In part 1 of this series of posts about the Second Avenue Subway, we looked at new ways that the current project could be built, from building shallower stations to using new types of tunnel boring machines. These approaches were looked at as they have the potential to drastically decrease the subway’s soaring construction costs, thus making the next three phases of the project much more affordable.

However, while these approaches would make the project much easier to build from a cost perspective, there is the question of if this version of the Second Avenue Subway, if costs are managed and brought down to levels seen in Europe and Asia, is the best option. Yes, the completion of the subway from Harlem to the Financial District would finally bring about subway service on a line that’s been anticipated for a century. But at the same time, for all the pomp and circumstance that the line’s completion would bring, there exist several pestering flaws with the project as it is now that, if left unchecked, could create bigger problems in the future.

The Current Plan’s Problems

According to the final environmental impact statement written for the Second Avenue Subway in 2004, the goals of the project are as follows: to build a 2-track subway that primarily aims to relieve crowding on the 4, 5, and 6 trains and, to a lesser extent, provide a link for Metro-North commuters at 125th Street and make more of the East Side easily accessible by subway.

It’s a project, then, that has very clearly set goals to relieve and enhance commutes on the east side of Manhattan, especially the Upper East Side, which, rather controversially, is the only area served by Phase 1. And while the prospect of 4, 5, and 6 trains becoming less sardine-can like is a positive one (before Phase 1 was opened, those 3 trains alone were carrying more people than the Boston T, Chicago L, and BART systems combined), the main problem with this is that, while it would bring significant benefits to East Side commuters, it would benefit very few beyond that.

While provisions are planned to be built for future extensions, and a track connection to the 63rd Street Tunnel is planned, there are currently no plans to utilize these in the near future, as no substantial plans exist to extend the line beyond the East Side and Financial Districts of Manhattan after Phase 4. Furthermore, going back to the project’s specific focus on the Upper East Side, as pointed out by Andrew Lynch in his take on the Second Avenue Subway, the MTA doesn’t even view Phases 3 and 4, the phases that would take the line through Midtown and Lower Manhattan, as a priority. This is because, in Lynch’s words, “[the MTA’s] mentality is that the crowding on the Lexington Avenue Line is worst along the Upper East Side and that south of 63rd Street there are more options for riders and less need for a new trunk line.”

Setting aside the fact that this mentality completely ignores the project goal to provide better transit to Manhattan’s Far East Side and the need to relieve crowding on the 4, 5, and 6 below Grand Central, especially after the (eventual) completion of East Side Access, this means that the scope of the project, at best, is limited, even if the MTA does prioritize Phases 3 and 4. Because the line is planned to only have 2 tracks from Harlem to the Financial District, the number of frequent services the line can support is capped to around 2 or 3. Because the line focuses solely on the needs of East Side residents, the needs of other transit-beleaguered residents, especially in the outer boroughs, are ignored. And, perhaps most glaringly of all, if the line acts as a catalyst for new development along its route, and demand for frequent service along the line increases in tow, there would be no way to easily add more capacity.

With these limitations laid out, the main questions become these: what can be done to increase the amount of people who would benefit from the line’s construction, and what can be done to make the line more future proof?

My Plan For the Second Avenue Subway

Map of Second Avenue Subway Plan (Guide in Map Description)

The plan proposed in this piece aims to address these issues. While, because of the amount of engineering work and federal funding achieved for Phase 2, it would only enhance Phases 3 and 4 of the current project, similar to a plan put forward by the aforementioned Andrew Lynch, it would add express tracks to the line between 63rd Street and Hanover Square, then extend the line west through Harlem, north to Co-op City, east to Jamaica, then south and east to Staten Island and East New York. It would significantly increase the number of frequent routes that the line could support, would extend the benefits of the line to more communities in the outer boroughs, and allow for easy capacity increases if demand for services under Second Avenue grows. As Phases 3 and 4 would be the only parts of the current project modified in this piece, this post will look at those first and new extensions afterward.

Phases 3 and 4

Starting at 72nd Street, Phase 3 would continue south as a two-track subway until 63rd Street, where it would become a 4 track line as connector tracks from the 63rd Street Tunnel join the line in a manner almost identical to Lynch’s plan.

From here to the proposed Seaport Station at Fulton and Water Streets, the line would be a typical one-level, four-track line as seen on most subway trunk lines in Midtown. Station locations would be unchanged from current MTA plans with the exception of entrance locations, which would be changed where needed as per recommendations recently put forward by the Regional Planning Association. In order to make the line more future-proof, every station along this segment would be built with two island platforms, with local stations having the express tracks walled off. This way, if a local station’s demand increases or a new transit line connects with it, the station could easily be converted.

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At Grand Street, the line would still follow the “Deep Chrystie Option,” sending the line through a deep level station connected to the current B and D train station through a central mezzanine. Here, outside of making the Second Avenue station bigger, the only other substantial change would be staircase, escalator, and elevator modifications to better connect the two sets of platforms.

After Grand Street, the line would continue as a one-level line until after Seaport, where it would turn into a two-level line similar to the 4, 5, and 6 trains north of Grand Central. This would continue to Hanover Square, which would be built as a 2-level terminus station with tail tracks and provisions for future extensions (more on that later).

Harlem and Bronx Extensions

North of 116th Street, the line would split in two directions; one going north along 125th Street, and one going along Third and Burke Avenues to Co-op City.

125th Street

Current plans for Phase 2 call for the subway to turn from 2nd Avenue into a terminal under 125th Street, connecting with the 4, 5, and 6 trains at Lexington Avenue and with Metro-North at Park Avenue. After this, tail tracks would extend to midblock between 5th and Lenox Avenues, with provisions for a future extension from there. Because of this, and the fact that, in order to clear the Lexington Avenue Line, the tracks are located deep below ground, it would be very easy to extend the line further west, creating a new crosstown subway that would ease congestion and crowding on 125th Street crosstown buses and allow commuters to transfer between various north-south subway lines outside of Midtown.

To that end, this plan would extend the line from Lexington Avenue to Broadway, providing seamless connections between the A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 trains and Metro-North lines. In order to make transfers as effortless as possible, the line and its stations would be designed with simple transfers connecting crosstown passengers with north-south lines, with two single track tunnel boring machines being used and all stations having island platforms.

Going from station to station, at Lenox Avenue, the crosstown station’s island platform would be directly connected with the current side platforms and fare controls used by the 2 and 3 trains. At St. Nicholas Avenue, the crosstown platform would connect directly with the A, B, C, and D train platforms via a transfer mezzanine and with the existing mezzanine at 125th Street via escalators and elevators. Finally, at Broadway, 1 trains would be connected to the line by elevators that would connect the Second Avenue entrance building to the high existing mezzanine at 125th Street and Broadway.

Third Avenue and Co-op City

Unlike other extensions in this plan that would either construct new lines or repurpose or add-on to existing lines, a primary purpose of this extension, along with bringing subway service to Co-op City, would be to bring subway service back to one of the areas it would serve; the Third Avenue Corridor.

For the better part of a century, the Bronx portion of this corridor had rapid transit service in the form of the IRT Third Avenue Line, better known as the Third Avenue El. One of the original elevated lines in the city, it ran noisily over the heads of workers and residents on Third Avenue from South Ferry to the Bronx from 1878 to the 1950s, when the line was torn down following mounting pressure from real estate groups along the corridor. The el, however, was only torn down in Manhattan. From 1955 to 1973, the Bronx portion of the el remained in operation, running as a shuttle service from 3rd Avenue-149th Street to Gun Hill Road on the 2 and 5 trains. The demise of this section would begin in 1968, when the MTA, as part of their Program for Action campaign, proposed replacing the el with a branch of the 70s-era Second Avenue Subway running alongside Metro-North’s

Harlem Line. Spurred on by this and the wishes of local residents and business owners to see development like what had been seen along Third Avenue in Manhattan, the MTA closed the line in 1973 and demolished in 1977, with the expectation that the Second Avenue Subway would soon replace it.

This, of course, never happened. The fiscal crisis of the 1970s killed most subway lines under construction, including the Second Avenue Subway, and because this portion of the project was never resurrected, nothing replaced the el, leaving residents and businesses along Third Avenue in the Bronx without rapid transit service to this day. And, while attempts have been made since to rectify this, the most recent example being the Bx41 Select Bus, the area nonetheless still lacks the type of transit it had prior to the el’s closure, making trips longer and more cumbersome than they used to be.

A priority of this extension, then, along with bringing subway service to Co-op City, would be to reintroduce subway service to what is now a transit desert. Starting from a planned provision in Phase 2 north of 116th Street, the line would travel under Second Avenue to a new rail tunnel under the Harlem River, then along Lincoln Avenue to the Third Avenue-138th Street station on the 6 train. From here it would run roughly under Third Avenue (making slight deviations where the street turns sharply) to Fordham Plaza and the Fordham Metro-North station.

After Fordham, the line would travel under Webster Avenue, following the BX41 Select Bus to 204th Street. At 204th Street, the line would diverge from the original Third Avenue Line towards the Burke Avenue 2 and 5 train station. Here, the line would be joined by the IND Concourse Line, which would be extended from its current terminal at Norwood-205th Street to run with the line to Co-op City, giving Co-op City residents a one-seat ride to Manhattan’s west side and streamlining train operations north of Bedford Park Boulevard, currently mangled by the inefficient terminal layout of Norwood-205th Street.

After White Plains Road, the line would continue to follow Burke Avenue to Gun Hill Road, where it would run to Bartow Avenue. It would then run under Bartow Avenue to an intermodal terminal at Baychester Avenue that would function as a terminus for feeder buses to the Co-op City Loops and subway trains alike. Additionally, this terminal would also serve the 6 train, which would be extended along the New England Thruway from Pelham Bay Park to provide additional subway service to Co-op City residents.

To build the bulk of this extension, a new construction technique would be used: rather than manually digging out stations and connecting them with tunnel bring machine, this extension would use an extra-wide tunnel boring machine to dig a tunnel big enough to fit both tracks and stations in one structure. This is an approach pioneered in Barcelona, where two lines of the city’s metro were built using this approach, and the primary reason why this would be employed would be for the massive cost savings it would bring. This is because, by using a tunnel boring machine to dig running tunnels and stations in one go, a majority of station construction costs related to blasting or digging would be eliminated. Thus, despite being one of the longest new tunnels in the plan, because the only significant costs would be the tunnel boring machine itself and tunnels connecting station platforms to entrances, this extension would be one of the cheapest portions of the plan.

Queens Extensions

Queens Super-Express Bypass

This piece of the plan, like most planned extensions of the subway, has some history behind it. This was a transit project first proposed under the aforementioned Program for Action that would have, essentially, constructed an extra pair of express tracks for the modern-day E and F trains along the LIRR Main Line. Starting from today’s 21st Street-Queensbridge station, the line would have followed 41st Avenue to a station at Northern Boulevard, meant primarily to connect Super-Express services with trains at Queens Plaza. From there, it would have followed the LIRR right-of-way from Sunnyside Yard to just before Forest Hills, stopping at Woodside along the way and, after where the Port Washington Branch splits from the line, utilizing 2 abandoned trackways formerly used by LIRR Rockaway Beach Branch (more on that later). The line would have then tunneled under Yellowstone Boulevard to a new set of platforms at Forest Hills. From there, it would have joined the existing Queens Boulevard tracks to today’s IND Archer Avenue Line, running through Jamaica before running along the LIRR Atlantic Branch to Springfield Boulevard.

Like most projects proposed under the Program for Action, the Super-Express Bypass never happened. However, unlike most of the Program’s proposals, it was at least partially built. The 63rd Street Tunnel, originally intended to bring Super-Express trains into Manhattan, was eventually completed as a separate project in 1989 that, after initially only running to 21st Street-Queensbridge, was connected with the Queens Boulevard Line in 2001. The Archer Avenue Lines (IND and BMT) were also eventually built as a separate project in 1988.

Most importantly of all, though, provisions were built throughout these two projects to allow the originally envisioned line to eventually be built. Where the 63rd Street Line veers towards the Queens Boulevard Line, bellmouths were built to allow trains to join the LIRR right-of-way sometime in the future. And on the IND Archer Avenue Line, long trackways were built from Jamaica Center that turn and eventually stop at 160th Street and South Road, allowing the line to eventually be connected with the LIRR Atlantic Branch.

Most importantly of all, though, provisions were built throughout these two projects to allow the originally envisioned line to eventually be built. Where the 63rd Street Line veers towards the Queens Boulevard Line, bellmouths were built to allow trains to join the LIRR right-of-way sometime in the future. And on the IND Archer Avenue Line, long trackways were built from Jamaica Center that turn and eventually stop at 160th Street and South Road, allowing the line to eventually be connected with the LIRR Atlantic Branch.

So, using these provisions, this plan proposes a slightly modified version of the Super-Express Bypass that retains most of the 1968 plan, but with a few changes. It would follow the original plan pretty much verbatim to Forest Hills, where, instead of connecting to the Queens Boulevard Line, it tunnel under it and connect with the IND Archer Avenue Line at Jamaica-Van Wyck. After running to Jamaica Center, the line would surface on the LIRR Atlantic Branch, where it would run on the line’s embankment to Springfield Boulevard. In order to allow current LIRR capacity to be kept, this will require capacity on the Babylon Branch to be expanded, either through upgraded signaling or additional tracks.

Rockaway Beach Branch

Plans regarding the Rockaway Beach Branch go back even further. As the name suggests, this was formally a rail line, serving LIRR trains from 1880 to 1950, when a track fire on the line’s bridge over Jamaica Bay cut service to the Rockaways. After this, the railroad decided to suspend service south of Ozone Park, which served as the line’s terminal until 1962, when, due to low usage, the line was abandoned.

As early as 1929, however, the city had envisioned the line being used for subway service. The 1929 plan for the subway’s expansion called for a

branch from the Queens Boulevard Line to connect with it, running on the branch to the Rockaways from there. Variations of this plan were proposed decades afterward to the 1950s, when the city scored a partial victory. With the LIRR abandoning the branch south of Ozone Park, the city bought that portion and opened it as the present-day IND Rockaway Line in 1956, partially fulfilling the city’s fantasy for Rockaway subway service by connecting the branch to the modern-day A train at Liberty Avenue.

What to do with the branch north of Liberty Avenue, however, remains a topic of intense debate, the most recent incarnation of which being about whether to reopen the line to subway or LIRR service or turn the line into a High Line-esque linear park called the Queensway. Being a transit advocate, I, personally, am on the rail side, favoring the introduction of subway service on the branch as it would expand subway service into an underserved area of Queens and supplement existing service in the Rockaways. As such, this plan calls for subway service on the Rockaway Beach Branch, but, unlike other proposals that route trains directly onto the IND Queens Boulevard Line, in order to give residents along the branch a faster commute into Manhattan, this proposal would instead route trains onto the aforementioned Super-Express Bypass.

Starting where Rockaway and Main Line LIRR trains historically diverged at Whitepot Junction, trains would run on the existing right-of-way all the way to Liberty Avenue. Here, the line would connect with the existing Rockaway Line, necessitating a reconstruction of the junction where A trains join the branch. Second Avenue trains would then run on the line to Rockaway Park, replacing Rockaway Park Shuttle trains and providing Rockaway Park residents a one-seat ride to the rest of the city.

Alterations would be made to lines that intersect with the branch to allow easy transfers. At Jamaica Avenue, a connector would be built between the branch and 104th Street on the J and Z trains, and at Woodhaven Boulevard, where a junction previously existed between Rockaway and Atlantic Branch LIRR trains, an abandoned LIRR station on the site called Woodhaven Junction would be reopened for passengers, creating a new transfer point between the LIRR and the subway.

Brooklyn and Staten Island Extensions

After Seaport, local and express trains would travel in a new tunnel under the East River to a reopened and expanded Court Street station (now the New York Transit Museum), where local trains would stop on the existing platform and express trains at a new lower level. From here the line would split in two separate directions: one going east and one going south.

IND Fulton Street Line Extension

Utilizing the now dormant track connection between Court Street and Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets, local trains would connect with the local tracks of the IND Fulton Street Line and run with C trains to Euclid Avenue, supplementing C train service in Brooklyn and increasing overall capacity on the line.

The introduction of Second Avenue Subway service under Fulton Street would also be accompanied by top to bottom station improvements. These would take many forms depending on the station, from new and/or reopened entrances and accessibility upgrades, to complete station reconstructions. The most noteworthy of these would be at Franklin Avenue, where, despite being an important transfer point between Fulton Street trains and Franklin Avenue Shuttle trains, only local service operates, making transfers between A express trains and shuttle trains inconvenient and cumbersome. To fix this, Franklin Avenue would be reconstructed into an express station, allowing A train passengers to seamlessly connect with shuttle trains, and vice-versa, for the first time.

IND Culver Line and Staten Island Extensions

From Court Street, express trains would use a new track connection to connect with the unused express tracks of the IND Culver Line, speeding up trips and avoiding having Second Avenue trains compete with F and G trains for space on an already congested line. Trains would follow the express tracks to just before Church Avenue, where trains would split further to either Coney Island or, a first in the subway system, Staten Island.

Starting with Staten Island, the line would use provisions built into the tunnel to travel down Fort Hamilton Parkway to Bay Ridge Parkway. After this the line would run along the Gowanus Expressway to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Reaching Staten Island, the line would travel along the Staten Island Expressway to Clove Road. From here to the College of Staten Island, the line would follow local streets wherever possible, primarily Clove Road and Victory Boulevard. This is simultaneously to make the line more accessible and development friendly and to help boost ridership, as there is a significant body of scientific research that shows rapid transit stations built in the middle of highways attract less riders than stations built along regular streets. After the College of Staten Island, the line would resume following the Staten Island Expressway to a terminus station at South Avenue, where provisions would be built to allow an extension of the line over the Goethals Bridge to New Jersey at a later date (assuming New York and New Jersey could cooperate on the subject. Crossed fingers on that). Like the Third Avenue and Co-op City extension shown earlier, the tunnel portions of this extension, specifically the Fort Hamilton Parkway and Clove Road/Victory Boulevard segments, would be built with an extra-wide tunnel boring machine.

Trains continuing along the Culver Line would continue to Church Avenue, where service patterns would change from what they are now. While currently F trains run to Coney Island and G trains terminate at Church Avenue, under this plan, Second Avenue trains would run to Coney Island (with rush hour short turns for some trains at Kings Highway), with F and G trains terminating at Church Avenue due to capacity constraints. The benefits of this would be two-fold: it would shorten commute times for commuters south of Church Avenue by having trains run express through Windsor Terrace and Park Slope, and it would, for the first time, give commuters along the Culver Line direct service to Manhattan’s East Side.

Similar to the Fulton Street extension, the introduction of Second Avenue Subway service along the Culver Line would also come with station and line improvements. From Bergen Street to Church Avenue, this would take the form of elevators and ramps for station accessibility and new and/or reopened street entrances. South of Church Avenue, the elevated portion of the Culver Line would be entirely reconstructed as this would provide an opportunity to correct a flaw seen here and in most other elevated lines throughout the subway: the noise factor.

Elevated lines in NYC are notoriously loud, a result of how they are constructed. Because the track-beds of these lines rest entirely on their metal support structures as opposed to a vibration absorbing material, the vibrations generated from passing trains are amplified and enhanced, increasing noise and vibration levels. This can be fixed rather simply: instead of lying entirely on noise-producing steel or iron support structures, a reconstructed elevated line would lie on concrete track beds that are then supported by metal or reinforced concrete support structures. In the case of the Culver Line, this would mean that, instead of residents along McDonald Avenue (and beyond) knowing full well when a train is passing, residents next to a reconstructed elevated would barely notice passing trains (for an existing example of this in action in New York City, stand under the concrete 7 train viaduct along Queens Boulevard or the AirTrain viaduct in Jamaica as a train passes).

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The reconstruction of the elevated Culver Line would also carry with it several other changes. Instead of three tracks, the new line would have two as the express service for Second Avenue trains north of Church Avenue would make the peak-hour express track redundant. Stations along this reconstructed portion would remain at existing locations and, for the most part, retain a side-platform layout, with the space leftover from the removal of the third track being used for additional platform space. New accessible entrances would be built within buildings along McDonald Avenue wherever possible, with all new entrances being completely wheelchair accessible. Finally, to allow aforementioned rush hour short turns, the current three-track configuration at Kings Highway would be kept.

Phasing and Services

The project would be split into two phases. The first phase would build Phases 3 and 4 (built as one super-phase) and the Queens extensions as the Manhattan portions would be crucial to the network’s operations and the Queens extensions, since they would be running, for the most part, along existing tunnels and above ground segments, would be the simplest extensions to build from an engineering standpoint. Phase 2 would see the construction of the Harlem, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island extensions.

Train service along this network would be as follows:

Q trains would run to Co-op City on the Third Avenue extension, joined by the D train at White Plains Road.

T trains would run from Broadway-125 th Street to Euclid Avenue via the Harlem and Fulton Street extensions, making local stops in Manhattan.

Street to Euclid Avenue via the Harlem and Fulton Street extensions, making local stops in Manhattan. A resurrected H train would run from Rockaway Park to South Avenue via the Rockaway Beach Branch, Queens Super-Express Bypass, and Staten Island extension, making express stops in Manhattan.

Finally, a new V train would run from Southeast Queens and Jamaica to Coney Island via the Queens Super-Express Bypass and IND Culver Line, also making express stops in Manhattan.

Several service patterns along adjacent lines would also change. As mentioned before, with Second Avenue trains assuming all operations south of Church Avenue to Coney Island, F trains would be truncated to Church Avenue. Additionally, in Queens, with the completion of the Super-Express Bypass, F trains would run on the line from 21st Street-Queensbridge to Southeast Queens and Jamaica, with E trains being rerouted to Jamaica-179th Street and M trains being converted into express trains also running to 179th Street.

This, then, is what a more ambitious Second Avenue Subway could look like if costs are lowered and its scope expanded from just Manhattan’s East Side. It’s a plan that would use the project to enhance subway service along existing lines and expand service to areas that have either never had rapid transit service or have had it taken away. Most importantly of all, though, it would build a line that would be much more adaptable to future trends and, thus, much easier to modify if those trends warrant it. After all, like all of the city’s subway lines, the Second Avenue Subway is expected to serve New Yorkers not just in this generation, but for generations to come. Therefore, it only makes sense to build a line that can properly and effectively serve the city and its residents on its opening day and decades afterward, and this is a plan that, in my view, would accomplish this.