Eighth Avenue Line - Definition

The Eighth Avenue Line is the original rapid transit line of the Independent Subway System (IND), now run by the New York City Transit Authority as part of the New York City Subway system. For more than three decades from its inception in 1932, many New Yorkers called the entire IND system the Eighth Avenue Subway, though this was never its official name. Except south of World Trade Center station (where the local tracks end), the whole line is quadruple-tracked, with one local and one express track in each direction. The northern section of the Eighth Avenue Line (north of 145th Street) was once known as the Washington Heights Line.

Extent and service

Services that use the Eighth Avenue Line through Midtown and Downtown Manhattan are colored blue. The following services use part or all of the Eighth Avenue Line:

The Eighth Avenue Line, entirely in Manhattan, begins at the terminal station of Inwood-207th Street as a two-track subway. Two tracks from the 207th Street Yard join at a flying junction, and there are four tracks through Dyckman Street before the extra tracks end. Two express tracks begin at 174th Street Yard, north of Washington Heights-168th Street. A service switches to the express tracks, and C service begins on the local tracks.

At 145th Street station, the Concourse Line (<B> D) joins, with a flying junction just to the south to connect the tracks. Except during rush hours, B service begins at 145th Street; D trains switch there to the express tracks. Between the 59th Street-Columbus Circle and 50th Street stations, a flying junction connects both express and local tracks from the north to the beginning of the Sixth Avenue Line (B D) under 53rd Street, and another flying junction south of 50th Street connects the tracks from the south to the Queens Boulevard Line, also under 53rd Street (E).

South of these junctions, the line continues down Eighth Avenue to 14th Street, where it turns southeast under Greenwich Avenue to connect again with the Sixth Avenue Line (B D F V) in an eight track, two level station called West Fourth Street-Washington Square Park. At this point, local tracks of both lines interconnect south of the station in another elaborate flying junction which allows local trains of either line to continue south on either the Eighth Avenue Line to Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn or on the Sixth Avenue Line to the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. At the current time, no services transfer.

The line then continues south under Sixth Avenue (which was built as part of the subway project) and Church Street. North of Chambers Street, the local tracks form a separate but parallel line to stub-end at World Trade Center station just east of the express tracks. These tracks are now the terminal for the E train; the C train switches to the express tracks at Canal Street. The express tracks continue south and east under Fulton Street to Broadway-Nassau Street station, where the Eighth Avenue Line formally ends to become the Cranberry Street Tunnel (A C to Brooklyn).

January 23, 2005 fire

Around 2:00 pm on January 23, 2005, a fire destroyed the interlocking plant at Chambers Street. This caused restriction of A service and complete suspension of C service (which serves as a local variant of A service). Specifically, about one-third of the normal number of A trains ran. Some newspaper articles have blamed the fire on a homeless person trying to keep warm, but that has not been confirmed.

The C in Brooklyn (east of Jay Street-Borough Hall) was replaced by an extension of V service on weekdays. Note that the Eighth Avenue Line platforms at 50th Street are only served by the C, and were thus closed; the only uptown service to 50th Street was via the Queens Boulevard Line's connection (E service) into the lower level of the station.

Additionally, the A, which had formerly used the express tracks on the Eighth Avenue Line south of 168th Street-Washington Heights (where the C ended), switched to local at 145th Street, serving the two local stations that were only served by the C (155th Street and 163rd Street-Amsterdam Avenue).

The A also used the local tracks in Brooklyn, serving all stations. Direct rush-hour A trips to Rockaway Park-Beach 116th Street were suspended in favor of the always-running S (connecting Rockaway Park Shuttle).

Before the fire, from 9 PM to midnight on weekday nights, the C was the only service on the local tracks north of 59th Street-Columbus Circle; the D was switched to local to cover this. The A was switched to local service on weekends to pick up the slack. During rush hour, extra B trains were added, starting on or before January 28.

Until the morning of January 28, the MTA moved the A to the parallel Sixth Avenue Line, Rutgers Street Tunnel and Culver Line (commonly known as the F route) from West Fourth Street-Washington Square Park to Jay Street-Borough Hall between 10 PM and 5 AM, in order to perform critical repairs.

Initial estimates gave a time of three to five years to restore full service, due to the rareness of the destroyed equipment. That was later cut back to six to nine months to bring back normal operations. However, C service and 70% of A service was restored at 05:00 on Febuary 2, 2005, only ten days after the fire. The only service that remains suspended as of February 2 is rush-hour A service to Rockaway Park-Beach 116th Street, which still requires a transfer to the S Rockaway Park Shuttle.

Background

The Eighth Avenue Line, and the remainder of the IND system were built by the City of New York partly to provide modern rapid transit facilities and partly to compete with the private companies, the BMT and IRT.

A subway under Eighth Avenue was an early goal of transit planners in the city. The BMT, in particular, hoped to operate the Eighth Avenue Line as an extension of its Broadway Line, operating under Central Park West (Eighth Avenue) to the upper reaches of Manhattan. For this purpose, the express tracks north of the BMT's 57th Street station were continued north and stub-ended in anticipation of the service. These tracks have since been connected to the 63rd Street Line to Queens, with future connections to the planned Second Avenue Line to the Upper East Side of Manhattan and Harlem.

The whole line north of Chambers Street opened at midnight on the morning of September 10, 1932; the short bit under Fulton Street, connecting to the Cranberry Street Tunnel, opened on February 1, 1933.

The express tracks were always served by the A service. AA service ran local, and was renamed to K in 1987 and C in 1989.

Station listing

References

• 2 Subway Lines Crippled by Fire; Long Repair Seen (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/nyregion/25subway.html), New York Times January 25, 2005
• Subway Disruptions Expected to Last Months, Not Years (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/nyregion/26subway.html), New York Times January 26, 2005

External links

• nycsubway.org - IND 8th Avenue (http://nycsubway.org/ind/8thave/)
• MTA New York City Transit - A/C/V service update (http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/service/acv_update.htm)