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The MTA uses several different naming systems to precisely identify each part of the New York City Subway system, both internally and publicly. Some of these date back to the original operators of the system.
Current status
Each section of subway has three identifying characteristics, line, service and color. The most constant is the line. Lines are the physical railroads that services are routed over. Each section of the system is assigned a unique line name, usually paired with the division (BMT/IRT/IND). For example, the line under Eighth Avenue is the IND Eighth Avenue Line. Some lines have changed names (and even divisions), but this happens infrequently.
Many line names are not publicly used, but the MTA never stopped using traditional names internally, both for legal reasons and to describe lines, services and locations without ambiguity. Even the terms BMT, IRT and IND are still used in line, structure and building descriptions and capital contract specifications, among other uses.
Each operating service or route, usually using more than one line, has one or more letters or numbers. Each of these indicates a path that the train service uses. These are the most familiar names among the public, but may change frequently during construction, as services are rerouted to make best use of the network. Former IRT services (now known as Division A) are assigned numbers, and former BMT and IND services (now known as Division B) are assigned letters. IRT trains and tunnels are narrower, so the two do not mix in revenue service.
Each service is also assigned a color, corresponding to the downtown Manhattan trunk line it uses, or, in the case of not going through Manhattan, a separate color:
Stations usually bear street names, but may also be named after neighborhoods or prominent locations ("Brighton Beach", "Times Square") or combinations of these ("47th-50th Streets - Rockefeller Center"). Many stations share names, so to properly disambiguate a station, the line name or cross street must be given.
Terminals (the ends of lines and/or services) also usually bear street or other location names, but, especially on maps and signage, also bear the name of the local community ("Middle Village - Metropolitan Avenue").
Describing directions
Public information
Directions along a line in Manhattan or the Bronx is usually described as uptown and downtown, roughly corresponding to compass north amd south. Uptown and downtown are not always meaningful on lines in the other boroughs or on the crosstown Flushing and Canarsie Lines or downtown-only Nassau Street Line.
On the BMT system, most in-station signage specified To City and From City. Currently signs may typically read To Manhattan and To Coney Island or To Flushing (or other outer borough destination) and the train described as being city-bound or Flushing-bound. An exception is the Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn, where uptown means toward 95th Street in Bay Ridge, which is compass south, and downtown means to Downtown Brooklyn, which is compass north.
Internal usage
All New York City subway lines are deemed to run either "north" or "south." In railroad parlance, this would be described as "railroad north" and "railroad south" to distinguish from compass directions. In most cases, this is close to the related compass direction, but this is not always possible to follow.
In cases where north and south are ambiguous, as on the BMT Eastern Division, "north" may mean "toward Manhattan" and "south" away from Manhattan. It is easier to understand this if we recall that the BMT used "railroad east" and "railroad west." When the City took over in 1940, "west" became "north" and "east" became "south" on the BMT, which was fine for most of the system, but created problems on the Eastern Division BMT lines.
Where a line continues or branches from a Manhattan mainline, the railroad direction is maintained, so on the Fulton Street Line, compass west-southwest is "railroad north" and east-northeast is "railroad south." Before Unification, all BMT lines ran "railroad west" or "railroad east," railroad west being toward Manhattan.
In the U.S., most railroads have only two "railroad directions."
Background
This nomenclature has been complicated by the differing systems and cultures of the former private companies that operated parts of the system, by the need for non-ambiguous names in a city where there are stations with the same name on different lines in different locations and even different Boroughs, and by changing perceptions of the best way to communicate information to a diverse public.
Up until 1940, there were three major operators of New York subway and elevated lines, the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the Independent Subway System (ISS or ICOS before 1940, now IND).
BMT
The BMT was the inheritor of subway, elevated and surface rapid transit lines that had been built by a variety of previous operators, including steam railroads. The BMT identified most of its lines by the common names given to them, often going well back into the 19th century. Services on these lines usually had the same name as the branch line they ran on; for example, the line that the current F service runs on in Brooklyn was (and is) the Culver Line, and the BMT signed these Culver Local or Culver Express.
Partly as a result of its steam railroad history, BMT terminals were far more likely to be named after neighborhoods or towns, rather than streets, so you had trains signed for Coney Island, Canarsie or Jamaica rather than Stillwell Avenue, Rockaway Parkway and 168th Street. Stations also tended to use local names, but this gradually changed, especially as lines were upgraded, so that stations like Bath Junction on the Sea Beach Line became New Utrecht Avenue and Manhattan Terrace on the Brighton Line became Avenue J.
The BMT introduced numbers for all their services in 1924, but these were mostly for map purposes, since only a relative handful of equipment displayed line numbers, and these only on the front of the trains.
IRT
The IRT was the contractor with the City of New York to operate the first subway lines. It also took over the Manhattan Elevated lines by lease. Unlike the BMT, the IRT had multiple long mainlines (six of them) from which several branch lines extended into the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. The IRT therefore named their services for these mainlines rather than their branches. The branch lines were mentioned on the destination signs instead, to that a typical signage was Lexington Avenue Express to Woodlawn - Jerome and Utica Avenue - Brooklyn, meaning Woodlawn on the Jerome Avenue Line and Utica Avenue on the Brooklyn Line. Where a service ended in downtown Manhattan, it simply carried the destination name, South Ferry or Chatham Square for example.
IND
The IND adopted the IRT system whole but reversed the terminal and line name on the destination signs: Queens - 179th St. for 179th Street terminal on the Queens Boulevard Line. The IND's major contribution was the use of letters by a logical system for all services as follows:
Additionally, the IND introduced single letters to indicate an express service, and double letters to indicate locals. For example, the CC was the local train on the Concourse and Eighth Avenue Lines.
After Unification in 1940
When all three systems came under city ownership in 1940, essentially nothing was done to regularize signage for two decades. Stations on the IRT and BMT still said INTERBOROUGH or BMT LINES or even older designations. Services continued to be signed by their traditional methods for each system. IND and post-war ("R-type") equipment used BMT numbers when operating on BMT services. With the introduction of R12 equipment on the IRT in 1948, IRT services began using the route numbers still used today; however, these numbers had previously been assigned by the private IRT company itself, but had never been used on trains previously.
Beginning of BMT/IND service integration in 1960
In 1960, with the delivery of the first R27 class cars for the BMT, the New York City Transit Authority (TA), which became the operator of the combined system in 1953, began the introduction of letters for BMT services in anticipation of integrating the BMT and IND operationally.
Since the BMT was not amenable to the neat IND system, the TA had to make some compromises. The last IND letter used was H, and the letter I was skipped as being too similar to the number 1. The BMT Eastern Division services got the letters J, K, L and M. The BMT Southern Division services were designated N, Q, R and T. S was still reserved for "Special" and SS began to be used for shuttles. Specifically, the following letters were assigned to existing BMT services:
The TA tried to follow the IND system of single-letter expresses and double-letter locals, but the system began to break down under complex BMT routings. Where formally a local simply doubled the express letter (A Eighth Avenue Express, AA Eighth Avenue Local), compromises began to be made, so the two Brighton Local services, one via the Manhattan Bridge and the other via the Montague Street Tunnel were designated QB and QT respectively. The short-lived Sea Beach Line super-express service was made NX. The TA had no specific lettering plan for the two Wall Street special rush-hour services, so it just designated these M (Nassau Street Express) temporarily, a letter reserved for use on the Myrtle Avenue Line's Nassau Street service. For map purposes MJ was assigned to the last old-style elevated line, standing for "Myrtle Avenue Line to Jay Street."
During this period, the TA did not change sign rolls on BMT equipment (the D-types and R16s) that carried numbers, so that on the Brighton Line, the R27 operated locals were signed QB or QT but the D-type operated expresses continued to carry the number 1.
Preparation for Chrystie Street connection (1965 to 1967)
In anticipation of the 1967 opening of the Chrystie Street Connection, which combined two major BMT and IND services as single routes, the TA decided to color code all services for map and rollsign purposes. This proved a daunting task, since the TA wanted to assign different colors for each service, with the goal that, if a color was used for more than one service, no two services with the exact same color would operate into the same station.
With a lot of imagination and a lot of color variations, this goal was achieved but proved unwieldy. The colors didn't have any particular logic and still produced ambiguity; notably the A service and the E service shared miles of line between Midtown Manhattan and the Rockaway Line in Queens, one as an express, the other as a local. But the A was assigned dark blue and the E light blue, not always easily distinguishable.
After Chrystie Street
The TA decided to attempt to adopt universal systems for signage and nomenclature. This involved three major changes beyond introducing colors for services and assigning letters to the BMT routes.
- Branch line names would be eliminated from signage and maps; all services that had Manhattan mainlines would be identified by those names only;
- Services would be identified only by letters or numbers wherever possible, even when announcing reroutings
- Terminals would be identified by street names rather than community names where that existed. This had actually begun with the introduction of R-type equipment, when destinations such as Woodlawn and Canarsie were changed to read Woodlawn Road (there is no road named Woodlawn Road any more) and Rockaway Parkway.
The rationale was that this would make the system more consistent and more understandable for newcomers to the city and tourists, who were presumed to be uninterested or even confused in historic or community names, or might not be native English speakers.
The system immediately showed evidence of problems, however, for various reasons:
- Different services at common stations shared common destinations by different routes. N, B and QJ services arriving at DeKalb Avenue station, for example, all had Coney Island as a destination, but no mention of the widely separated routes (Sea Beach Line, West End Line, Brighton Line) used to get there;
- Route letters and numbers are ephemeral. The TA has frequently shifted lettered routes from one branch line to another, and introduced, changed or deleted letters, making a description like "the D Line" meaningless. The D service has been on three completely different Brooklyn branch lines since 1954. K was introduced for a service on the Broadway-Brooklyn Line but was later used for the Eighth Avenue Line local which had formerly been AA;
- The same lettered or numbered lines may have different destinations by time of day, despite a largely successful effort to minimize this problem;
- Newcomers to New York City have recently shown more interest in their neighborhoods and city history, as have long-term residents. Some people feel that the emphasis on letters and numbers for routes and lines and street names instead of communities is dehumanizing.
Color and letter changes
When Chyrstie Street opened, the TA maintained the system of having separate colors for each service on a particular line: the colors included red, blue (2 shades), green, yellow, black, orange and magenta. At one point each shuttle even had a separate color.
The resulting map, while colorful, proved difficult to follow and the colors had no particular logic. In 1979 the former color scheme was scrapped, and the TA settled on the more coherent policy of assigning the same color to every service on each Manhattan mainline, plus different colors for lines not entering Manhattan, the colors still used today.
Nevertheless, no New York subway line is referred to by its color; e.g., BMT Broadway Line services as the "Yellow Line." There are simply too many such services on too many different lines and destinations for the colors to be meaningful as line names, as in other cities.
On May 5, 1986, the last significant change in route identification policy was made after it had been decided that the single-letter, double-letter system of the original IND was no longer meaningful, given that there were many services that were express for part of their route and local for other parts. In most cases, this was accomplished by simply eliminating the second letter in a route designations. On that date, the AA became the K; the CC the C; GG the G; LL the L, RR the R, the A/CC Rockaway shuttles became the H, and shuttle trains went from SS to S. There is no longer a letter designation for specials.
In the last decade the TA has moved steadily toward using traditional line names on maps and especially on signage. All of the southern Brooklyn subway lines now show the traditional line names. On BMT/IND equipment branch line names frequently appear on operating trains, in addition the route letter. Trains on the A and Q services using R32 equipment with rolls signs, for example, read:
A | Wash Hts - 8th Ave - Fulton Express
Q | Broadway Brighton Express
One change which exceeds the pre-Unification practice has to do with the use of locality names. Where these were discouraged during the 1960s where they had been inherited from private operators, virtually all terminal stations are described by both a community and a street name; i.e., Inwood-207th Street for the northern destination of the A service; Wakefield-241st Street for the northern desination of the 2 service.
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