Fixing The G Train

The G train, New York’s only subway line that doesn’t pass through Manhattan, has been maligned for decades. In the words of a Brooklynite friend of mine, “it’s awful.” The G’s unique awfulness is multifaceted: it’s slow, it doesn’t connect to anything or go anywhere and it can actually be faster to loop through Manhattan than to take the more geographically direct G train. Why was such a fundamentally flawed line constructed in the first place? And is there any way to fix it?

 

First a little G train history. The G train is the only service on the IND Crosstown Line, which runs from Northern Brooklyn to Western Queens (while many people use the words “line and train interchangeably, “line” refers to a specific segment of track while “train” refers to the service running on that track. The 6 train runs on the local tracks of the four-track Lexington Ave Line and all the tracks of the three-track Pelham Line). The G train itself terminates at Court Square in the North and Church Ave in the South, terminuses which have shifted many times over the past eight decades.

A non-Manhattan-based North-South linkage was proposed several times by the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company, the builder of most of Brooklyn’s subway lines. Ultimately the City Government itself built the Crosstown Line in 1933, utilizing the City-owned Independent Subway. It almost immediately encountered problems.

 

The G train was in many ways doomed from the start. In transit parlance there are two main forms of train line: “radial” and “circumferential.” Radial lines run from the city center to the suburbs, carrying people form their jobs to their homes and back. Circumferential lines circle around the city center, straying neither into the suburbs nor the urban core. They are intended to link together various radial lines, facilitating movement from one radial line to another. The G train, as originally designed, mixes these two types, to disastrous effect.

When the G train first entered into service it comprised the local component of two four-track radial lines, the Queens Blvd Line and the Culver Line, as well as a two-track circumferential line–the Crosstown line–connecting the two. The express portions of the Culver and Queens Blvd lines headed to Manhattan, while the local portions stayed in the Outer Boros and linked to each other via the Crosstown Line.

However this arrangement broke a fundamental rule of transit: don’t mix radial and circumferential lines. Radial lines benefit from direct access to the city, while circumferential lines benefit from connecting to as many radial lines as possible. Having a line start as a radial line and then veer into a circumferential lines (and then back into a radial line) makes nobody happy. Radial riders (on the Queens Blvd and Culver Lines) would prefer to continue onto Downtown or Midtown, while circumferential riders (on the Crosstown Line) would prefer to the opportunity to connect to more lines, rather than being forced outwards at the end.

The faults in the design of the G train were soon realized and the radial and circumferential portions were awkwardly separated. The local tracks of the densely populated Queens Blvd Line were soon connected to the Astoria Line (and the 60th street tunnel) in order to get more service to Manhattan and when that became insufficient the 63rd street tunnel was built. The G was cut back to the Crosstown Line section of its original route, leaving it a short and ineffective circumferential line.  

Today there are several major problems with the G train, in both Brooklyn and Queens. In Brooklyn the G train fails to connect to the majority of lines, including the Jamaica (J/M/Z), Brighton (B/Q) and IRT Brooklyn (2/3/4/5) lines. Since circumferential lines benefit from as many connections as possible, this lack of connectivity cripples G service.

Additionally there is a major bottleneck in Brooklyn. The express tracks of the Culver line have fallen into disrepair, largely because customers along those two lines wanted local service to Manhattan. To achieve this the F was switched to the local tracks of the Culver Line. This forced the G to merge with the F, capping the capacity of both services to ½. This is not a problem for the F, since it merges with other trains on the 6th Ave line, but it is very problematic for the G, since no other services run on the Crosstown line.

Queens is also straddled with its own G train problem. Since its removal from the Queens Blvd Line the G train terminates at Court Square, where it can connect to the 7, E and M. Similar to Brooklyn, the G train fails to connect to several major lines in Queens, notably the N/Q/R and F trains, doing more to hamper the G’s effectiveness as a circumferential line.

 

So what can be done to fix the G train and make it an effective circumferential line? Quite a few things. Let’s start with Queens.

As stated earlier the G train currently terminates at Court Square. A better terminal sits slightly to the north at Queens Plaza. Queens Plaza is a larger station and serves more passengers than Court Square, additionally a terminal there would offer a connection between the G and R trains.

Better yet, Queens Plaza sits in proximity to Queensboro Plaza. These two stations are among the busiest in the borough and are only a couple blocks apart. A free transfer between them would improve connectivity in rapidly growing Long Island City, as and allow the G to connect to the N and W trains. The connection wouldn’t even need to be paid for by the city, since it could be built by a private developer in exchange for zoning concessions (a similar strategy was used to link the three components of Court Square as detailed in this article from YIMBY).

The reason that the G terminates at Court Square is relatively simple: Queens Plaza has extra capacity but lacks tail tracks, which are tracks that extend beyond terminal stations, allowing trains to efficiently turn around. Court Square has a third track, which fills this purpose. The construction of tail tracks at Queens Plaza would allow the G to terminate there,with the aforementioned benefits. The new terminal (and free transfer) would connect the G train with every major line in Queens, with the exception of the F train.

In Brooklyn there are also several improvements that can be made at minimal cost.

As mentioned earlier the G train does not connect directly to the Jamaica Line (J/M/Z) in Brooklyn (despite the fact that the Crosstown line crosses directly under it), a line that has seen increasing ridership growth over the past few years. This could be rectified by demolishing the Hewes and Lorimer Street stations of the Jamaica Line, and replacing them with a new station at Union Ave, directly above the G train. Since the Jamaica line is an elevated line, the cost of a new station would be relatively low compared to building a whole new underground station.

In Brooklyn the G also (as mentioned earlier) fails to connect to either the Brighton Line (B/Q) or the IRT Brooklyn Line (2/3/4/5). These two lines serve the majority of Southeast Brooklyn, home to hundreds of thousands of people. The failure to connect to either of these two major lines further cripples the G’s ability to function as a proper circumferential line.

However, like the previous entries in this list, a connection would be easy to make. Currently sitting in central Brooklyn is an oft-forgotten and significantly underused subway line: the Franklin Ave Shuttle. The Shuttle is so little used that it lacks its own letter (It just uses “S” like two other short lines in the City). It’s a rump line, the last remnant of a mostly demolished branch of the BMT elevated network in Brooklyn. The Shuttle currently connects the Brighton Line and IRT Brooklyn Line with the IND Fulton Line (A/C). It runs North/South but stops short of the Crosstown Line.

The extension of the Franklin Ave Line north to the G train would offer several opportunities. Currently at the Bedford-Nostrand Ave Station (of the Crosstown Line) there sits a third center track, the remnant of a planned extension to the East. An extended Franklin Shuttle could merge with this track.

This would allow a new branch of the Crosstown Line to be opened. This new train (to be called the “I” Train) would run down the whole length of the Franklin Ave Shuttle, giving the Crosstown line a connection to the IRT Brooklyn Line and the Brighton Line. Additionally a new station would be built at Gates Aves in Bed-Stuy. This was first proposed in 1946, after the problems with the G train were first realized, but was never constructed.

Secondly the branch would double the capacity of the Crosstown Line. The G train is capped at its capacity due to the fact that is must merge with the F train, leaving the Crosstown Line half full for its entire length. With the new I train this gap could be filled, finally bringing the Crosstown Line (North of Bedford-Nostrand Station) to full capacity. Both the G and I trains would terminate at Queens Plaza.

 

In summary, the following series of minor and relatively inexpensive changes could make the G train (and the Crosstown Line) significantly more effective in its role as a circumferential line:

 

In Queens:

 

• Create a set of tail tracks at Queens Plaza
• Build a free transfer between Queens Plaza and Queensboro Plaza

 

In Brooklyn:

 

• Build a new station on the Jamaica Line (and demolish two more)
• Create a new branch of the Crosstown Line by extending the Franklin Ave Shuttle north
• Build a new station in Bed-Stuy

 

This changes will effectively:

 

• Offer transfers between the G train and 12 additional trains (2/3/4/5, J/M/Z, R, N/W, and Q/B trains)
• Double the capacity of the Crosstown Line (except where the I train peels off at Bedford-Nostrand and the F train merges at Bergen Street)
• Allow the G train to terminate at Queens Plaza
• Allow the G train to turn around more efficiently, further increasing capacity