What are the current constraints on running the J train through the Montague St tunnels?

[Gilmoregal]

Very interesting convo, love learning about the trains here. Learning a lot I didn't know

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

This demarcation of services on municipal, state, and agency lines is wholly political. It is tricky that these are to operate between municipal and state lines, but this is not intractable. Revenue-sharing can be done and should be done, and there are real operational benefits to doing so. The PATH-WTC stop is very close to the City Hall 6 train terminus. There was floated, and tentatively nodded towards by MTA, the prospect of connecting the two as a single line due to IRT / PATH interoperability (with very slight modifications). This was easy to do when there were giant holes in the ground and the PATH-WTC station needed to be reconstructed in the wake of 9/11. Port Authority outright killed that discussion however before it got very far. That's stupid because there is actual operational benefits from a single seat ride like that which would serve people from NJ quite well and connect people in NYC to jobs in New Jersey as well as to EWR (and would have made a PATH extension to EWR much more reasonable).

The PATH is owned and operated by the PA. The PA doesn't get it's funding from taxpayers in NY or NJ, but it gets it funding from bridge and tunnel tolls, the three NYC-area airports, the seaports, and leases from it's properties as well as the PATH firebox. The MTA is reliant on NY taxpayers as well as bridge and tunnel tolls within NYC as well as the subway farebox. Like I said in my past post, it looks and sounds like a great idea extending the IRT trains from Manhattan to NJ, but the question is would you kill of the PATH system for extending the MTA system into NJ. And if you were to create such a system, then how would the NJ residents be able to pay and maintain such a system on the NJ side? NY residents and taxpayers don't want the responsibility of paying for something on the NJ side with their tax dollars and neither do the residents and taxpayers of NJ vice versa.

Also, the NY subway system has 472 subway stations spanning across 850 mi or trackage including non-revenue service. It's the largest subway system in the Western Hemisphere and the Western World. The PATH system, on the other hand, had only 4 lines and 13 stations running on a much smaller system in which the PATH system is legally and technically considered a commuter railroad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail by the Federal Railroad Administration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federa...Administration). That makes a lot of sense since south of Newark station, the PATH runs in parallel and in conjunction with the Amtrak Northeast Corridor while there's no such connection between the major railroads and the NYC subway system as the subway system is an independent mass transit system. So you have another hurdle if you want to consider the NY subway system one big "railroad" according to the federal gov't when it's not considered a railroad but a mass transit system owned by NYC.

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

There's no real issue with having the lines horseshoe with their termini because almost no one will go the full route. Horseshoe arrangements, usually with the bottom of the U centered around downtown areas, aren't that uncommon, take for example the Toronto Line 1 or to the lesser extent the Washington Metro Red line. It's essentially serving multiple ridership segments with one route which is reasonable as terminal stations in CBDs are generally operationally very inefficient. Now I can see some kind of argument being made the current J/Z and M should be flipped with the J/Z going uptown while the M goes downtown (and then maybe through the Montague Street Tunnels) though I don't see an issue with the M train termini being close to each other because the transit pattern is likely from Middle Village and the like to Manhattan or Forest Hills and the like to Manhattan, but not the full run and that wouldn't change even if you were to swap the J/Z and M.

The M train had always run in a horseshoe, difference being is that the M train ran through Lower Manhattan rather than Midtown Manhattan and the horseshoe's ends were much more widely spaced with one terminus in Brooklyn (Coney Island) and another one in Queens (Metropolitan Ave). My reasoning for bringing the M back to the Nassau St line is simply for functionality. The M is supposed to be the local service in Manhattan and Brooklyn between Canal St and Myrtle Ave while the J is supposed to be express during the peak hours and local during off-peak and late nights.

I wouldn't swap the J train's service from Lower Manhattan to Midtown or Upper Manhattan, it works well since it's the only line which starts from Queens, heads through ENY, Bushwick and Bed Stuy, and Williamsburg, then heads south to Lower Manhattan, ending at Broad St. Both the J and the M trains worked because they both served a major CBD (Lower Manhattan), and if you wanted to go to Midtown or Upper Manhattan, depending on where you lived in the city, you transferred at Bway Jct in ENY for the A or the L or if you lived in Bushwick, Bed Stuy, or Williamsburg, you went to Essex St and transferred to the F, which wasn't hard. I understand having a one-seat ride over having a two-seat ride, but I'm pretty sure that there are a lot more two seat rides in the city as well as one-seat rides. It all depends where you live in the city.

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

If we wanted to have that horseshoe improved to serve the new pattern, then I think the G train needs a good transfer to the J/M/Z on Broadway and/or the M train could run as a circle line--this latter one does have the closest limiting factor for why the G train can't run as well down the line being that the turnaround times in Forest Hills takes too long, but if the M train goes in a circle, then it's not using that terminus for turnaround. Of course, then there's the next limiting factor of actual track capacity though potentially signaling improvements among other improvements can significantly increase the trains per hour that can run on the tracks.

I agree with the transfer at Bway and Lorimer in Brooklyn, as there's already been a transfer between the L and the G trains at Lorimer and Metropolitan in Williamsburg. The G train had always, for much of it's existence, served Kensington and Forest Hills as a crosstown local, hence the name the Brooklyn - Queens Crosstown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_(New...ubway_service)). Difference is that nowadays along the G Crosstown line, it doesn't serve much of Queens like it used to as there's only two stations in Queens that it serves (21st St - Van Alst and Court Sq). Reintroducing the G train to the IND Queens Blvd line and even making the G into a 24 hr service between Forest Hills and Church Ave would ease some stress along the F line as the G would be dedicated to having local service in Queens while the F along with the E would be dedicated to express in Queens.

This is yet another reason why I wanted to see the M return as the Nassau St Local so the G train's utility can be realized as a local along with the R as well as being a major crosstown line between Brooklyn and Queens. The M train uses the same northern terminus that the G used when it used to run along the IND Queens Blvd line so don't you think if it took the G awhile to turnaround via Jamaica Yard, that the same thing would happen to the M? If you're a local train that uses the IND Queens Blvd line that ends at Forest Hills, the turnaround time is going to be the same regardless of whether it's an IND (G) or BMT (M or R) train.

I remember heading to an intern program at LIC during my high school days and as me and some of my friends were headed to LIC via the L train, I got off at Lorimer St to take the G, my friends went all the way to Manhattan and more than likely either took the E or the F. When I got off at Court Sq, I was one of the earlier interns while it took 20-30 extra minutes for the friends to come to LIC. The G also has it's usefulness as being a bypass line while most subway lines have to go through Manhattan in order to go to Queens so restoring G service to Forest Hills will make the line more worthwhile, plus I miss seeing the four color Queens Blvd line on the maps (light green, yellow, orange, and blue).

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

I think your idea of running along the express tracks for the 4th Avenue Subway can make sense, whether it's the M or J/Z that goes through the Montague Street Tunnel. I think what I'd be curious about is whether the express tracks from Atlantic Avenue to 36th street can handle that much more traffic since the N and D already run on it and you ostensibly, even if you changed which train services use those express tracks, would want both the BMT West End Line and the BMT 4th Avenue Line to run express through to 36th street, so that would mean you're kind of hard up for additional capacity, right? I guess you can do something nutty like the Nassau Street Line trains go local in Brooklyn until they hit 36th street and then switch over to express?

The R train was able to provide service as the sole local service along the BMT Fourth Ave line in Brooklyn. The M was able to run express when it utilized the 4th Ave line along with the B and N trains from the late 80's until the MTA decided to flip the M into the 6th Avenue Local. Also between 9th Ave/Bay Pkwy and Myrtle Ave, the M only operated on weekdays, so it wasn't a full-time service. The J/Z trains work fine terminating at Broad St and it's unnecessary to extend the J/Z to downtown Brooklyn, especially since it provides Brooklyn service at Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and ENY. Also, I was thinking the B train would be the one providing peak hour express service along the West End line while the M provides the local service between Bay Pkwy and 9th Ave the way the J does at the Nassau St - Broadway line.

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

I think regardless, you want to use up the capacity of the IND 6th Avenue local line in Manhattan that the M currently runs with the F. The F shares tracks with the G, so its frequency is that of an interlined route so something needs to share that once the F and G split from each other. The M train (or a J train swap) makes sense for that and if you do that, then its hard to do a turnaround without screwing things up until you're pretty far into Queens. I suppose one way to do this, if keeping with the idea of *not* having the J or M go to Midtown on the 6th Avenue Line would be to have the F express come back into service and that can be what combines with the current F in Manhattan? Does that seem most reasonable to you? I can see that working though the F express track and stations supposedly need some work before being able to be back in passenger operation while routing the J/Z down the Montague Street tunnel would simply use the existing R train stations and platforms (unless it does a switcheroo at Atlantic or 36th street to go on express tracks).

The B and the D trains work fine in that both the B and the D work express along 6th Ave and when both the B and the D head to Central Park West, the B operates as a local while the D continues to operate as a full time express. Swapping the J and the M and having those trains go to Midtown is going to do no good, in fact it's unnecessary IMHO. Both trains worked when they both operated in Lower Manhattan and they were both color coded brown. Plus the F does a great job operating locally from the LES through Midtown as a local train.

Having a rush hour F operate between Neptune Ave and Jay St is a great expansion of service. My only wish is that the F could operate as an express during daily hours from 8 AM to 8 PM express between Church Ave and Bergen St once the MTA decided that renovating the lower level of Bergen St is feasible for the IND Culver line. Bergen St used to actually be an express station much in the same vein that Nostrand Ave along the IND Fulton St line is an express station. Both stations don't have a crossover from uptown to downtown trains and the only difference is that on Bergen St, the local trains use the upper levels while the lower levels was supposed to be for the express while at Nostrand Ave, the express and the local services are flipped, with the express on the upper level and the local at the lower levels. If Nostrand Ave can have such an arrangement, the same can be done for Bergen St.

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

There's something I'm not understanding with how the W train alone going to Astoria can keep peak service frequency. If the W interlines with the R along the local tracks in Manhattan, then they share capacity along a stretch which would be a bottleneck. The N went on the express tracks with the Q and so the combined N/W in Astoria can maintain near full use of capacity. If you route the N to SAS and the Q to Queens Boulevard and they're still on the express tracks for the Broadway line, then where does the capacity for W running full frequency in Astoria come from? I might have missed something there.

If you want to add more frequency to the W trains, you add more trains! Also, don't the R and the W both go local along the Broadway line in Manhattan? Since both the R and the W both share local tracks, then that means that both trains already add to their capacity from Whitehall St to the 60th St tunnel until the R and W split to their destinations. Remember, the N used to serve the IND Queens Blvd line as a local and the R ran along the Astoria line. The W would take over the Astoria line and the R will continue to serve the Queens Blvd line as a local so no changes needed.

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

I agree SAS down 125th street would be great and there are provisions to allow for that in phase 2 of SAS. I still think IRT to New Jersey makes sense especially to the major Fort Lee on down population center. The area going up from Jersey City to Fort Lee along Bergen Neck peninsula is dense enough to support rapid transit and that gets funded for less density in the US (and other parts of the world). I like the 3 for the extension because it's IRT and compatible with potential PATH train extensions and because it quickly becomes express after that point which makes sense. The problem with using the 3 is that it uses the express tracks with the 2 train splitting the capacity so that means if just the 3 makes its way over, then that's a lot of slack tunnel capacity if just the 3 runs on it for what would be a fairly expensive tunnel, so there needs to be another service that also runs in it, but then where would it go? That's also the problem I had with the proposal to extend the 7 train to New Jersey because the tunnel supposedly is after a branching to Hudson Yards--in which case, then the 7 train capacity is split between Hudson Yards and this really expensive new tunnel.

The area you're talking about (North Hudson) is dense enough to the point where the Hudson Bergen Light Rail extends to Union City and ends right at the Tonnelle Ave station. It would make much sense to extend the HBLR to Englewood like it was originally planned to do to serve Hudson and Bergen counties then to have an MTA line extended from Upper Manhattan crossing the Hudson via a tunnel into Fort Lee. I'm not sure how extending the 3 train from Lenox Terminal to Fort Lee would help NJ residents other than maybe provide a more direct way to get to NY and even then, Upper Manhattan is not a major employment center, that would be Midtown and Downtown Manhattan, which is why the PATH operates at Midtown and Downtown and NJ Transit operates at Midtown because both Downtown and Midtown are major employment centers.

Downtown serves the financial sector and Midtown serves to entertainment and shopping sectors. There's no such sector operating at that magnitude in Upper Manhattan to even warrant a rail line crossing the Hudson underground. The closest transit line is a bus line which operates from George Washington Bus Station in Washington Heights and those buses, operated by either NJ Transit to Paterson, NJ or other jitney buses to Hudson County are what's provided for. IMHO, that's all that's needed as far as transit goes.

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

I wonder if there's some website that's a quick utility for plotting out new service patterns for NYC subways, so it's easier to keep track of what you're suggesting since it's a lot of moving parts and changes especially with the complicated interlining and local/express track combinations that NYC has. It would be something that has the various switches and crossovers and any other kind of routing possibilities and constraints on the system already in there. Maybe I should build one. I know Seoul's subway system (which reaches well out of Seoul proper and to other subnational entities) has a team of mathematicians that essentially do nothing but modeling of these and then tries to continuously optimize for the system as is and for future potential expansions and technologies. Doing so for NYC metropolitan area transport would probably be an incredibly complex endeavor given the piecemeal way it's been built and modified--I wonder if after modeling it and then trying to optimize for maximum efficiency, it would end up with something that's just bonkers like when having AI do circuit board designs or antenna designs.

NYC is one of the few cities in North America to utilize a local-express train system. Other cities that utilize it are Chicago and Philadelphia. All the European and Asian cities can match NYC's size, but I don't recall any European and Asian city using an express service the way NYC does. NYC is unique in that you can either have express service not only in Manhattan but in all four boroughs. Name me any other city that has this allocation. Chicago has only one express service on the North Side and Philadelphia has only one line (Broad Street Line) which provides express service when it could've had many more lines within the city that could've provided express service at different parts of the city. DC, Miami and Boston don't have express service and don't need it because of the city's size while NYC spans over 300 sq. mi. so it needs as much fast and frequent service as possible to cover the four boroughs.