![]() The disadvantage of surface junctions is the fact that trains need to stop in order to allow other trains to make their turn, limiting maximum capacity. Surface junctions are the simpler of the two, and typically involve trains crossing over each other’s tracks. In rail there are two main types of junction (places where train lines split or come together), flying junctions and surface junctions. The first of these are three junction reconstructions. There are a series of minor construction projects that the MTA could undertake, all far smaller than the already small 2nd Ave Line, but all of which promise some improvement in service or movement. Here are just a few small things the MTA could do to improve our subway system. ![]() Therefore more subtle and creative solutions are necessary, ones that improve access and efficiency within the system, as opposed to expanding it. ![]() The State can barely manage to find funds for the next three stops of the 2nd Ave Subway (which will cost $3.6 billion per mile, before any cost overruns), let alone new lines in outer boroughs. Unfortunately the obscene expense of new subway lines is prohibitive. Notably the 7 train and the Queens Blvd Line are both pushing their upper limits on capacity. The first phase of the 2nd Ave Subway is expected to remove 300,000 people from the Lexington Avenue Line, reducing crowding by 13%.Īs the city continues to grow, overcrowding will get worse. Combined with the narrower cars of IRT-constructed subway lines (also known as A division, or all the subway lines with numbers for names instead of letters), this has lead to an unprecedented overcrowding crisis unimaginable 30 years ago. For over a million people the green line is the only subway line within reach. Since the demolition of the privately run 2nd and 3rd elevated train lines, the East Side of Manhattan and the Central and Eastern Bronx have only been served by the Lexington Avenue Line (4,5,6 trains). However despite the great cost and corruption the 2nd Avenue Subway is sorely needed. Public works is one of the rare instances where the interests of management and labor align private contractors and union workers both benefit if the cost and duration of infrastructure is increased. This has to do with a combination of factors, but is mainly due to New York’s continued use of the expensive and archaic design-bid-build system (at the insistence of construction unions), the fact that the MTA is required to use double the construction personnel as its counterparts in Europe or the rest of the U.S., the contractor system, requirements by the Americans with Disabilities Act for expensive elevators and escalators, and possibly the Mafia. Infographics About the High Cost of the 2nd Avenue Subway (Click Here and Here for High Resolution Links) New York pays 5-10 times the international average for subway construction and 2½ times more than the second most expensive city in the world for new rail projects: London (which builds at $900 million to $1.3 billion USD per mile). At a whopping $2.3 billion per mile of track it is only outclassed in cost by two other New York City rail projects, the 7 extension and the East Side Access. Aside from being radically pared down the 2nd Avenue Subway is notable for another reason, it is one of the most expensive transit projects in the whole world. The two-track, three-station spur is only a shadow of the behemoth first proposed in 1929: six tracks carrying nearly 100 trains per hour along the full length of 2nd Ave, reaching its branches out into Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. At noon on January 1st 2017, the first (and possibly only) stations of the Second Avenue Subway opened.
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