Let’s face it: The current state of our subways is rather bleak and not necessarily just in terms of looks and appeal but of how overcrowded they have become as The Bronx’s population is ready to overtake the 1970 record of 1,471,701.
The biggest difference from 1970? We had the Third Avenue El which has since been torn down so we’re now operating with one less subway line for the same amount of people.
The construction boom in The Bronx isn’t stopping anytime soon and New York City keeps on building without regards to the current state of affairs regarding our overwhelmed transit.
But fret no more! We’ve decided to play around with a subway game created by Jason Wright, an electrical engineer from Crown Heights in Brooklyn and we came up with what we thought would be The Perfect Bronx Subway Map!
In a perfect world, the soon-to-open 2nd Avenue line aka the T line would be extended northwards and into our beautiful borough. The T Line would proceed along Third Avenue restoring service to an area that lost it back in the 70s when the Third Avenue El was dismantled.
The T line would snake up straight to Fordham and then continue north towards the Westchester County border along Webster Avenue.
Since Brooklyn and Queens are scheduled to be connected by a streetcar, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce the NB line which would simply be an extension of the N in Astoria, Queens with connections to the streetcar line aka the BQX, before going over Randall’s Island (sure we can drop a stop there too) and snaking its way through Port Morris, Hunts Point, Soundview, Castle Hill, and finally end in Throggs Neck.
The NB line would provide a new option for the subway starved neighborhoods of Castle Hill, Soundview, and Throggs Neck.
In our perfect world, JLo’s 6 line would be extended straight up into Co-op City. Sure they’re getting a Metro North station soon but a subway wouldn’t hurt either.
Speaking of extending existing subway lines, the 1 train would also be extended straight to the Yonkers border and the 3 train, which currently ends at 148th Street in Manhattan, would be extended straight through the West Bronx along University Avenue straight up towards Marble Hill where it would connect with the 1 train (something we published here by a Bronxite who would love to see the 3 extended).
With that map, we would truly have a very connected borough with direct access into Brooklyn via Queens but that’s not all.
It’s not all about North and South but we need to neatly connect the East and West Bronx and this would be accomplished by not one but two lines: Extending the current A line straight across and into Co-op City and by yet another new line, the CrossX.
The CrossX would start at 181st Street along the A/C line in Washington Heights and go across The Bronx making stops at all the north/south lines. With both the CrossX and the extended A line, traveling within The Bronx would greatly improve.
We know this is all a pipe dream and will never happen but we can dream, right?
Take a look below at what these changes would look like:
Another version could look like this:
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