The Future of the 2nd Ave Subway: A Bronx Tail Track (2024)

Do we really need to extend the 2nd Ave Subway into the Bronx?

Phase 2 of the 2^nd Ave Subway has been in the news recently as President Biden proposed a $2 trillion infrastructure bill. Senate Majority Leader Schumer has pushed for funding Phase 2 of 2^nd Ave so it’s very possible that, if funding arrives by the end of the year, construction can start soon (at least preliminary work since Covid is still slowing down the MTA.)

The original phasing concept for the 2^nd Ave Subway was that as one phase wound down resources would be moved to working on the next phase and construction would start seamlessly as the previous phase opened. Governor Cuomo threw a wrench into those plans when he raided MTA funds, resulting in the MTA to push off major work on Phase 2 into the next Capital Plan.

Phase 2 will extend the existing subway from 96^th St and 2^nd Ave to 125^th St and Lexington Ave. The subway will start to curve west at 120^th St and will feature provisions for a future branch to the Bronx. The 125^th St terminal may end up being the most expensive subway station ever built. The Lexington Ave Line is double stacked at this point meaning that the new station needs to be extra deep. In order to make construction “easier” the MTA plans on carving the station out of bedrock rather than digging up the street cut-and-cover style. Like with the cavern stations on Phase 1 and East Side Access, these deeper stations require more emergency support services to be built which drives the costs sky high.

While no official price tag has been released, a ball park figure which has been bouncing around is $6 billion. The first phase of 2^nd Ave is already the most expensive mile of subway ever built and it looks like the MTA is trying to outdo themselves. To give them some credit, the high price tag has forced engineers to look at cost cutting solutions such as smaller ancillary structures, an alignment requiring fewer surface level buildings to be seized, and reusing the existing tunnels under 2^nd Ave which were built in the 1970s.

As of this writing no up-to-date engineering documents have been released to suggest further cost reductions so critiquing the design will have to wait for another day. But something that always comes up on subway/rail fan message boards and social media is the idea that Phase 2 should not run down 125^th St but instead run up to the Bronx like all previous plans have suggested. Some have even claimed that it would be cheaper to do this. So, I’d like to take a close look at these ideas.

Bronx Lines

The Lexington Ave trunk line has three branches in the Bronx: the 4 along Jerome Ave, the 5 along White Plains Rd and Dyre Ave, and the 6 to Pelham Bay. These branches cover a very large swath of the entire borough and as such pick up a substantial number of riders, funneling them all down Lexington Ave. While these branches cover a good portion of the borough they feature a number of problems which limits their effectiveness. The 2^nd Ave Subway, from its introduction in 1929, was intended to pick up enough of this ridership as to relieve the crowding on the Lexington Ave Line.

The Lexington Ave express trains split at 149^th St with 4 trains continuing north to Woodlawn and 5 trains switching over to the White Plains Rd Line, reverse branching with the 2. This merge was built in a very strange fashion and requires 5 trains to make a very sharp, long curve at slow speeds. This merge causes all trains to back up, resulting in delays. Further up the line at 180^th St, 5 trains branch off to Dyre Ave. The merge at 180^th St also causes problems, poorly designed as the Dyre Ave Line was originally a commuter rail line which was grafted on to the subway in the 1950s. Additionally, some 5 trains originate at Nereid Ave at the end of the White Plains Rd Line. This splits service even more so that Dyre Ave trains have much longer wait times between trains.

The Lexington Ave local, the 6 train, runs exclusively on the Pelham Line, branching off the Lex at 125^th St and running down 138^th St to Southern Blvd, then north to Westchester Ave where it runs east to Pelham Bay Park. The 6 features peak direction express service from Parkchester to 3^rd Ave. This dramatically cuts running time along route but poor switch layouts delay trains switching between the express and local tracks.

Thus, each branch of the Lexington Ave Line has physical constraints which limit overall capacity. This might not be the end of the world for most subway lines but being the only subway trunk line along the east side of Manhattan means that every extra train counts. So then, it seems like extending the 2^nd Ave Subway into the Bronx is a no brainer. Except the Bronx doesn’t need it.

Does the Bronx need a new subway?

I think the biggest reason so many railfans want to see the 2^nd Ave Subway running up to the Bronx is to right an old wrong. The 3^rd Ave El, which at its height run from Wakefield to South Ferry, helped fill in the transit gaps through central Bronx. It ran almost equidistant from the IND Concourse Line and the IRT White Plains Rd Line. The section from South Ferry to 149^th St was torn down in 1955 as an overly eager city prepared for building the 2^nd Ave Subway. The development came but the subway didn’t. The northern section limped along until it was town down in 1973.

The 1968 Program for Action proposed replacing the 3^rd Ave El not with the 2^nd Ave Subway but with a branch off of the Lexington Ave Line starting at 138^th St. The 5 train would be rerouted along the Metro North Harlem Line tracks and run up to Wakefield. Like with most of the rest of the Program for Action, nothing ever got off the drawing boards.

Is it worth bringing the 3^rd Ave El back?

Let’s look at the numbers.

Of the almost 580,000 workers in the Bronx:

• 38.5% work in Manhattan
• 23.4% work within the Bronx
• 9.5% work in Queens
• 9.4% work in Brooklyn
• 7% work in Westchester
• 4.4% work on Long Island (Nassau + Suffolk)

The rest work scattered around the tri-state region.

That means there are about 333,000 commuters from the Bronx to the other boroughs. Not all are using the subways but assuming they could, would our current network be able to handle them?

At pre-Covid frequencies there are a maximum 93tph entering Manhattan from the Bronx at the AM rush hour. Calculating the capacity based on A Division trains (R188: 1,832 rider capacity) and B Division trains (R179: 2,400 rider capacity), these 93 trains can handle 181,168 riders per hour. Not every worker who is commuting to Manhattan is coming in at rush hour but even if they wanted to, every commuter could fit on each subway car between the hours of 8-10am.

Therefor the current subways between the Bronx and Manhattan are not overcrowded and don’t justify a new line.

What does the Bronx need?

Just because the Bronx doesn’t need more subway lines doesn’t mean that the trains we run today are serving the borough in the best way possible. We have a legacy system which has not seen a new mile of track since before World War II. The Bronx was laid out as an urban suburb of Manhattan and while this is still the case, it isn’t the entire picture. Almost a quarter of workers commute within the Bronx itself.

Looking at Census data we see the core areas of employment are:

• Hunts Point: Hunts Point is one of the last thriving industrial centers in New York City and accounts for 8,000 jobs from Bronx commuters. The area is served by the 6 train but this is up a mile away from many of the major job centers.
• Norwood: The Montefiore medical center on West Gun Hill Rd and surrounding businesses accounts for 7,000 jobs. This center is served well by the 4 train at Mosholu Pkwy and the D at Norwood-205 St but commuters from the eastern Bronx either drive or rely on buses.
• The Hub: Considered the downtown of the Bronx, the Hub exists at the crossroads of 3^rd Ave and 149^th St and accounts for 5,000 jobs. The Lincoln Medical Center is the largest employer in the area. The area is served by the 2 and 5 train and the 149^th St station is the station with the second highest ridership in all of the Bronx (after Yankee Stadium) [2019 numbers]
• Co-Op City: While Co-Op City is thought of more for its iconic Tower-In-A-Park, the entire complex was designed as a mini-city and account for almost 3,400 jobs. Many are in the southern section where there are a number or retail stores and malls. There are a number of medical centers throughout and in the northern section there are light manufacturing and an MTA bus facility. While there were plans from the start to extend the 6 to Co-Op City, this was never done. Today there are plans to build a Metro North stop along the Northeast Corridor as part of the Penn Station Access project, but this station would be on the extreme southern tip of Co-Op City and be located on the other side of the Hutchinson River Pkwy, beyond easy walking distance.
• Directly south of Co-Op City, the Hutchinson River Parkway runs along the Westchester Creek. This corridor accounts for over 10,000 Bronx jobs. The corridor is mostly manufacturing but also home to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mercy College, Yeshiva University, countless big box retail stores, and home to many of the city’s school buses. The closest subway station is the 6 at Westchester Sq but as part of the Penn Station Access project a station is bring proposed at Williamsbridge or Eastchester Roads.

It’s hard to judge this data based on just the subway. While areas like the Hub and Norwood are served relatively well, it’s hard to argue that Hunts Point is exactly well served by the subway, and much of the Coop City-Westchester Creek corridor has no subway access whatsoever.

The missing piece of transit here are the bus lines. The Bronx has relatively good bus coverage around the borough. Looking at the top 9 bus routes we begin to see a trend:

1. Bx12 SBS: 13m annual riders
2. Bx1/Bx2 8.6m
3. Bx9: 7m
4. Bx19: 6.9m
5. Bx36: 6.9m
6. Bx6: 6.7m
7. Bx15: 6.6m
8. Bx40/42: 5.8m
9. Bx41 SBS: 5.7m
10. Bx35: 4m
    • (Note, Bx7 only took over 10^th place from Bx35 last year)

All but two of these routes run crosstown, either entirely or along much of their route. The Bx1/Bx2 is a hybrid as it technically runs crosstown at its northern and southern ends but acts as a radial line along the Grand Concourse. The only true radial lines are the Bx15 and Bx41 SBS. These are the two bus lines which took over from the demolished 3^rd Ave El. The two lines combined have a ridership of 12.3m ridership which, if it was one route, would have the second highest ridership in the borough behind the Bx12 SBS.

Taking into account subway ridership, bus ridership and job centers a clearer picture emerges. The most obvious first step is that the crosstown bus lines with highest ridership need to be strengthened with dedicated bus lanes and faster service. Thankfully the MTA has been working with riders to redesign the network with this goal in mind. More bus lanes are being proposed along East 149^th St, East 167^th/East 168^th Streets, East Gun Hill Rd, and the length of Tremont Ave (among others).

Some of the crosstown lines will also have their routes simplified to speed up travel. While I like what I see from most of the proposals, I feel like there are some connections being missed. The Bx35 today ends at Gladstone Sq and is being proposed to instead turn around north of there at Freeman Triangle. This line still ends just a few blocks from the Whitlock Ave station on the 6 train. Why not have the Bx35 continue to Whitlock Ave instead and give Pelham Line riders a simple transfer to crosstown service?

A big change which seems strange to me is that the Bx6 SBS is going to be rerouted from Hunts Point to Castle Hill. I think bringing SBS service into the Soundview area of the Bronx would be a boon, but given the number of jobs in Hunts Point and the ridership on the line already I don’t see why cutting the SBS portion there makes any sense. Keep the Bx6 where it is and convert the Bx5 to SBS through Soundview.

Looking at the jobs along the Westchester Creek it seems strange that there are no direct bus lines serving this corridor today nor are any proposed. The closest bus line to the area today runs along Castle Hill Ave but this is a third of a mile away. Castle Hill Ave is certainly more centrally located running through dense residential areas, but it veers away from the Westchester Creek area through Parkchester. I’d like to see the Bx31, which today ends at Westchester Sq, extended south along Zerega Ave to Lafayette Ave. Here it can either continue south along Zerega Ave or move over to Castle Hill Ave.

Potential Rail Corridors

Looking at the subway map of the Bronx one can spot two obvious unserved corridors, one between the Grand Concourse and the White Plains Rd Lines (where the former 3^rd Ave El once ran) and a large swath through the eastern Bronx between the Dyre Ave Line and the Pelham Line. Running down the center of these two corridors are two major commuter rail lines.

As mentioned, post-World War II all passenger rail carriers saw massive drops in ridership. Cities with established rapid transit systems quickly saw the potential for converting these lines into subways. NYC Picked up the bankrupt New York, Westchester and Boston Railway in 1940 and the LIRR Rockaway Beach Branch in 1955. The LIRR Port Washington Branch was also seen as a candidate for conversion.

Today commuter rail ridership has rebounded to the point where the existing concept of higher service at rush hours and high, distance-based fares are becoming a limitation for expanding ridership. In Europe most systems have converted to a Regional Rail approach which sees higher frequency throughout the day with simplified fare structure, often integrated with subway and bus networks. Therefore subway-level service can be achieved with an existing system for far less investment.

While the concept of Regional Rail is just catching on in the US (most notably the MBTA in Boston), the MTA is beginning to dip their toes into the water. The Atlantic Ticket is a pilot program that introduced lower fares on the LIRR Atlantic Branch, although it still does not offer free transfers to busses and the subway. Penn Station Access has been in the works for many years and proposes adding four “new” stations along the NEC through the eastern Bronx (Hunts Point, Parkchester, Morris Park, and Co-Op City.) This service would bring Metro North service into Penn Station and would open after the East Side Access project which will bring the LIRR into Grand Central.

Both the NEC, which is the former New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and the Metro North, formerly New York Central Railroad, Harlem Line had a number of stations within the Bronx which were closed over the years. Penn Station Access plans to reopen a few, but not all of these stations. The Morris Park station in particular will offer better access to the jobs along the Westchester Creek corridor. The station at Co-Op City is in a much less convenient location and will require a transfer to a bus to access jobs and the majority of residences in Co-Op City.

The Harlem Line presently has stations at Melrose (161^st St), Tremont, Fordham, Botanical Gardens, Williams Bridge, and Wakefield. The Harlem Line runs parallel to 3^rd Ave, as close as two blocks away. There were once stations at 138^th St, 169^th St, Claremont Parkway, and 183^rd St. Additionally, there was also a proposal to build a station at 149^th St which was never acted upon. If the stations are rebuilt then the 138^th St station should be moved to 149^th St instead.

Currently the Harlem Line runs at 15tph in peak directions, although reverse peak is often a third of this. By reopening these stations, running more reverse peak trains, and reforming the fare for inner city trips that of the subway or express bus, the MTA can effectively recreate the 3^rd Ave El service levels. This service would run express from 125^th St to Grand Central and be effective at taking pressure off of the Lexington Ave express where it’s most congested.

These rail and bus improvements could be done very quickly and affordably. The new OMNY Card system can better track where riders enter and exit the system so that lower fares and free transfers are possible along the line. If a rider needs to go to Westchester, then the fare will be adjusted automatically.

Fixing the IRT

The number one way to improve subway service in the Bronx isn’t to extend the 2^nd Ave Subway but to fix the many bottlenecks which limit the system. The IRT has the most egregious ones with grade crossing trains at 143^rd St in Harlem and Rogers Junction in Brooklyn. The curve between the 2 and 5 trains at 149^th St slows down service throughout the entire network and poor operations between merging express trains at 180^th St and Westchester Sq round out the list.

The IRT was designed with an east (Lexington) and west (Broadway-7^th Ave) side trunk line which reverse branch in the Bronx and Brooklyn. The Brooklyn trunk was designed relatively well with express and local tracks, although this is all thrown out of whack by the poorly designed Rogers Junction. In the Bronx the Lexington branches and the Broadway-7^th Ave branch can operate independently of one another. But because of high east side demand the 5 reverse branches with the 2 along the White Plains Rd Line.

All this branching reduces capacity on each branch and delays caused by reserve branching ripple throughout the entire system. The solution is to deinterline these lines and end reverse branching. The “simplest” way to do this is by eliminating the 5 train entirely and running all Lexington Ave express service along the Jerome Line. The third track along this line, which is not used for regular service, can be used for drop outs. A new flyover track may be needed at Bedford Park Blvd so that this increase in terminating trains doesn’t foul trains to and from Woodlawn.

All service on the White Plains Rd and Dyre Ave Lines would be covered by the 2 and 3 trains. Because of the ridership imbalance between the two branches, I propose a ratio of 2:1 for 2 and 3 trains. To make this work the current 3 train terminal at Harlem-148^th St would need to be converted into a shuttle to 135^th St which would be expanded with a third track to separate shuttle and through trains.

The loss of direct east side service on the White Plains Rd and Dyre Ave Lines is bound to be a major point of contention. This is where Regional Rail can pick up the slack. The new Metro North 149^th St station can replace the 5 train for express service to midtown. The existing 149^th St-Grand Concourse station would need to be expanded for the larger number of transferring passengers. Current riders may grumble but the higher levels of service on all lines means that this new forced transfer can be made in half the time as a transfer today would take.

In order for these changes to be effective we must also fix the bottleneck is Brooklyn. The Rogers Junction, between the Eastern Parkway Line and the Nostrand Ave Branch, requires both local and express trains to merge onto the same track in order to procced. This not only causes delays but sets the capacity for the entire A Division. This could all be fixed with the addition of two simple switches which would allow the express trains to bypass the locals.

The Nostrand Ave Branch features a reverse branched 2 and 5 train. With the new switches this would have to be simplified to the 2 and 3, the Eastern Parkway locals, while the express 4 continues to New Lots. The 5 train would be eliminated and its service would be picked up by the 4 train, now running at peak capacity. The terminal at Flatbush Ave-Brooklyn College will need to be expanded to allow for trains to enter at higher speeds and for new storage tracks added south of the station to increase capacity.

The 6 train has overall high on time performance because it doesn’t interline with another service. But on the Pelham Line the peak express trains switching between express and local tracks delays trains behind them and reduces the overall capacity of the line. Currently express trains start/end at Parkchester station. These should be extended to Westchester Sq station which would be converted into an express stop. Local 6 trains would terminate here and go directly into the yard while express 6 trains would continue to Pelham Bay Park.

These improvements will allow the overall capacity on the IRT to be substantially increased. With fewer trains being delayed from merges and tight curves more trains can cycle through the system. More trains keep stations from being overfilled with passengers, causing trains to be delayed as they alight. The White Plains Rd Line could see an increase from 23tph to 30tph, the Jerome Ave Line could see an increase from 13tph to 30tph, and the Pelham Line could see an increase from 19tph to 30tph.

While these changes are not exactly cheap, the costs would be a fraction of what a new subway line would be. Overall, these increases equate to 35 more trains per hour or what a full 2^nd Ave Subway could support. Keep in mind that this doesn’t even include expanding 1 train service and what deinterlining could mean for more IND Concourse Line service.

Fantasy Expansion p*rn

I realize that so many people love my site because of the fantasy maps I’ve made. It’s far more exciting to imagine new lines than it is to come up with little fixes. I think it’s important that if we are going to expand our subway network we do so with a strong foundation. We should try to wring out the most capacity out of the existing network before we try and expand it. Otherwise, we will be forced to overbuild, a doubly terrible prospect when considering the outrageously high costs this city already has.

In the “short term” I’d like to see the 2^nd Ave Subway extended west under 125^th St. With limited resources it will be far more useful as a crosstown line than another radial into the Bronx. I’d also like to see the 6 extended north from Pelham Bay Park to Co-Op City.

The current subway serves the Manhattan market well and the buses pick up the crosstown market. Therefore, any new subway line should try to serve the crosstown market in some way. Looking at the map it’s clear which lines would see improvements from better crosstown connections. The White Plains Rd and Dyre Ave Lines hit 149^th St but they miss Hunts Point and offer no way to get to Westchester Creek. The Pelham Line serves these two areas but misses any connection further west into the Bronx or even into midtown west.

Historic plans for the 2^nd Ave Subway into the Bronx centered around converting either the White Plains Rd, Dyre Ave, or Pelham Lines into the 2^nd Ave Subway with service along the east side and a branch to midtown west. It’s no secret why the Q train extension to the UES has been so popular; it creates a new one-seat-ride for many on the east side, allowing riders to avoid the congested transfer at 59^th St and Lexington Ave.

The current system has the capacity for growth. But one day it might make sense to swing things north. Even with a deinterlined IRT in the Bronx the Dyre Ave and White Plains Rd Lines are branched and can never see full utilization. Given the crosstown demands seen around the Bronx, it might be worth reimagining what these radial lines are capable of.

The most obvious first stop for a 2^nd Ave Subway extension into the Bronx is up 3^rd Ave to 149^th St with an intermediate stop at 138^th St. Since the 3^rd Ave corridor is now served by the Harlem Line Regional Rail, we can send 2^nd Ave elsewhere. In the 1970s plan the 2^nd Ave Line would have taken over the Pelham Line at about Whitlock Ave station. 6 trains would have been cut back to Hunts Point Av. The beauty of this plan is that it converts the Pelham Line into a de facto express line through the South Bronx. This also eliminates the need for the peak direction express service, simplifying train moves and reducing delays.

The Pelham Line sees high ridership headed towards central midtown. Therefor the Q train makes a good candidate for taking over from the 6. The fewer stations along 2^nd Ave in Manhattan also speeds up travel time enough that it can reduce riders from switching to the Lexington Ave express. Under current frequencies Q trains would need to run at 16tph to make up for the loss of the 19tph that the 6 trains run. (B Division trains are wider and can hold more passengers than A Division trains of the same length.) If the Broadway Line is also deinterlined (as I’ve outlined in past posts) then the Q could run at higher frequencies, allowing for ridership growth.

The original plan called for the 6 to terminate at Hunts Point Av but still access the Westchester Yard via the middle track on the Pelham Line. As no cartographer likes a blank spot on a map, I too see that ending the 6 at Hunts Point Av seems wasteful. I propose, then, that the 6 be extended north along the NEC and connected to the 180^th St station as the NY, B & W RR once did and continue on to Dyre Ave. The old ROW which connected the two lines has been myopically redeveloped so a new elevated track would need to be built along the Bronx River as it curves into the station. A new set of tracks and platforms would be built on the outside of the current station so that 2 and 6 trains can operate independently. This connection then allows 6 trains to use the Unionport Yard instead of the Westchester Yard.

This connection may at first seem like I’m coming up with an excuse to extend the 6. After all, wouldn’t it make more sense to simply extend the Q up to Dyre Ave and leave the 6 alone? Flipping the lines would reduce travel times for all riders rather than on just one line. The flip would provide more riders with a one-seat-ride rather than forcing a larger percentage to transfer, adding time. The direct crosstown connections this flip would create would make both lines more effective.

But if the 2^nd Ave Subway is extended into the Bronx what happens to the Cross-125^th St Line? At first, I thought it could just be a branch, the N train at first or the T if 2^nd Ave is ever extended below 63^rd St. But if we are going so far as to build a new subway line then I’d like to see it used to its full potential. That means that the 125^th St Line would need to be converted into a shuttle.

On Twitter I sarcastically suggested that the mezzanine levels of the 2^nd Ave stations were so large that you could install express tracks on them. This got me thinking if this was actually possible and I think I’ve designed a somewhat elegant solution. In order to be most effective a new crosstown line would need to hit each of the north-south trunk lines in Manhattan. Simply ending at Lexington Ave isn’t an option. The 116^th St station is being designed so that the two egress points are on the east side of the avenue. The mezzanine space above the southbound track could have a single track installed so that the mezzanine now becomes an island platform with access to the platform below. The egress points are not obstructed. New connecting tracks would be built between the upper level and the tracks curving over to 125^th St. The track connections between the 125^th St Line and the Bronx extension would remain so that trains can still be operated between the lines if necessary and for non-revenue movements. 2^nd Ave can now see full service and the Harlem shuttle can see about 15tph given the single-track terminal.

What will this all cost?

The problem is that MTA costs seem to be created by throwing a dart at a board of random numbers and then adding 20%. But we can at least work out an estimate.

The projected cost of Penn Access is $88mil per station. That seems high but ill use it. Adding 4 new stops on the Harlem Line and upgrading Melrose & Tremont = $440mil (although I can see the 149 St stop being higher).

Rogers Junctions rebuild costs have ranged anywhere from $100mil to over $1bil. I’ll be conservative and go with the $300mil estimate. Layup tracks at Flatbush Ave: $600mil. Rebuilding 143rd in Harlem I’ll base off the new South Ferry station: $530mil. Expanding the Bedford Park Blvd and Westchester Sq stops for better ops: $150mil.

Grand total (completely hypothetical): $2 billion. $2b which would fix systemic problems and add into the network ~35tph. Building the 2 Av subway to 125 St is upwards of $6b. Extending it to the Bronx instead, at those costs, would push $9b. I think the choice is obvious.

Conclusion

On many of my past futureNYC Subway maps I’ve left the Bronx as almost an afterthought. This wasn’t to be mean. We’ve seen that the Bronx has very good transit coverage and in places that aren’t so good we have relatively affordable options to increase service. With smart investments in the existing network we can improve service for the entire city rather than building a new line which will run well under capacity in just one place. Once we have made these easy changes we can focus on the big lifts. With better transit the Bronx will continue to grow and as that happens a clearer picture will form of where we need to spend the big bucks.

Special thanks to Uday Schultz for many of the ideas and graphics used in this post.

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