I am usually more interested in Internet architecture than civil infrastructure, but living in New York for six years has helped me appreciate the importance of the nation’s most extensive mass transit network. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that this city owes much of its character, popularity, and economy to the massive 24/7 subway system.
The MTA has been getting a lot of flack lately for its recent budget cuts. There are rarely easy decisions in this matter, and you can count me among those affected. I regularly take the W local train from my home in Astoria to Manhattan. That line is being disbanded in favor of adapting the weekday N from express to local service. Yet even as these and other reductions take effect, portions of the Second Avenue Subway may actually be completed in our lifetimes.
What you may not know is that there were trains running along Second Avenue for 60 years, viewable in this system map from 1939. Of course, within three years of the city taking it over, passengers were soon met with this notice:
The Second Avenue Line was above ground, noisy, and dirty. Yet it is still a shame that people have all but forgotten it because elevated tracks are still in use today. It would probably be a lot cheaper to extend the N train for much-needed service to LaGuardia Airport (LGA) than tunnel underground for the proposed T line.
