New York City Transportation Admin. 1975

Third Time’s A Charm

Second Ave subway proposed route.

After a generation of decline the city began a rebound in the 1990s. Crime began to drop and the population drain of the previous 30 years began to slow and in some places populations grew with new waves of immigrants. With the future of the city finally looking bright planners once again started looking at ways to improve traffic on the East Side of Manhattan. Some saw a subway as still too expensive, light rail and Bus Rapid Transit were both proposed, but residents demanded that a full subway be constructed. Too much time and money had been wasted and congestion along the Lexington Ave subway was only going to get worse.

In 2001 a plan was put forth to build the subway in phases: Phase 1 would go from 63rd St/Lexington Ave to 96th St/2nd Ave and connect with the Broadway Line (Q train). Phase 2 would continue the subway north to 125th St with future connections available to the Bronx and a cross-Harlem subway under 125th St (though this later proposal was not looked at for immediate planning). Phase 3 would run south from 63rd St, with a connection to Queens, to Houston St. It is presumable that this section of subway would then feed into the Chrystie St Connection to the Manhattan Bridge as the Grand St station (along this section of subway) had, theoretically, been built to allow for easy connection to a future Second Ave subway. Phase 4 would extend the subway south to the Financial District terminating at Hanover Sq. There was a second proposal for Phase 4 which would have connect to the Centre St subway (J,Z) and allow for a simple extension of the subway into Brooklyn, but this was eventually passed on.

Construction began again in 2007, months before yet ANOTHER financial crisis hit the nation. History seemed to want to repeat itself but this time funding for the first phase was already in place (as opposed to pay-as-you-go as with past attempts.) When fully complete the new subway will be called the “T” line, the color a light blue. It will get a letter because it is part of the IND legacy (which has more to do with the size of subway train than it does for nostalgia) which has lettered trains unlike the IRT which uses numbers.

Due to financial reasons (costs have skyrocketed over the years) the current version of the Second Ave subway will only be two track, local service the entire route. For all the foresight subway planners might posses, this seems to me a grave mistake that will come to haunt the city for generations to come. The timeline for the current construction on Phase 1 was supposed to end in 2014 but has now been bumped back to 2016 and will most likely not make that mark. Originally Phase 1 was to include a third track to allow for better switching from the 2nd Ave line to the 63rd St tunnel but this was dropped due to cost.

The Future Second Ave Subway

Given the pace at which the Second Ave subway has progressed it is no wonder that the city and MTA are not planning expanding the system into the Bronx or Brooklyn anytime soon. Up until now this series has been looking back at the expansion plans of the past. From here on out, however, I will be presenting my plan for expanding the system. My next post will look at what a future 2nd Ave subway might look like, where and how it could connect to the other boroughs to create a new backbone for the subway network.

More Information

• Second Ave Subway, Wikipedia
• MTA Second Ave subway Capital Construction
• IND Second System, NYCSubway.org
• Second Ave Subway, NYCSubway.org
• Timeline of Second Ave subway, SecondAveSagas.com
• The Launch Box
• Saga of the Second Ave subway (1975)
• Is That Finally the Sound of a 2nd Ave subway?, NY Times 4/9/07

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-Expre
11. Conclusion: the vanshnookenraggen plan

Prologue

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

1910 IRT Expansion Plan with unbuilt Lafayette Ave subway

Much like my futureMBTA, this project has taken me years of researching and map making to create what I feel is the best plan for any future mass transit expansion in New York City. I first started this project when I moved to NYC 4.5 years ago after finishing my furtureMBTA project. I thought it would be a cake walk since I had so much experience already but I discovered the NYC Subway to be a different animal.

The futureMBTA came out of my desire to visualize what Boston’s subway would look like if all the proposed expansion projects were actually completed. After I had completed that I realized that there were many other ideas not proposed that could be and that I was now in a position to envision the future of the system. My driving belief was that Boston needed a unified plan of expansion so that when funding became available it could build each part separately that would work together with the older system but when complete would become it’s own system.

When I came to New York I was pleasantly surprised to find that this thinking had been part of the mass transit planning in the city for over 80 years. Unlike Boston, New York had a long history of subway planning and expansion and a much more devoted base of subway buffs to dream about the future. One thing I’m not going to do is give such a detailed history of the NYC Subway system as there are many great websites already established that cover this aspect thoroughly. Rather, I am just going to lay out my plans and any history to put them into context.

2nd Ave 1947 Plan

This is just the introduction to a series of posts I plan on writing explaining the history of subway expansion in NYC, first with an analysis of the famous IND Second System, a close look at the long history of the Second Ave Subway and my first new map of the SAS System, and finally my plans for new lines into Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

Those who follow the MTA closely will scoff at the ideas for such a fantastic expansion but like with the futureMBTA, these ideas are not based on political reality, rather they are presented to stir the mind and to inspire future leaders and city officials of the possibilities. Today, the City of New York has recovered from the population drain of the late 20th Century and now boasts a larger population than ever before with up to a million new citizens expected to move into the city in the next generation. In the past 30 years the city has planned for a reduction of population and services. Now the city needs to plan for expansion. This will take time and it is because of this I think that now is the right time to share my ideas and maps.

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