Passenger Trains > Why did NYC stop building subways?

CityLab looks at the growth of the New York City subway system, and asks why not a mile of new track was built for nearly 80 years. They cite the growth of the suburbs (the subway stops short of the city line), infighting over the nickel and later dime fare, and huge amounts of deferred maintenance.

I was a little surprised that the writer overlooked the 7 train extension to Hudson Yards, partly paid for by the developers. He did mention the short segment of the Second Avenue subway which has opened, though.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-new-york-city-stopped-building-subways?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Haven't read this yet, but I hope the role of Uber-villain Robert Moses can not be ignored in this.  (No, he didn't invest in Uber).
 

Its funny that this sort of thing can go on this long.

NYC is so fantastically wealthy and full of so-called smart people and not a single soul wants to ask why after decades there is still no money to make the subways just be decent like London's, let alone palatial like Moscow's.  Midwittery and blindness reign.

The answer is simple...money.   IDK what NYC spends all its money on, but the city is always broke.  The cost of building new subways is astronomical.  It took 40 years to get the Moynihan train hall built, and even it was done on the cheap.

When I worked at a small bookstore in NYC, we were having trouble getting our garbage taken away.  Businesses don't get city dept of sanitation service, they must contract with the "independent" garbage collection company serving their address, and there is only one for each area.   Naively I called a different outfit who instructed me that I had no choice of company, but if a $5 bill  were in the can each time there would be good service.    Multiply this by everything else involved in doing business there.   The corruption "surcharge" is much higher in NYC than most US cities, and as Alon Levy (Pedestrian Observations) has pointed out all US transit projects are massively more expensive than in Western Europe even though those countries are more unionized.   

The Archer Avenue subway in Jamaica was actually a net reduction in service. It is also of very cheap engineering, leaks profusely, shorts out the lights, stains the walls, and infested with rats, often invading the crew rooms.   

The upper level, served by the E train, was merely a diversion of that service from Hillside Avenue subway at 179th Street, and cut back the equivalent of 2 stops to Parsons Blvd. The 4 track Hillside Avenue portion now gets 50% of the service it once had with only the F train. 

The lower level, served by the J train,was a belated replacement of the Jamaica Avenue el east of the 121st Street station. It also terminates at Parsons Blvd, effectively cut back 1 stop from 168th Street to Parsons Blvd. 

The track design is flawed, since it was to be only a temporary terminal. The scissor crossovers between the 2 tracks on each level are located too far west, which inhibits capacity to just 12 trains per hour. The 179th Street/Hillside Ave terminal once handled 30 trains per hour. Excess E trains are sent to Hillside Avenue. It is not an issue on the lower level since it runs at best 12 trains per hour, and only for an hour. Not only was it a net reduction in rapid transit service, it was of generally shoddy design. 

All it did was redistribute people to different subway stations, many coming from eastern Queens by bus. At least the Sutphin Blvd station is adjacent to the LIRR Jamaica station, and JFK Airtrain terminal.  



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/21 05:38 by joemvcnj.

march_hare Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Haven't read this yet, but I hope the role of
> Uber-villain Robert Moses can not be ignored in
> this.  (No, he didn't invest in Uber).

But thanks to him indirectly, the Dodgers moved to L.A. (as well as the other guys to SF)
>  

march_hare Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Haven't read this yet, but I hope the role of
> Uber-villain Robert Moses can not be ignored in
> this.  (No, he didn't invest in Uber).
>  

I don't disagree with you at all.  However, I am amazed at his ability to get (his) things done.  To get the multiple parties and jurisdictions to go along with his ideas is remakable.

I think a critical milestone was the abandonment of the New York, Westchester & Boston in 1937.  In the aftermath there were plans to incorporate the entire line as part of the New York Subway system, but in the end only the portion within the Bronx was acquired. New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia successfully pressured New York State Governor Herbert H. Lehman to veto a bill that would have created a Bronx-Westchester Rail authority to take over the NYW&B.  Had this line been incorporated into the subway system the barrier would have been broken and perhaps the subway system would have expanded into Westchester and Nassau Counties.

NYSWSD70M Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> march_hare Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Haven't read this yet, but I hope the role of
> > Uber-villain Robert Moses can not be ignored in
> > this.  (No, he didn't invest in Uber).
> >  
>
> I don't disagree with you at all.  However, I am
> amazed at his ability to get (his) things done. 
> To get the multiple parties and jurisdictions to
> go along with his ideas is remakable.

Robert Moses wasn't afraid of bare knuckle politics.  But, his multiple roles (head of the Triboro Bridge Authority, head of the State Parks Authority, head of the Long Island Water Authority, etc) gave him enormous power in getting jobs for people whose votes were helpful in the legislature. 

Long before the second World War, he saw the rise of the automobile / suburbs, and the decline of the subway, and railroads. And planned accordingly.

NYSWSD70M Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> march_hare Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Haven't read this yet, but I hope the role of
> > Uber-villain Robert Moses can not be ignored in
> > this.  (No, he didn't invest in Uber).
> >  
>
> I don't disagree with you at all.  However, I am
> amazed at his ability to get (his) things done. 
> To get the multiple parties and jurisdictions to
> go along with his ideas is remarkable.

His "getting things done" consisted of highways at the expense of rapid transit expansion plans (i.e. IND System 2 and 3), and deliberately building stone arch overpasses on the LI Southern State Parkway so that "those people" from Brooklyn would be less able to get to Jones Beach (or anywhere else), on buses. 

Governor Rockefeller created the MTA and had it take over the TBTA as a mechanism to get rid of Robert Moses. 

I don't think NYC ever really stopped. Many pauses, but, for example;:

The Second Avenue Subway  is a New York City Subway line that runs under Second Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. The first phase of this new line, with three new stations on Manhattan's Upper East Side, opened on January 1, 2017. The full Second Avenue Line, if and when it is funded, will be built in three more phases to eventually connect Harlem - 125th Street in Harlem to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan. The proposed full line would be 8.5 miles (13.7 km) and 16 stations long, serve a projected 560,000 daily riders, and cost more than $17 billion.

(Thats about $2 billion per mile!)

The line was originally proposed in 1920 as part of a massive expansion of what would become the Independent Subway System (IND). In anticipation of the Second Avenue Subway being built to replace them, parallel elevated lines along Second Avenue and Third Avenue were demolished in 1942 and 1955, respectively, despite several factors causing plans for the Second Avenue Subway to be cancelled. Construction on the line finally began in 1972 as part of the Program for Action, but was halted in 1975 because of the city's fiscal crisis, leaving only a few short segments of tunnels completed. Work on the line restarted in April 2007 following the development of a financially secure construction plan.

njmidland Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think a critical milestone was the abandonment
> of the New York, Westchester & Boston in 1937. 
> In the aftermath there were plans to incorporate
> the entire line as part of the New York Subway
> system, but in the end only the portion within the
> Bronx was acquired. New York City Mayor Fiorello
> La Guardia successfully pressured New York State
> Governor Herbert H. Lehman to veto a bill that
> would have created a Bronx-Westchester Rail
> authority to take over the NYW&B.  Had this line
> been incorporated into the subway system the
> barrier would have been broken and perhaps the
> subway system would have expanded into Westchester
> and Nassau Counties.

The Dyre Avenue branch, the former NYW&B, got taken over by the TA since money was repeatedly diverted from extending the IND subway to the eastern Bronx to serve 200,000 people, and thrown into things like the Shore Parkway segment of today's Belt Parkway, where few at the time lived. The 205th Street-Concourse terminus was at the time to be temporary, and that's why the line turns 90 degrees and it faces east. B trains short turn one stop short at Bedford Park because 205th Street is poorly set up to be a terminal, used only by D trains. The Dyre Avenue branch originally ran as a shuttle, with old 2nd Avenue el wooden cars with IND crews, and the signals follow the numbering standards of the IND. La Guardia genuflected to whatever Robert Moses wanted. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/21 07:51 by joemvcnj.

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NYSWSD70M Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > march_hare Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Haven't read this yet, but I hope the role of
> > > Uber-villain Robert Moses can not be ignored
> in
> > > this.  (No, he didn't invest in Uber).
> > >  
> >
> > I don't disagree with you at all.  However, I
> am
> > amazed at his ability to get (his) things
> done. 
> > To get the multiple parties and jurisdictions
> to
> > go along with his ideas is remarkable.
>
> His "getting things done" consisted of highways at
> the expense of rapid transit expansion plans (i.e.
> IND System 2 and 3), and deliberately building
> stone arch overpasses on the LI Southern State
> Parkway so that "those people" from Brooklyn would
> be less able to get to Jones Beach (or anywhere
> else), on buses. 
>
> Governor Rockefeller created the MTA and had it
> take over the TBTA as a mechanism to get rid of
> Robert Moses. 

He also was involved in the power project in Niagara Falls and other non-highway projects.  Again, I am no fan of the guy.

Robert Moses was also chairman of the NY State Power Authority.  In his spare time...

The evidence is clear that Mr Moses had little use for Black people, or poor people.  And that his actions blocked their access to city and state recreational facilities or transportation.

Moses got things done because his views matched those of the powers that were, at the time, and they wanted them done.
He also wrecked downtown Pittsburgh, don't forget.

New York City subways, by definition, aren't suburban trains.  And, the structure of New York and New Jersey keeps it that way. That's why the Boston Green Line taking over a New York Central commuter line was so unique for so long,

The article poses the question "what if the private subway companies could have riased their fares?  Would they have expanded into eastern Queens and Nassau, and into Wetchester? And perhaps up the Putnam Branch?"

YOU HIT THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE END.....Mass transit = Black and Poor

Subway construction has continued after the system was brought under state ownership. 

The last piece of the subway system that I remember being built by the city owned NYCTA was the connection of the former BMT to the IND in lower Manhattan. This was accomplished by tunnels and track connecting lines off the Willamsburg and Manhattan bridges to the IND west of Second Ave. Lastly a short section of IND to a station at 57 St on 6th Avenue. After that MTA took over and obtained the $ and  managed the design and construction. With one possible exception: The extension of the #7 line west from Time Square may have been paid for with City and private funding. 

Since the 1968 takeover much has been added. As mentioned the Archer Avenue subway in Queens which replaced a nearby elevated section on Jamaica Avenue and connected the Queens Blvd subway to this area. The tunnel continues east and southeast to where in the future it could parallel LIRR to enhance service to that area of Queens. 

Not to forget all the construction to build a tunnel under 63 Street and the East River to connect east  to the Queens Blvd lines and west to 6th and 7th Avenues.. Plus this construction included the portions of the Second Avenue subway that connects to both Sixth Avenue and 7th Avenue. And the portion of 63 Street tunnel under the East River has a lower level that was planned and will be used by LIRR to get to GCT. 

Good news is that tunnel structure for the Second Avenue Subway extends north of 96 Street to around 105th Street. And there is another trackless tunnel segment from 110th Street to 120th Street built in the 1970's. Plus a short piece in Chinatown around the Manhattan Bridge. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/21 17:48 by nm2320.

Find a copy of Tunneling to the Future by Peter Derrick.  A bit dry but interesting analysis of the first 25-30 years of subway construction in NYC. Good analysis of how the astronomical costs (for the time) were met, the political jockeying for route selection, and the land acquisition and construction.