Plans for a Utica Avenue subway line in Brooklyn have existed since the 1920s, as a spur off of a massive trunk line in Bushwick. Then, in 1968, the MTA’s Program for Action saw the proposed Nostrand and Utica Av extensions merged into a single extension of the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line down Flatbush Ave, to where Kings Plaza is today. However, demand for public transit on the corridor has only surged, even as the planned subways never materialized – the B46 on Utica is the city’s 2nd-busiest bus line, with 52K boardings per weekday. To put this in perspective, if the B46 were a light rail line, it would be tied for the tenth-highest ridership in the United States, and it would have the second highest amount of boardings per mile in the United States at 6.7K boardings per mile. This demonstrates more than enough demand for a subway line, as this single, congested bus route has higher ridership than light rail systems over five times its size.

Under Tomorrow’s Subway, a subway line would be built under Utica Avenue.

Branching off of a converted Atlantic Branch, the first phase of the line would extend down to Kings Highway and Farragut Road. A second, later phase would see the Utica Avenue Line extended south to Flatbush, before heading east and terminating at Kings Plaza. At the flying junction with the Atlantic Branch, there would be a stub tunnel heading northwest, should the line be extended northwards in the future.

Such a line would improve commutes for those on the city’s 2nd-busiest bus line, and be the final piece of a Second Avenue Subway system that would run under the two busiest bus routes in New York City (three, if the Bx41, Bx15, and Bx55 are considered one route within one or two blocks of the Park Av Line). Such a system would undoubtedly have high ridership, and would be cost-effective if managed properly.

There has been a significant gap in north-south Bronx service since the removal of the Third Ave El in the Bronx in 1973. Since then, local and limited buses have helped to fill the gap – 71K bus riders a day ride buses closely paralleling parts, or all of the old El, with the Bx41 on Webster and the Bx15 and 55 on Third Av handling the bulk of the ridership.

Currently, the MTA and NYCDOT are planning a Bx41 SBS to increase capacity in the area, but this is not enough – under Tomorrow’s Subway, the SAS would be extended under the MNRR right-of-way on Park Av.

Both of the parallel bus corridors on Webster Av and Third Av are narrow, and cut-and-cover would be extremely disruptive and require expensive utility relocation. By contrast, the MNRR right-of-way likely does not have utilities located under the railroad tracks. Thus, the MNRR between Melrose and Williamsbridge would be suspended either over the weekends or for an extended period of a few months for construction of the Park Av Line. The existing tracks would be ripped out, and a trench 20 feet deep would be dug in the place of the former trackbed. The trench would then be decked over, and tracks would be relaid to allow for the resumption of MNRR service. During this construction period, MNRR service between Melrose and Williamsbridge would be provided by two shuttle bus services – one nonstop service between the two stations, and one stopping at all stations, both running on Webster Av.

Its location between the two busiest north-south bus corridors in the area would guarantee a large amount of ridership, and potential riders could also be siphoned off of the farther Bx32 and Bx17. This would speed up commutes for the thousands of commuters using the north-south buses in the area every day, and could be the spark for intense development in the area. It would also replace the subway service that was lost over 40 years ago.

The current Second Avenue Subway runs as a two-track subway down Second Avenue, eventually extending from Hanover Square downtown to 125th St and Park in Harlem. Projected to serve over 560,000 riders when fully built out, it will finally fill a gap left by the destruction of the Second and Third Av Els in Manhattan over 55 years ago. Such a line has been in the works since 1929, but various economic and fiscal crises have prevented the plan’s realization until now.

Despite the fact that it is long overdue and needs to be built as quickly as possible, there are two major flaws in the current SAS plan.

1. Transfers suck.

The SAS will skirt many transit hubs – 59th/Lex, 53rd/Lex, Grand Central, Union Square, Fulton St, and South Ferry. The MTA currently only plans transfers at 125th St, 55th (to 53rd), Grand Central, 14th St, Houston St, and Grand St. Riders from the West Side, Astoria, or most parts of Brooklyn will not have direct transfers to the SAS despite the proximity of certain stations to existing ones.

2. Long inter-station gaps.

The SAS is only two tracks – to reduce the impact on travel times, the line’s stop spacing has been lengthened in some parts. However, the stop spacing is too high in some cases – 14 blocks between 86th and 72nd, 17 blocks between 72nd and 55th, 13 blocks between 55th and 42nd, and 14 blocks between 14th St and Houston St. These long inter-station gaps would prevent the establishment of transfers and would bypass areas with huge ridership potential – Midtown East and the Lower East Side.

Under Tomorrow’s Subway, the trunk would be modified to solve these issues.

Stations would be added at 79th St, 60th St, 52nd St, and St. Mark’s Pl. 79th St would provide additional coverage in the Upper East Side, while 60th would provide a transfer to the (N)(R) at 59th/Lex and 52nd would provide a transfer to the (E)(M) at 53rd/Lex. A station at St. Mark’s Pl would also provide service to the underserved Lower East Side, and a transfer could also be added between Wall St on the (2)(3) and Hanover Square.

As part of a phase 3B, the SAS would be extended west under 125th to Broadway, and phase 3C would see the SAS extended north to 3rd Av/149th St on the (2)(5). These two extensions would generate massive amounts of ridership – 32K bus riders use the 125th St buses every day, and the (2) and (5) are crushloaded during peak hours. These modifications would greatly boost already-high ridership estimates on the SAS, and would allow SAS to serve as a true Lexington Av relief line.

The Second Avenue Subway was first proposed as the IND’s East Side trunk line in 1929, when the IND first proposed its gargantuan Second System expansion. A six-track line, it would’ve provided capacity for links to various new lines in the outer boroughs. In anticipation of this line, the Second Avenue and Third Avenue Els were torn down, and a massive Upper East Side building boom ensued. However, it was not to be – the line has been plagued with many false starts, most notably during the city’s fiscal crisis in the 70′s. At the same time, however, the parallel Lexington Avenue Line has become the only trunk line serving the East Side. Coupled with the massive increase in density since the demolition of the Els, this has led to an increasingly untenable situation – the Lexington Avenue line carries more riders than the entire Washington Metro system, and more than the rail systems of San Francisco and Boston combined. Local buses in the area are similarly congested, forcing the MTA to establish a psuedo-BRT route on Second and First Avenues. To relieve this crowding, the MTA opened studies into the Second Avenue Subway in the 1990s, leading to construction of the current project.

The current plan is for a fully accessible, two-track line running from 125th and Park Avenue to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan, to be built in four phases. Phase I is under construction, and will be completed in 2016, stretching from the 63rd St/Lexington Avenue station to 96th St and Second Avenue. Phase II is being studied, and will extend from 96th St to a station at 125th St and Park Avenue. Phase III will see the SAS extended south from 72nd St to Houston St, and Phase IV will see the completion of the segment to Hanover Sq. The total length of the new subway will be 8.5 miles, at a projected cost of over $17B for the whole project. This comes out to a mind-numbing $2B/mi, making the SAS the most expensive transit project in recorded history. Despite its shortcomings, however, the full-length SAS should be built – ridership on the completed line is projected to be 560,000 per day. Even then, in spite of the favorable ridership forecasts,  the full-length SAS would still have three major flaws:

1. It puts off a connection to the Bronx for at least another generation.

The SAS will end at a new station at 125th St between Lexington and Park Av, to provide connections to the (4), (5), (6), and MNRR. While this serves as a useful transfer point for the initial portions of SAS, it is unclear if a provision for extension to the Bronx will be provided. Even if it is, however, the extreme cost of the SAS would probably prevent the city and MTA from funding yet another SAS extension for at least several years, and residents of the Bronx would have to deal with the consequences of tearing down the Third Av El for much longer.

2. Stop spacing is awful, and transfers are inconvenient.

Stop spacing on the Midtown segments of the line are extremely large – in particular, there is a 13-block gap from 42nd to 55th, 22-block gap from 55th to 72nd,  a 14-block gap from 72nd to 86th, and from 14th St to Houston St. These would be some of the longest interstation distances in the system, and to compound the error, they would be in some of the busiest segments of Second Avenue. Transfers are also inconvenient – however, this has more to do with the fact that the East River lines have to bore underground a lot, so they cannot have stations relatively close to the water.

3. The SAS, as currently planned, can only host a limited amount of services.

When most people complain about SAS’s planned scope, they’re either whining about the stop distances in Midtown, or the fact that SAS is only two tracks. Two tracks, however, does not mean that the service frequency on the line itself is poor – if outfitted with CBTC, the SAS will have a theoretical capacity of 40TPH, with a possible maximum of 48TPH. However, there is a lack of destinations to run such high levels of service to – the (Q) can only run a certain amount of TPH due to its shared trackage with the (N) and the (B). In addition, upon the completion of Phase III, a connection from the 63rd St tunnel will not be usable – as it stands right now, Queens Blvd has no additional trunk capacity, and there are no additional plans to build any new trunk capacity in Queens to hold a Second Avenue service. Demand will also be limited by the fact that it will be one of the only services in Downtown that does not continue south into Brooklyn – only two such services exist, and one, the (E), is saved from irrelevance only because to the massive crush of riders from Queens Blvd.

In contrast, the trunk Lexington Avenue Line has three branches into the Bronx, and two trunks into Brooklyn. Until the SAS develops such a wide array of services, it will never live up to its true potential as a Lexington Avenue reliever.

Thus, the project needs some rethinking – both in terms of the current project, and the future scope of such a project.

Under Tomorrow’s Subway, the SAS would become another vital trunk line in the subway system. Three services would operate – a (Q) service from Gun Hill Rd to Brighton Beach via the Broadway Line, a (T) service from 125th St and Broadway to Jamaica Center via a converted Atlantic Branch, and a (V) service from Hillside Avenue to Kings Plaza via a new Utica Av Line. The following components would need to be built for such services to exist:

• A modified trunk line from 3rd Av/149th St in the Bronx to Hanover Sq
• A crosstown branch along 125th St from Broadway, also part of the Elmhurst Line
• A Bronx branch to Gun Hill Rd, under the MNRR right-of-way on Park Avenue
• A Queens Blvd Bypass
• A Hillside Avenue Extension – first to Hillside Ave/Springfield Blvd, and then eventually to North-Shore LIJ
• A connection to a conversion of the Atlantic Avenue Branch to subway service
• A Brooklyn Branch to Kings Plaza, via Utica Av and Flatbush Av

These extensions will provide efficient subway connections from the outer reaches of underserved areas in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn to the Financial District, Midtown, and the Upper East Side.

Even with the completion of the Queens extension projects, there would still be several deficiencies with Queens’s subway network.

1. Poor connections to areas north of Midtown

Even after the completion of the other subway extensions and the Queens Blvd Bypass, the majority of riders heading to areas north of 59th St in Manhattan or the Bronx will be forced to divert into Midtown and utilize the congested transfers in the area. If one doesn’t want to divert into Midtown, there are only three bus routes that go from Queens to areas north of 59th St – the M60 from LGA to 125th St, the Q44 from the Bronx Zoo to Jamaica via Flushing, and the Q50 from Flushing to Co-op City. Two out of these routes have experienced increases in bus ridership over the years, and the M60′s ridership decreased more slowly than other routes during 2011 (-2.1% vs a systemwide -4.5% for 2010-2011.) This demonstrates a clear demand for transit service that heads to areas north of 59th St while avoiding Midtown.

2. Poor transit connections to LGA and Western Queens

Currently, a tangled mess of local buses connect LGA and Western Queens to Harlem, the N, the 7, and Flushing. These local buses are the only transit connection that these areas have to the rest of the city – this results in over 85% of airport-bound travelers traveling by automobile, compared to only 75% of JFK bound travelers. Due to the area’s traffic congestion, this can also result in longer trip times to LGA than to JFK – from Penn to JFK a transit journey can take as little as 35 minutes, while a taxi ride from LGA to Midtown can take upwards of an hour in adverse traffic conditions. Commuters are also forced to take local bus routes that wind through residential streets to get to the subway, and some bus routes in the area run infrequently. Consequently, people bound for these areas face long journey times.

3. Poor “crosstown” connections across Queens

Jamaica and Flushing are the borough’s two big transit hubs, yet travel between them is slow. Buses traveling on corridors between the two hubs (Q20/44, Q25/34, Q65) funnel 70K riders a day into Flushing and Jamaica, yet take at least 40 minutes to make the trip, at a crawling speed of 7.0 mph. In contrast, however, travel by subway out to Jackson Heights and changing trains is faster – trip time using the 7 and QBL expresses is only 30 minutes. SBS is not a feasible solution, either – the most congested areas on these routes (Downtown Flushing and Jamaica) also have little or no room for bus lanes.

In addition, current transit expansion plans have an additional deficiency:

4. Lack of a 125th St crosstown

Currently, buses on the 125th St corridor carry 32K riders a day – if this were carried by a single bus route, it would be the 8th busiest bus route in the city, which is even more impressive considering the corridor’s total length of only 1.6 miles. M60 SBS and traffic signal priority are expected to alleviate some congestion in the corridor, but the area is rife with double-parking and tour bus congestion, which causes bus bunching and slower service – service on the corridor runs at an average speed of 2.7mph during the PM peak hour. SBS and signal priority are planned to help ease congestion, but the street is saturated with traffic and is hazardous for pedestrians as it is.

SBS is being used as a “band-aid” solution, but in the long term, it would only provide temporary relief. Thus, under Tomorrow’s Subway, a new trunk subway line would be created to solve all of these problems.

A two-track line would start from 125th St and Broadway and follow 125th St to Randall’s Island, where it would turn south before turning east onto Ditmars Blvd. 31st St would be a three-tracked station, and the line would continue with three-tracks down Ditmars Blvd and Astoria Blvd, stopping at 82nd St-LaGuardia, before going down Astoria Blvd to Northern Blvd and turning southward onto Main St, ending at a terminal station at the intersection of Kissena Blvd and Main St, with connections to the Main St-Flushing station(s) in use at the time. A transit hub would be built at 82nd St-LaGuardia, with shuttle buses heading towards the Marine Air Terminal, and to the other three terminals. Long-term, the Port Authority could build an AirTrain LaGuardia connection between the station and the terminals, but this was not included in the plan due to the PA’s long-term plans to drastically reconfigure the terminal layout at LGA. A spur line would be built to College Point, where a yard would be built at the former Flushing Airport site, and the spur would have connections to the Corona Line (if built), and the 7. Provisioning would be provided for shuttle stops along the spur, should the demand and money be warranted.

This segment would be the Elmhurst Line, and would initially run four-car or five-car trains, with provision to easily expand to eight-car or ten-car trains. This would give Western Queens residents and LGA travelers much easier Manhattan access, provide a relief valve for the Flushing Line, and would obviate the need for Astoria, Elmhurst, and Flushing residents to go through congested transfer points in Midtown to get to their destinations. In addition, this would provide easy crosstown access for uptown Manhattan, and to a lesser extent, residents of the Bronx – transferring to and between all lines in going to the Bronx would be significantly easier, especially those bound for destinations in Queens north of the Queens Boulevard Line.

The second phase of this trunk line would be known as the Kissena Line, heading down Kissena Blvd and Parsons Blvd before terminating at Parsons/Archer on the E, J, and Z. This would be a two-track segment, with transfers available at Kissena Blvd-Horace Harding on the M, and Parsons Blvd-Hillside Ave on the F. This routing was chosen due to it being the most central of the three corridors connecting the two hubs, and because it is the only route that does not run along a park for a significant portion of its length. In addition, Kissena is only half a mile from both Main St and 164th St at the widest points between the three, so any major destinations on either Main St or on 164th St are only a 10-15 minute walk away. Kissena Blvd and Parsons Blvd also have four large sources of transit demand on its route – the giant cluster of towers around Kissena Blvd in Flushing, Queens College, an express station on the F line (Hillside/Parsons), and a future transfer complex (Parsons/Archer). In addition, a track connection could be built between the line and the Liberty Av Extension, allowing A trains to potentially run from Downtown Brooklyn to Flushing.

Such a line would provide numerous mobility benefits for the region, with faster access between the Bronx, Uptown Manhattan, Astoria, Elmhurst, Flushing, Fresh Meadows, and Jamaica. It would be quite costly to implement – at $500M/mile, it would all cost about $7B. (While this is considered expensive for other countries, this is quite low by US standards – LA is building an extension at $700M/mile through tar sands, and SAS costs a whopping $2B/mile, but is probably an outlier, albeit an overdesigned, unnecessarily expensive outlier.) However, the mobility benefits such a line would provide make it deserved of serious consideration in long-term planning. As Daniel Burnham once said, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized.”