One of the key considerations in planning a subway — or bus — line focuses around distances between two stations. Planners want to space stations far enough apart to allow trains to build up considerable speed underground, but they also want to place stations close enough together to provide comprehensive coverage to previously underserved neighborhoods. As the city builds out the Second Ave. Subway, the MTA has a chance to improve subway coverage through station spacing.
Along Second Ave., a few key cross streets are missing their subway stops, but much of the empty space is covered through proper station construction. For instance, 79th St., a major crosstown street, won’t enjoy a subway station, but the exits and entrances at East 86th and 72nd Streets should make up for it. The south end of 86th St. will deposit people between 83rd and 84th Sts. while the north end of 72nd St. will leave them near 73rd St.
The problems arise elsewhere down the line. After 72nd St., the next stop on the theoretical T train would be at 55th St. and 2nd Ave. while the Q will stop at 63rd St. and Lexington. The seventeen blocks between local stations would be a system-wide high. Along the Q, Transit plans to construct a station entrace at 3rd Ave. and 63rd St., but those trying to reach the East River area with its numerous hospitals will have considerable walks.
On the Lower East Side, the same problem arises. After 14th St. and 2nd Ave., the T won’t stop again until Houston St. and 2nd Ave., a span of 14 blocks. Along other lines that stop at Houston St., the 6 next stops at Astor Place and then Union Square while the 1 stops at Christopher St. and then 14th St. The 14-block gap makes the T a semi-express along 2nd Ave.
Here, the real losers are those who live in Alphabet City. Currently, for someone who lives at, say, Ave. C and East 7th St., the nearest subway is the 6 at Astor Place, a walk of around 0.8 miles. The subway stop at 2nd Ave. and 14th St. will be a 0.9-mile walk from Ave. C and East 7th St. It won’t be any more or less convenient to have the Second Ave. Subway. In fact, for an area that once would have enjoyed a cup-handle extension of the Second Ave. Subway, the SAS will have profoundly little impact on a transit-starved area.
What then is the proper distance for station spacing? Jarrett Walker at Human Transit tackled this topic back in November. Playing off of the news that San Francisco’s Muni is looking to improve both bus and subway travel times, Walker proposed an ideal solution for station spacing. The object, he says, is to minimize the overlap area while maximizing the coverage area.
For rapid transit stops, Walker proposes a distance of 1000 m between stops — or approximately 0.6 miles. That would correspond nicely to the 14-block distance between stations in the East Village, but it doesn’t solve the problem of Alphabet City. They are far away from the subway and will still be far away from the subway even when a new subway line opens. That doesn’t quite solve the city’s transit problems.
Ultimately, station spacing is less important for subway stations than for bus stops, and Walker is rightly critical of the American approach to bus stops. In Brooklyn where I live, the local routes stop every two blocks or around 500 feet. Buses are slowed by the need to stop constantly, and most healthy riders would choose to walk instead of ride.
For now though, we can see transit spacing in action along Second Ave. By and large, the distances are appropriate, but Walker ends on an intriguing question: “If you had two parallel transit lines, how might the stop locations on one of them affect the logical locations of stops on the other? And what’s the furthest apart that the lines can be (in terms of multiples of the maximum walking distance) for this consideration to matter?”
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