Comments on: The Merits of a Streetcar Along 42nd Street

By: Yonah Freemark

Yonah Freemark — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:49:42 +0000

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the fundamental problem is that 7 trains are 8.60 ft wide, whereas L trains are 9.77 ft wide, and the stations are adjusted accordingly. How do you have through running with that situation?

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:48:27 +0000

Woody, the fantasy map people on Riders Diaries are years ahead of you. The arguments there are about whether to have the 7 stop at 34th, 23rd, and 14th to meet with the L, or to have the L go up to 23rd or 34th to meet up with the 7. (My position: a plague on both your houses – just extend both to New Jersey, toward Secaucus. You’d save the money on the new ARC cavern and avoid the corruption that Hudson Yards has created.)

By: Woody

Woody — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:39:04 +0000

I never see any comment on this point. But when you look at the map of the #7 extension, it goes down 11th Avenue to 25th St, where the boring machine is going into a hole in the ground. The stub end of the L train runs under 14th St. to about 9th Ave.

So the two tunnels will be separated by little more than half a mile. Surely somebody is thinking about connecting the two lines. That prospect will give us something to live for after the Second Avenue Subway is opened.

By: Woody

Woody — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:29:43 +0000

mountaindog –
It’s a good point that the Convention Center is almost inaccessible to pedestrians. And to be fair to Bloomberg, putting in the 7 line extension could transform an area that is at best dreary and at worst threatening.

A couple of hotels night set up shop near the Convention Center if or when there is some way for guests not inside the exhibit halls to get to the lively parts of the city. So the 7 line extension will help with that directly, and indirectly by stimulating TOD. The streetcar line could top it off. I think it’s still true that some out-of-towners will never try to ride the subway, never, but would happily ride a streetcar.

Vision42 asks too much in proposing to close both 34th and 42nd Streets to cars entirely. The streets are six (6) lanes wide, after all. Take two lanes for dedicated streetcar trackage and widen the sidewalks by a lane on either side.

That leaves two lanes still. One way traffic on a two-lane street (with No Parking!) would allow deliveries in one lane, and a trickle of taxies, cars carrying handicapped people, airport shuttles, emergency vehicles, limos, whoever, to get to the middle of the long blocks. That’s the model we see on Broadway now, where two lanes have been recaptured for street-parks, but two lanes of traffic meet some real demands for deliveries and other services.

By: mountaindog

mountaindog — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:54:04 +0000

What everyone is forgetting is that Javitz Center (NY’s Convention Center is located where the new 7 line ends. A streetcar on 42 would let convention goers easy access to Times Square and Midtown. Right now as a pedestrian you have to go through the maze of roadway leading to the Lincoln Tunnel.

By: Woody

Woody — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:00:26 +0000

The way the economy is going, Mayor Bloomberg is going to run out money to build his 7 Line extension any day now, like, yesterday. Maybe then he’ll take a look at something to serve the Convention Center area in the meantime — “meantime” possibly being the rest of his life and mine.

I love the 42nd St streetcar. I’m with David, here, keep it simple, river to river on 42nd Street. But I would look at also making it river to river on 34th St. With connectors up First Avenue and then down 12th Avenue it would be one big loop. I could see a loop within the loop, going up Park to Grand Central and down Seventh Ave to the busy side of Penn Station, the LIRR station. Ah, with two way traffic on every part of the loop-de-loops.

Twice as big could be easier to do than one line alone: Any streetcar line has to have a car barn. Maybe we can find room for one on a pier on the West Side. But to find space for two? Real estate prices are falling, but even in a Depression finding space for two car barns would be hard to do!

By: Chris G

Chris G — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:50:54 +0000

Am very happy to see Vision42 get some press. I personally think the most important would be river to river on 42nd. Then a connection to Penn Station. Then at that point river to river on 34th. You dont need to have every train turn south to go to Penn. You can make some go river to river and others turn. But I believe going all the way to the Hudson will allow for better use of ferries to cross the river.

Such a shame we spend all this effort to basically rebuild what was done 100 years ago.

By: Dave Amos

Dave Amos — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:20:05 +0000

I like your model, though are you proposing to shut down that section of 8th Ave to traffic? I think that would be nearly impossible to shut down traffic on any of NYC’s avenues, but streetcars could do fine in traffic along that stretch.

I also understand the importance of setting the line on 34th St., but Penn Station is largely between 31st and 33rd. Having the steetcar a block away isn’t bad, but it certainly isn’t ideal. It makes more sense to me to have it along 33rd between 8th and 7th Aves.

Good stuff, though. Gotta love Google Maps.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:31:18 +0000

rail lines should move you from one logical point to the next. build the line straight across manhattan so everyone knows what it does. then build another line. then another. make it a huge loop if you want — that would be ideal — but zig-zagging all over the place doesn’t make any sense to me.

besides, above-ground transit is fundamentally different than below-ground transit — above-ground transit is dignified.

and i want bikers to be able to be safe, not dodging new tracks at every intersection. make things predictable, easy-to-understand, etc.