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| Re: LIRR East Side Access (256677) | |||
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Re: LIRR East Side Access |
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Posted by WillD on Mon May 22 22:43:31 2006, in response to Re: LIRR East Side Access, posted by Olog-hai on Mon May 22 21:35:28 2006. Heh . . . that would grate on the minds of everyone who wants one giant terminal in Manhattan. GCT's as giant as it gets for the whole world—ain't no bigger on the entire planet.Of course. And there's something to be said for distributing riders around NYC rather than letting the rather overburdened subway network do it for you. Why around NYP? Lotsa Manhattan to go around. And why does it have to be all-NJT? If you stick it downtown, then it can meet LIRR's Atlantic Avenue Branch. Once NJT got a terminal in downtown Manhattan that's mostly its own, they don't have to worry about the NYP pressures so much, that's why; and they could even divert NEC trains in there . . . and guess what, even Amtrak would be tempted to put trains to DC in a downtown terminal, since they can attract financial types better with a closer terminal to 'em . . . Yes, that'd be a very good answer to the rhetorical question I asked. If everyone wants to go to GCT why not send all NJT trains to a massive NYP? And yes, a downtown transit terminal would be a very good idea. What big wussies. 34th Street is eight blocks south of GCT, a little longer than a half-mile. Hardly a mountain; not even a molehill. Let those big spenders ride Amtrak then, since that can get 'em right into Penn from all but the Harlem Line . . . or lobby to get the old New York & Harlem's Park Avenue Tunnel converted back into commuter rail . . . Don't gotta tell me, I ran 20 blocks in around 12 minutes this weekend. However, when it's cold or rainy those 8 blocks can feel closer to 16, and there's no real easy connection between the stations via the subway. Instead of boring through Manhattan, which the SAS is proving is extremely expensive the trains can largely be run around the fringes of the city. By modifying Broadway Lion's WTC transit center plan you could get NJT, LIRR and MN all into the same terminal. The Empire Corridor could be extended to Lower Manhattan under the West Side Highway. The Harlem and New Haven lines could run over the Hell Gate and through an Avenue D/Sunnyside tunnel into the Lower Manhattan transit terminal and the LIRR across the East River via a tunnel from Flatbush. The Harlem and New Haven lines would come into Manhattan via tracks NJT would likely already need if they were to keep Sunnyside as a base, and thus it can be done largely without expensive boring under Manhattan (outside the West Side highway stuff, which could easily be omitted). That's funny; neither the NY Central nor the New Haven had to do that, and that was a busier era than nowadays . . . plus there were a lot of LD trains in and out of the station. Howzabout they actually use them loop tracks, too? (But of course, now they're giving up a few yard tracks in GCT to LIRR; what a smart move . . .) Actually according to 'When the Steam Railroads Electrified' by William D. Middleton the largest number of people carried by the NYC Central in one day back then was 240,000 people on Thanksgiving Day 1945 and the average pre-war day seeing 134,000 passengers. Today MN carries 250,000 people every day, such that every day the MTA is carrying what was a record load for the Central. And unlike the LD traffic which the NYC carried which had less of a peak hour push MN is almost entirely a peak hour operation. This is why they're forced to run the Park Ave tunnel in an asymetric fashion and use the terminal as a yard. |
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