When plans for the current iteration of the Second Ave. Subway were first unveiled, the MTA opted against making the SAS a four-track line with express service. Only at 72nd St. would there be a third track, and that track, subsequently shelved due to rising costs, was included to orchestrate the Q’s merge from the Broadway line onto the T’s Second Ave. line and to provide for a mid-route turnaround.
Transit watchers were not pleased with the lack of express service. Considering the length of the route and its projected ridership — around 200,000 per day for just Phase I and 500,000 per day for the entire line — Second Ave. was ripe for an express line. Instead, the MTA altered the spacing of the stations and lengthened mezzanine station access to better serve neighborhoods. The 72nd St. station, for example, will have an entrance between 74th and 75th Sts. while the 86th St. station will have a southern egress between 83rd and 84th Sts. Thus, a station stop at 79th St. was deemed to be unnecessarily redundant.
Today, at the excellent Greater Greater Washington, Matt Johnson tackles the lack of express tracks in the DC Metro, and his discussion on foresight and the reasons behind including and not building a four-track system is certainly relevant to the SAS. Noting that the threshold for express service is around 300,000 riders per day, he tackles the politics and economics behind express service in the context of the WMATA’s planned Dulles extension:
Think about the position in which these planners found themselves. Considering the three-state makeup of the region, it is amazing we even have Metro. The funding problem is perhaps one of the most complex in the nation and a four-track subway would have roughly doubled the cost of the system.
Given that, had planners pressed for a four-track system, Metro would either be half the size it is today, would have taken twice as long to build, or would have been killed outright. The debate we’re having with the Tysons/Dulles Silver Line right now is case-in-point. Already the project has been sliced and diced in terms of frill, and it’s still uncertain whether it will ever reach the airport. The first phase dangled right on the cusp of being too expensive for FTA’s criteria, and several times the project looked all but dead. If things like redundant elevators and the familiar hexagonal tiles might be enough to kill the project, can you imagine the reaction of FTA if Virginia demanded four tracks?
No. We cannot fault Metro’s designers on the four-track front. Politics is the art of the possible, and thanks to their hard efforts, unlike many cities that were considering heavy rail in the 1970s, we actually built our system. And we finished it. Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Miami never achieved their full transit vision. Even here the belt-tightening Reagan years contributed to an extended construction period. Metro was supposed to be finished by 1983, but it wasn’t actually complete for another 18 years. Not until the Green Line to Branch Avenue opened in 2001 did the dashed lines on the Metro map turn solid.
New York’s MTA isn’t in quite the same position as the WMATA. It is beholden only to the state (and city) for funding as opposed to two states and the federal government. Yet, the same problems and lessons apply. It would be too costly today to fund express tracks along Second Ave. We talk about how the SAS is, per mile, the most expensive subway ever built. The cost would be prohibitive with just an added track for one-way rush hour express service let alone a four track tunnel.
The real problem though will come in the future. What will we do when trains break down and hold up the line? What will we do when express service is needed because the local trains are at capacity? The untenable solution would be to construct a time machine and convince New York to build this subway system in the 1930s or 1940s or 1950s when the four-track option was on the table. For now, we’ll just have to live with a two-track line if and when it opens.
40 comments
What will we do when trains break down and hold up the line?
Redundancy for broken-down trains was never the primary rationale for express service on any line. It’s a marginally desirable side benefit, but can’t even come close to carrying the day on its own.
What will we do when express service is needed because the local trains are at capacity?
With completion of the full line many decades away, that’s beyond the planning horizon. Even if they included express service, the stops would probably be in the wrong places, because no one can guess what will be needed in 2050.
The cut and cover method used to construct the system before 1940 allowed for easy express track construction.
Express tracks in real tunnels basically do not exist anywhere else in the world, except on one line in Philly.
In that case, maybe on the balance the abandonment of the cut-and-cover method was not such a good idea.
Let’s not forget the ALL of the existing north-south subway lines in midtown Manhattan are four-track lines. It looks like back then they “knew something that we don’t”. Yes, of course everything then cost a lot less dollars, but every dollar was worth a lot more than it’s worth today.
New York’s MTA isn’t in quite the same position as the WMATA. It is beholden only to the state (and city) for funding as opposed to two states and the federal government.
Doesn’t the federal government pay for a big portion of the capital program?
People need to realize how spoiled NYC is with express tracks; it’s more like it’s a blessing that we DO have them rather than a curse if we were to build a line without them (only Philly’s Broad Street Subway and CTA’s Red Line offer any kind of express service….in the WORLD… once you get outside NYC). Frankly, the only reason to build new express tracks (and it would be a good reason) is if there were more than two services operating over a ROW. If you can keep tracks in a good state of repair and install modern signaling systems, the benefits of express service aren’t needed as much. A passing track here and there would suffice for those instances where there’s a train breakdown.
I’ve seen many cases where the LOCAL is actually faster than the express due to track work, headway issues, and people squeezing onto express trains at express stations (severely increasing dwell time) that I have noticed less and less on local lines. Plus it’s not always worth it to wait for an express. I took a 1 train from 103rd to Christopher Street; I did not see a single express train going southbound along the way.
They way I read Matt’s opinion: a four-track WMATA could have been, would have been, should have been, if only there was enough money, but a two-track system is adequate.
Luckily for us William Barclay Parsons (who studied the subways of the world) expected more from himself and his city. He knew that the best qualities of a four-track system wasn’t speed, but added capacity, operational flexibility, and 24-hour service.
Unfortunately for us the MTA has chosen to settle without—as far as I can remember—even trying to pitch the idea of a modern four-track trunk line. (All I remember from those early studies a decade or so ago was: a) Light Rail, b) 2-track Elevated, c) 2-track Subway.)
The SAS was proposed as a 4-track subway in the 1920s, but since at least the 1960s every version of the design has been 2 tracks.
You’re putting the blame in the wrong place. Under a long line of attempts, stretching back many decades, nobody has been able to get even the 2-track version fully funded. How, then, can you blame the MTA for not pitching something nearly twice as expensive?
The 1968/72 plan intended the SAS to ultimately be a 4-track trunk line. In the NYCTA’s own words: “It would be a four-track system, but initially would be equipped as a two-track facility with east expansion to four later on, during Phase II of the program.”
“How, then, can you blame the MTA for not pitching something nearly twice as expensive?”
If they had pitched it, then they’d have seriously studied it, and then we’d know the real cost of extra tracks or even building the capacity for extra tracks. Does there exist a DEIS, EIS, or whatnot that I don’t know about that actually looked into the cost of extra tracks?
Regarding train breakdowns, Phase 1 has crossovers both north and south of 72nd Street, and also south of 96th Street. There also is a current crossover west of Lexington Ave-63rd Street between the F and Q on each level. So the worst that can happen is that a train breaks down near 86th, and other trains are routed in both directions (coordinated, of course) on the remaining track. A single center-platform makes this easy in terms of passenger-flow.
Track switch-points require trains to go slower, and make for a bumpier ride. How many of them do you want?
To have four tracks (express/local) would make the station either wider (more street disruption during construction, possible infringement on private property lines) or deeper (see the 59th St. Lex Line station), and undeniably more expensive. Hopefully, CBTC and other technologies will eliminate the need for express tracks once this thing is built.
I find it terribly sad that the visionary spirit that animated the original subway planning of the 20th Century–and shaped the geographic, economic, and social development of New York City–has been pretty much completely lost.
I’m glad someone pointed out the cross-over issue. One of the big problems that DC has is not enough crossovers and not enough effort put into adding them.
That being said, one of the biggest costs to building WMATA (aside: DC and the Federal government are not a single source of funding, they are actually separate. DC has and spends its own revenue, including funding to WMATA) is the cost of the stations. They are beautiful, but they are VERY expensive to build. A traditional station box would have saved the system a fortune.
From what I understand about tripling and quadrupling the tracks is that the funding percentage wise isn’t really that much more. I think for instance in the case for SAS it’s like 10%. Seems like a silly thing to save money over especially as the cost to add that later would be astronomical. Redundancy is the right thing to do. WMATA and BART were both built with pie in the sky ideas about what computers would do to prevent the problems that express tracks would help with — trains were predicted to run ever 2-3 minutes. Breakdowns would be pre-diagnosed. It was just some future fantastic vision of what systems do.
Redundancy is a core understood need in engineering and should happen with transit engineering too. Both below ground — with extra tracks — and above ground with surface transportation that reflects similar pathways and could carry at least part of the load. Or all of it in the case of catastrophic breakdown.
Transit engineering has progressed since 1900. Accident avoidance has improved, so that new transit systems are all two-track without any problems. Better signaling means better schedule adherence; in Tokyo they use scheduling to their advantage, building lines with both local and express service with only a short four-track section in the middle for overtakes. Signaling improvements and modern trains also mean more capacity, allowing some two-track subways, such as Shanghai Metro Line 1 and RER Line A, to have higher ridership than New York’s 4, 5, and 6 combined.
Not everything Ye Olde IRT did was good. Even in 1900, spacing stations every 500 meters was a terrible idea, which was unique to New York and Paris; London spaced stations every 1.2 km. Newer metro systems have followed the London station spacing, allowing higher average speeds without express trains.
Do note that the IRT and BMT built a whole lot of express tracks which are currently *unused*, in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Manhattan seems to have the immense demand to use pretty much all its express tracks, and Queens has so few lines that it needs its express tracks. But a bunch of the other express tracks sit mouldering due to lack of demand.
If the Second Avenue Subway ever hits the Bronx, or goes south of 63rd Street, it may find itself needing express tracks, but it will probably do OK without them in its current limited state and even if it makes it to 125th Street.
Even if SAS follows the old Third Avenue Line, it won’t really need express tracks. It won’t ever be as slow as the 6, which has not only shorter interstations, but also sharper curves.
The only reason that they are unused is that the mta most likely couldn’t afford to run service on them or they choose not to. The Second Ave Subway should in my opinion have at least a third track because breakups happen and maintenance will need to be done. If you need an example of how second ave train service will be just look at the archer ave subway which is served by the E J and Z TRAINS (upper level) .Its the closet thing to a modern subway station we have in nyc.The service is decent, but if the mta could build a second level for to two express tracks New Yorkers could get what they have been waiting.
it’s ridiculous that the SAS doesn’t have express tracks. And you’re right that the only reason they won’t run the third track is due to cost. There has been a lack of investment into the subway, as with infrastructure all over the country.
They definitely can build a lower level to run express tracks. the Eighth Avenue along Central Park West is the best example.
But if you go to see the layout of the platforms, they could still create outer local tracks.
They could have also done better with the 7. We need something up the west side of Midtown. Like up 10th to 72nd and Broadway.
Is it feasible to build express service below the currently planned two track system if the need should arise, or would the costs be even more astronomical?
From what i read, much of the costs is utility relocation, but a deep express level probably wouldn’t run into that issue, right?
Correct. A tunnel branching very deep and running entirely through bedrock all the way from lower Manhattan to the Bronx would have few problems. It would still be expensive, but it wouldn’t be that *difficult*. (You do have to add ventilation shafts so it wouldn’t be perfectly simple.)
The excessive distance betwwen stations will be a real problem once the Second Ave. Subway finally opens.
It will be like an express line in which they forgot to build the local stations.
A “local” line without any express stations is still better than the other way around.
Consider these distances:
Houston St. – 14 St.
42 St. – 55 St.
55 St. – 72 St.
72 St. – 86 St.
Notice the “missing” stations in the middle,
such as, appoximately,
8 St.
50 St.
59 St.(instead of 55 St.)
79 St.
They say that the trains will be able to go faster with less stops, but if you have to walk a lot more, that will more than cancel out
the “saved” time. And let’s not forget the elderly or handicapped passengers, for whom extra walking is much more difficult than it is for the young and strong.
I actually don’t have a problem with the longer distances. That means faster rides. I have to wonder if we really need subway stops every 8 blocks anyway. I understand the concerns about the elderly and handicapped, but it’s a burden for them if the nearest stop is 4 blocks away or 8 blocks away.
one thing to keep in mind too is that the trains are almost two blocks long now. so the stop may be called 72st but the trains will reach from 71st to 73rd so maybe instead of an intermediate stop there should just be entry points at the beginning, middle and end of the train for all stations. then you close that 8 block gap to 6.
It looks like Phase I omitted only one station, at 79th St. That’s regrettable, because 79th St is a crosstown bus route, and it could serve the large hospital corridor to the east. Extending the 72nd St stop with entrances at 74th is going the wrong way in my view. Better down to 70th, closer to the Hunter College campus.
But OTOH, I’ve seen the claim that adding a single station at 11th Ave on the #7 line extension was gonna cost nearly half a billion. I’d prefer to put that money into starting asap on Phase II, which I guess will have only two stations (unless the big real estate developers have accumulated a lot of property around 110th).
Very good points about the “skipping” of 79 St.!
The large hospital corridor is centered way south of 79th. The Cornell medical center ranges from 68th to 72nd.
The M79 is an important crosstown route, but the MTA could move the crosstown route to 72nd by improving traffic flows in Central Park. Right now 72nd Street is not continuous in both directions through Central Park, and that forces the M72 to detour, crossing the park through 66th; unsurprisingly, the M72 has among the lowest ridership of the crosstown Manhattan buses.
However, 72nd does cross the park – it’s just configured as one-way for part of the way. If it were reconfigured as a two-way through-street, the M72 would be more convenient, serving the same function the M79 serves today.
I’m a West Sider, so I guess I misplaced those East Side hospitals, sorry.
But I’m here to tell you that no bus route will go through Central Park at 72nd St. Ever. I’m one who helped gather thousands of names on petitions to get cars out of Central Park. We’ve been salami-slicing down the hours and entrances open to cars, and I expect we’ll see them off the surface roads altogether within a few years.
Other crosstown buses go through the sunken transverses at 65th, 79th, 86th, and 96th Sts, which apparently date to Olmstead’s original design of the Park. They do not intrude on its beauty or serenity.
But Olmstead and Vaux made an overlook to Bethesda Fountain and the Lake at 72nd St, crossing the grand allee of American elms that leads to this heart of the Park. No buses should pass this way.
I understand the need for better east-west crossings, but the people of New York are not going to trade a slice of Central Park for a faster bus.
Think about a streetcar with an underground segment through Central Park, back above ground on the streets of the Upper East Side and the West Side. But there could be huge technical difficulties for such a route, because the line that carries the A, B, C, and D trains below Central Park West is stacked, with uptown tracks only one level below ground and downtown trains a full level below that. A crosstown tram would have to dive very deep indeed. Well, the preservationists might, just might, allow a streetcar in a tunnel that started just inside the gate at Central Park West. But that would be tricky too, with the semi-sacred ground of Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon Memorial right there.
There would be other technical difficulties, coming from the fact that New York’s contractors are unable to build anything underground for under $2 billion a mile.
If you think it’s bad to have cars on 72nd, then don’t. Restrict the transverse route to buses – at their most frequent they come once every 3-4 minutes, which means longer headways than the horse carriages I have to avoid every time I cross the park.
Alon, I’ve been thinking it over. I actually could tolerate buses crossing at 72nd as part of a wave of bus improvements and car disimprovements. Like, close Central Park and Prospect Park to cars 24/2/365. Put dedicated express bus lanes on the West Side Hwy/Henry Hudson parkway whatever you call it, to speed buses out of the city toward Westchester and points north. Install more real bike lanes to reduce traffic lanes.
How about a bonus: Enforce noise ordinance and ‘no honking’ regulations to turn Manhattan into a “quiet park”.
Instead of emulating the practices of 1900, New York emulate the practices of 2000. Subway stations should be fully accessible. Buses and trams should have low floors, and should work to feed the subway stations; their main streets should be two-way avenues, like Broadway, rather than one-way pairs, like First and Second, which force the elderly to walk a crosstown block.
This is how it’s done in cities where transit planners know what they’re doing. Tokyo, Osaka, London, and pretty much every other city nowadays, get away with average interstations of 15 Manhattan blocks because they implement some or all of the above planks. Cities with newer subways have even longer interstations – e.g. Shanghai at 19, Singapore at 21.
Alon — I misplaced those East Side Hospitals, but what have you been smoking? Broadway hasn’t been two way since I got off the train here back in 1966, or years before that so far as I know. Central Park West, West End Avenue, Park Avenue, and main crosstown streets … but not Broadway.
But restoring two-way traffic to the other avenues is a notion I can support. I’m sure that one-way streets were installed to speed traffic, as if that were a good thing. And as 65-year-old arthritic example of the elderly, I completely agree that the one-way avenue pairs make a hardship for us — and for other pedestrians.
Broadway is two-way north of 59th…
You’re right again. Nowadays the only part of Broadway that I really think about is where they have narrowed it or closed it — from 59th St down, down, down, with more narrowing and closings toward the Bowery to be hoped for.
And let’s not forget the elderly or handicapped passengers, for whom extra walking is much more difficult than it is for the young and strong.
At least there will be no stairs to climb.
Honestly the 16 stations for the SAS to me are fine but I wanted express train service to slash the number of stations in half for example:
125-86 st,
86-72st
72-42st
42st-14th st
14th- well after 14 street the distances are pretty long so i doubt a 4 track service will be needed here except for capacity
Whenever I’ve been trapped in one of the slow-moving 2 track systems (Boston’s Green line, for example) the stupidity of it is manifest.
It is the height of idiocy not to make room for 4 tracks in the future. If need be, lay only 2 tracks, or even dig just half a tunnel but move the utilities, do the surveying and set foundations for the express half.
Currently, the rider’s time is valued at zero. I’ve driven from Norwalk to Manhattan in an hour. Door to door, it has often taken that same hour to get from Fulton st to Harlem via subway.
It’s no surprise that people return the favor by opting for cars instead of subway, even in NYC’s nightmare driving conditions.
Have you ever taken a 2-track subway outside the US? I have; I used to take the two-track MRT in Singapore. The MRT averages a stop every 1.7 km and uses modern trains; as a result, it has an average speed of 49 km/h, which New York struggles to match even on long nonstop sections like the A from 125th to 59th.
Thats because the MTA’s signel system is extremely outdated
[…] that note, Second Ave Sagas throws in their two cents. While New York is constantly cited as a system that’s done it ‘right,’ the […]
“unnecessarily redundant”
why, that’s repetitious! 😀
[/pedant, schoolteacher]
That was the point!
I think due to the area placement of the stations the SAS subway’s mezzanine will kind of be like the IND (letter trains) subways. Most IND mezzanines travel the length of the whole station, this lead to many robberies in the 70’s and 80’s and when most of these stations are being renovated the mezzanine is often shorten with stairways been either blocked or cut.I see that in the renders that SAS mezzanines looks like a modern version of the IND’s minis the hundreds of colored pillars holding the street street above. I hope that even though the station placement will try to solve the problem of express tracks that the mta will at least try to solve this problems of mezzanine of huge size that doesn’t properly fit capacity or usage because the IND subway designers didn’t.