The Interborough Express (IBX)

That actually raises an interesting question: what are they using for electrification? Will boarding be low or high? My assumptions would be catenary and low boarding.

As for the RoW separation, I still think if they just single-track through the tunnel under the cemetery, they'll be fine.

Light rail has far too low capacity for this project.

Technically the final mode hasn't been chosen, but it appears that the options in the running are low boarding LRV or BRT. Presumably overhead wiring.

Thus the complaints about low vehicular capacity and infrequent headways.

The infrequent headways are definitely a concern.

Street-running v. Cut-and-cover tunnel: Streetsblog.org

MTA Plan to Run Brooklyn-Queens Train on City Streets a ‘Grave’ Mistake: Advocates

A 515-foot tunnel beneath All Faiths Cemetery would slightly increase the cost of the project in exchange for "enormous" service benefits, a new report argues.

The MTA risks squandering the potential of the proposed Brooklyn-Queens Interborough Express light rail line if the agency runs part of the route on city streets instead of building a short tunnel under a Middle Village cemetery, argues a new report.

The current plan for the IBX light rail to emerge from its underground right-of-way near the boneyard and run on surface streets makes the train "far more vulnerable" to traffic delays than even existing bus routes in the area, the advocacy group Effective Transit Alliance said.

A 515-foot tunnel beneath All Faiths Cemetery, meanwhile, would increase the cost of the project "only slightly" in exchange for "enormous" service benefits, ETA said.
...

I found barely a blurb on this site regarding the IBX; perhaps the simple search of 'IBX' was insufficient. As conceived the IBX is not viewed terribly well, understandable given its cost/benefit ratio. But, that could change.

First off, the term 'express' is wholly for marketing purposes, it seems, as who needs an express to get to Jackson Heights, or Bay Ridge; but American transit proposals have a history of 'gerrymandering' terms to boost prospects. Few realize that the phrase 'light' rail was a bait and switch term born in the Americn political milieu of the 80's.

The MTA's PEL prospectus on the IBX is a perfect of example of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and as a result adds tremendously to the cost. There is nothing cost effective about using a current grade separated rail corridor if you have to redo, virtually, the entire infrastructure along its path.

Most of the 44 bridge reconstructions identified in the report are due to trying to fit a five track wide 4 track system through a road/rail interface, at best, built for 4 tracks. The fifth track width there is actually a passenger platform, and those are generally a requirement for passenger service, and tend to go at or adjacent to places where roadways intersect the rail corridor. Making room for a platform in the middle of the track alignments, shifts the tracks out of the envelopes for which the infrastructure was tailored.

Let's put a round peg into our round hole. Nothing, FRA policy, freight or passenger operations, costs, or safety, precludes us from using the outer track envelopes for the passenger service. This concept is suberbly suited for this application. The transit demand here is not the same as 'destination' lines which move masses to a concentrated work destination. It is a collector line, like Paris' outer trams, providing access to new neighborhoods, taking them to the nearest 'destination line'. LRV's are quite adequately suited for this purpose.

Seeing that LRV's are a good fit, suits the new design concept. Overhead catenary allows the freight and passenger to run together without barriers that a third rail power source would require. Articulated trams can, fairly, easily be turned at each end, going over or below the freight tracks to the returning passenger track. This also allows two other benefits, having a single cab, where the driver no longer needs to bounce between train ends at each terminus station, and with this concept doors are only needed on one side of the car, increasing both the seated and standing capacity of each car.

This also fits well with two other big hurdles, the two tunnel issues. The East New York tunnel's narrowness was smartly overcome with a track shift of 1/2 foot to suit the FRA's evacuation stipulations, needed by ten foot wide cars, but the LRV's will be no wider than 9'. Nevertheless, a minor track shift can still be had, which both improves the evacuation envelope and helps with the creation of platforms for stations along the tunnel path.

While the PEL put no station at Broadway Junction, and the Atlantic Ave Station was, actually, put south of East New York Ave, this outer running concept opens up a cost effective way to create a better located Atlantic Ave station and a Broadway Junction station, as well.

Interestingly, the MTA decided to not recommend a relocation, or even minor shift, of the pipe line now located in the eastern most tunnel. No cost estimate was even proffered. And, even though the pipeline is reported to be below track level near the far wall, they gave no indication of a prospect for using the tunnel for operating vehicles. However, that they 'caved' on the freight use, to keep its occupancy to just one tunnel, eliminates it as an IBX issue.

But, that action actually improves the IBX situation. While the forth tunnel may not be useable for track use, some portion, if not most of it, could be utilized for platform space, for Queens (north) bound trams, in a scenario using the outer running concept. This is true for both stations, even if putting the Atlantic Ave station closer to, well, Atlantic Ave. There is already a Carnesie (L) Line station at Atlantic Avenue, thus the principal use of an IBX station here is to connect with the LIRR East New York station, and an IBX 'headhouse' near it is the best functional situation. While most of the 270' long platform will be within the old platform space now between the 3rd and 4th track beds, that space ends before Atlantic Ave, thus about 20% of that platform would be inside the now closed off tunnel space.

Of course, if affords the space for the entire 270' Broadway Junction north bound platform. Along the platform lengths, the tunnel walls would be replaced with a beam and post structure, not uncommon in NYC subway stations. The platform widths are supplemented by both the 2.5' (or 3') evacuation corridor width and the tunnel wall width of 2'. Thus, at least 4.5' of a minimum 12.5' wide platform space are present, needing only 8' of the 14' wide fourth tunnel.

The publicly owned space exists to then create the same platforms (and stairwell) spaces on the south bound line for both stations; astride the western tunnel wall, and using the same post and beam insertions to create the train/platform space. The Atlantic Ave south bound platform would go on the north side of Atlantic Ave, using the block owned by NYCT. At Broadway Junction, the East New York tunnel sits just below the A-Line subway tunnel, so a little deeper, and the platform would be easier had by putting it entirely on the north side of the subway tunnel, with its 'headhouse' tied into the current Broadway Junction headhouse.

Lastly, as to the East New York tunnel, the bed of the current freight tunnel was lowered, its full length, many years back, and still today much of the rolling stock requires the higher clearance. The PEL made no mention of this expense, but it would have been incurred had they shifted the freight to another tunnel. With this outer running IBX service, the freight use does not need to move; another expense eliminated.

Now, the other BIG tunnel issue, that was <eye roll> shockingly handled by the planners. Not only was/is it possible to delicately handle the mausoleum issue, by various means, affording cut&cover construction, but a cut&cover 'two' track tunnel could be put on the eastern side of the existing tunnel, with virtually no disruption to crypts or burials, with a shift of the freight tracks through it. Also, short tunnels, such as here, are likely seen as pittances by transit builders in other countries, as they once were here, with no need to cut&cover.

But, again, we are blessed by the new design concept. Narrower cut&cover tunnels can be placed on each side of the current All Faith's Cemetery tunnel, producing even less disruption overall. There would be no cemetery issue on the east side, save expanding the cut by a bit beyond their 'access' roadway, and the west side then gets limited to a small corner of the mausoleum. In fact, most of it is not crypt space, it is covered walkway areas. Actually less than a bathroom sized corner of the crypt portion would need to be underpinned, in order to use the cut&cover construction method.

Metropolitan Avenue portions would be done in sections to insure at least half the roadway could still be used during the process. It is an important transit way for the area. An overhead walkway would be used for anyone transfering to/from the M-Line and the IBX north bound platform, but that would have been needed anyhow, as the IBX tracks were going to be there.

Thus, many, many costs have been avoided, and many more benefits provided by using a round peg for a round hole.

As to turning the trams on the Queens end, the need also provides an improved interface with the Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave MTA stations. As planned, even with LRV, the MTA was going to drop people in the cut 22' below Roosevelt Ave. All any critiques ever mentioned was the horizontal distance from the rail corridor to the other station entrances, never referencing the 2-flight stairway climb they had to first make; there was/is no escalator planned.

The PEL plan was to include the cost of a two-track incline from the cut to street level at Metropolitan Ave and 69th Place. Now, thankfully, not needing that step or cost, we can use half or more of the expense to create a 'one' track incline from the cut at 41st and Roosevelt Avenues. The north bound track, now on the outer part of the corridor can rise up to 41st Avenue and be perfectly aligned to run up one block on the right side of 72nd Street. The tram would stop just a few feet short of Roosevelt, the block being plenty long enough to, if necessary, accommodate a 270' long tram consist.

So, now not only are passengers closer horizonatally by a block (275'), and one street crossing, to the other MTA stations, they are 22' feet closer vertically, having no need to climb stairs to street level. The tram then makes a single move, turning left onto Roosevelt then left again turning onto the one-track incline putting it on the other side of the freight tracks for its return trip.

There is more, but that is all of the most interesting stuff.





The outer running scenario also affords the creation of a Queens Blvd station, where awkward property constraints and existing infrastructure had the MTA miss this opportunity, and yet they were still planning on completely reconstructing the rail bridge in order to have a straight alignment through the tight property constraints. Here we will only add an abutment bridge, and will provide rail access where it is not currently available.

Here are two more images of interest . . .


I should have added the widths. The new side tunnels interior widths are 14'. They could be made wider, but if 14' is okay with the much longer East New York tunnel, seemed fine here. Also, the LRV's are actually 1 foot narrower than the 10' width used in the PEL tunnel analysis.

Freight and passenger transit needs: handling both, as much as possible, by rail in a congested area is a public benefit. Setting aside the unknown of who has final say over the allocation of infrastructure on the LIRR owned, and NY&A operated, sections of the proposed IBX line, a reasonable assessment of needs and resources can be made.

There exists many 4-track capacity bridges along the corridor, but one such section has been profferred (in the PEL report) to host a lengthy expansion of the Fremont Yard (south of the Fresh Pond yards). Though the infrastructure is in place to accommodate it, does its use for that purpose, a yard, outweigh the benefits of the potential passenger service? Freight yards are usually had economically, in places not needing expensive grade separation infrastructure.

Moreover, what is the realistic need for a mile long yard, when the most service provided is just on one line, with two short branches, to the other end of Long Island? A half mile long yard should plenty suffice, especially in conjunction with the other three yards surrounding Fresh Pond.



By using the outer running passenger service as presented in Part I, we can shift the 'expansion' of Fremont Yard a bit further south to where it requires little grade separation infrastructure, providing a more cost effective use of resources.



The redesign provides for NY&A's needs, without the expensive infrastructure heavy design offered in the PEL report. It includes two tracks all the way from the tunnel portal (not in the PEL design), which gives the freight operator a very lengthy track on which to stage a long train, if needed, for running north into Conn. via CSX tracks.

It also includes keeping the current southend of the Fremont 4 track yard portion which runs over 65th Street. Because an overpass of the Montauk connector line is included in the outside running redesign, 65th street is of no concern for the north bound IBX line. Adding a single track bridge for the south bound IBX, far less costly than a total bridge rebuild, will maintain the status quo, freight wise, at this location. All in all, the redesign nets only .4 mile less freight track than the PEL design.




Not to be minimized are the cost savings of FAR less track shifting by making use of the outer running IBX design. Not quantified in the PEL report is the extensive amount of freight track shifting that would be needed. The new design minimizes this expense, having few occurences where it will be needed.

An upfront design step is determining the optimum length of the IBX service, not just viewing it as an All or Nothing proposition. Optimum, meaning the most efficient use (cost/benefit wise) of fiscal resources.

While the Bay Ridge rail corridor is eyed as an opportunity to provide rail service 'from' Bay Ridge 'to' Jackson Heights, is that really a need? And is the corridor really such a transit 'opportunity'? Both are highly questionable assertions.

Much of the Bay Ridge corridor's grade-separation infrastructure is ONLY suited to two-tracks, which are to continue to serve freight needs. Thus, there is no opportunity, other than owning the land between road crossings.

As to 'need', there is NO mass transit need to go from Bay Ridge to Jackson Heights or vice versa. The line is being portrayed as serving the same function as ALL other MTA rail lines, yet it would not. Heavy rail is used, in short haul urban cases, where masses can be transported (in a short window) to a mass concentration of jobs. On the other hand, this new line would be a collector line, taking people to an MTA mass-job-destination line, much like for which Paris uses a light rail means, i.e. low cost.



As it stands, the planning of the IBX shows no grasp, or at least acknowledgement, of either of the above.

Its service route not only duplicates large amounts of existing MTA rail service (mass-job-destination lines), it takes few opportunities to put stations in neighborhoods without good access to the rail network, with ONLY 5 out of 19 planned stations serving that purpose.

It then makes no attempt to trim the fat, to remove its least beneficial, by far, and yet most costly, by far, section. There is no job in our government charged with efficient use of our resources.



Merely because the freight rail corridor runs to Bay Ridge, doesn't mean it is WISE to spend great sums to reconstruct many bridges (11) to provide mass transit service to areas which already have mass job destination service, and even have access to an interborough line, the G-Line, that, at least, goes to two mass job destination points, Brooklyn's city center, and Long Island City.

The smart thing to do, for those who wish to see this project move forward, is to optimize the cost/benefit ratio, that means drastically reducing the costs, and raising the benefits. And since the western most 25% of the route service (3.6 mi) is mostly a duplication of existing service, while being far in excess of 25% of the project costs, it is reasonable to cut back the project's scope to the E 16th Street Station.

There are 22 road bridge reconstructions cited in the PEL report. Half of them are in that 25% of the proposed route. Moreover, while the track redesign alleviates many of the bridge issues, it will not alleviate a reconstruction where a two-track wide bridge span is the issue. All of those eleven proposed road bridge reconstructions, west of 16th Street, are of that type.

Therefore, after the redesign, only two road bridge issues remain in the 75% of the route east/north of 16th Street, meaning that the 25% west/south of 16th Street make up 11 out of 13 for the whole IBX.

But this division also coincides with the divide between duplicate and new service areas.

The E 16th Street Station, adjacent to a B&Q Line station, is the beginning of the rail service desert in Brooklyn, that stretches over to the Carnesie L-Line. Thus, putting stations east of it provides public transit riders (who currently use buses or walk long distances) the rail option to connect with either the B&Q, or L lines, or a several block transfer to the 2&5 lines.

It also makes sense, as the B, Q, 2, and 5, as well as 3&4, have no connections to the G-Line, like the other Brooklyn lines; so some Queens bound riders, residing near the end of these lines, could find it useful.

And by adding stations at Ocean (lined with high rise residential) and Albany Avenues, both useful, and shifting the Linden Ave station back to a more useful location at Rockaway Ave, virtually all of South Brooklyn's bus routes connect with a station of this new line.



An extension, to Bay Ridge, can be considered as a phase 2, when the benefits are seen to justify the costs, which might include time sharing (freight using over-night hours), eliminating the need for new grade-separation infrastructure.

In the meantime, that high cost/low benefit portion should not be holding up achieving the rest of the line's benefits, which can be reasonably cost justified, with the vast cost reductions provided by the track & freight 'yard' redesign.

Thus, the new route looks like this . . .



Noted here are the grade separation issues (bridges) which have now been eliminated altogether or mitigated.

Of twenty-two (22) road bridge reconstructions posed in the PEL report, as costs to implement IBX, only TWO (2) remain. A small pedestrian bridge will be rebuilt, as proposed.

There are twenty (20) rail bridge instances. The PEL poses one new, and high, bridge (the Lower Montauk line overpass), one modifcation (at Central Ave), and eighteen (18) demolition/reconstructions. None of the demolition/reconstructions, nor the designated modification, are necessary with the new track system design. Many are completely mooted, while others become only a need of bridge additions.

Even the Lower Montauk overpass, has been scaled back. The PEL proposal's to bypass the All Faith's Cemetery by circumnavigating it, rendered an elevated Metropolitian Ave station, and approach. Thus, they raised the bridge in order to vertically align it with an elevated approach into the station. The new track design, and cemetery solution, obviates that need.

Here is a link to a table listing of the bridge issues posed as reconstructions in the PEL report . . .

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Below is a compact print view of that table. The color coding is thus, Green are issues still existing, Yellow are mitigated issues, mostly instances of where bridge addtions suffice, and the Red is for all those which have been eliminated as issues completely.

The next part will deal with the southern terminus loop and the new maintenance and storage yard.

Ok, I'll bite: the "high cost/low benefit" 3.6 miles in Brooklyn seems likely to account for more origins and destinations than the remaining 10.4 miles of the IBX. Nor would I consider the IBX's western end duplicating existing rail services, since those are all oriented towards getting people from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but not towards getting people around Brooklyn (a series of N-S routes are not duplicated by an E-W route).

Manhattan's importance as a NYC center of employment was decreasing prior to COVID, and that trend (faster and more job grow in the outer Boroughs than in the inner Boroughs) isn't likely to be reversed. Even in the 2010s, a Brooklynite was 1.6x more likely to work in Brooklyn than in Manhattan, and overwhelming likely to commute by car if not commuting from a neighborhood to an employment area already directly served by an existing subway line. Furthermore those neighborhoods you propose to not serve are building denser housing (based on zoning variance requests to build denser than zoning allows) and have more employment opportunities than elsewhere on the IBX corridor, so they are likely to be not only an origin for people commuting out of, but a destination for residents outside the area to come into. Some simple estimation suggests the area you propose cutting from the IBX would account for more than 1/4 of the ridership on the IBX, even if only 1/4 of the population served by the line lives in that area (since the largest single employment center on the IBX is at its western end).

Proposing that terminating the IBX east of the area of Brooklyn seeing the most growth simply makes it seem that predicted positive results of the IBX (i.e., ridership) will be significantly lower under your proposal than under MTA's proposal, which may mean the value proposition is reduced unless there are significant changes in development patterns as a result of the IBX construction. Put another way, unless you can show a scaled back route will have capitol costs less that $48.6K per rider on the scaled back route, I don't think your adjustments to the route will have the degree of benefits to NYC that MTA's proposed routing will have.

Barely a blurb?? To the contrary there is an open topic entitled "The Interborough Express (IBX) open since 2022 with 64 replies at the-interborough-express-ibx-t173833.html


[Note: The webmaster/site co-owner Jeff Smith may decide to combine your 3 threads into the above topic]

RandallW wrote: ↑Sat Aug 31, 2024 8:03 pm Ok, I'll bite: the "high cost/low benefit" 3.6 miles in Brooklyn seems likely to account for more origins and destinations than the remaining 10.4 miles of the IBX. Nor would I consider the IBX's western end duplicating existing rail services, since those are all oriented towards getting people from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but not towards getting people around Brooklyn (a series of N-S routes are not duplicated by an E-W route).

The natural first response, is then, why not just wait on that portion as a future extension? If the numbers you suggest are true, then the cost of 11 bridge reconstructions should, in some people's minds, cost justify an extension.

With the outer-running design and freight yard adjustment (see Part I & II), the remaining 75% portion would likely be half of the $48k cost per rider proposed in the PEL report.

Something I didn't point out in this post, regarding that Paris tram, seeming circling around the city, is that it is not a continuous line. It is in fact, two lines, constructed at separate times. This is because Parisians understood that its greatest value is in serving new neighborhoods, bringing people to the spoke rail lines, not in moving people from one outer neighborhood to another half way around Paris, that would be merely a bonus.

Heavy rail cost are only justified by serving MASS transit ridership during PEAK transit periods, which are virtually always job related. There is no mass job concentration in the Bay Ridge section of the route, that warrants ADDITIONAL expenditures of tax dollars for heavy rail infrastructure (which that section will need due to its current state) in order to DUPLICATE the existing rail service which the city and taxpayers have provided. As well, that entire area is well connected to the G-Line, taking them to Queens.

You use Covid as a weapon for your argument, and yet Covid didn't change the direction people go to work, it simply created more home stay work situations, meaning fewer transit riders overall.

While still requiring some grade separation infrastructure (chiefly rail bridges), the rest of the route can achieve a reasonable level of cost justification. On the other hand, you would deny rail service to neighborhoods around Ocean, Albany, Utica, Remsen, Rockaway, Myrtle, Eliot, and Grand Avenues, and Queens Blvd, who do not have ready access to the city's rail system, to wait until the city solves every other transit issue, and is then willing to fork over the high cost of that 3.6 miles to Bay Ridge.

And by your logic, those who benefit from the Second Ave Subway would not have had those benefits the last 7.5 years, because we would still be still waiting on funding committed for the entire SAS.

Though perhaps the most logical recommendation, I knew this would be the most 'challenged' suggestion, and why I didn't make it the first post. But, appreciate the engagement.

I did not use COVID as an argument -- I pointed out that the trends suggesting that any rail service requiring people to travel to Manhattan from Brooklyn is of decreasing value was occurring before the pandemic and is not an aberrant effect of the pandemic. I didn't discuss work from home -- I discussed commuting patterns within Brooklyn itself, not the commuting patterns of those who don't commute. In 2019, ~86K people commuted between home and work without leaving Brooklyn, compared to ~51K who commuted between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The proposal put forward by MTA as the most logical is a light rail proposal, I don't know why you have a "heavy rail isn't the answer" posture, when heavy rail isn't being discussed by the MTA -- they are proposing to use light rail.

The T1 line in the Île-de-France (the first post-WW II light rail in Paris) wasn't designed to fill in transit deserts, it was designed to avoid the need to take trains into Paris to travel between suburbs already well served by heavy rail going in the wrong direction (i.e., into Paris, not suburb to suburb) because there was a recognized demand for that direction of service.

The census tract maps of jobs per acre suggest that along the IBX route, the highest density of jobs on that route are in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT), western terminus of the IBX as the MTA proposed. So you are considering that someone in the transit desert part of the route would be best served by taking the IBX only to 16th St to transfer to what to get to the BAT?

I also see that the area least served by transit along the MTA's proposed IBX route is also the area with the highest per capita income (suggesting that people who won't use the IBX to commute are moving to that area or that by truncating the IBX as you propose, it is only there to subsidize the movement of the richer Brooklynites at the expense of others).

Allan wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2024 1:54 pm Barely a blurb?? To the contrary there is an open topic entitled "The Interborough Express (IBX) open since 2022 with 64 replies at the-interborough-express-ibx-t173833.html


[Note: The webmaster/site co-owner Jeff Smith may decide to combine your 3 threads into the above topic]

Thanks. The 'search' didn't find it.