There is no "red line" OR the Bostonification of the NYC subway

In My Humble Opinion
1

I considered putting this in the Pit, but I decided it was too tame and too regional. Hell, it would probably get pitted itself.

I’ve been noticing a repulsive trend here in NYC as more and more non-natives squeeze out the locals. People have started calling the subway lines by color, like they do in Boston, and perhaps elsewhere.

Now it’s true that our lines are marked in different colors on the official subway map, but never – I mean *never * – have they been designated by management or riders as the “Blue Line” or the “Orange Line,” etc.

We call our subway lines by letters or numbers, or, if you’re an oldtimer or a really hardcore NYCer, by the old IRT-, BMT- and IND-era line names (like The Sea Beach Line, The West End, The Brighton Line, etc.).

Whenever someone asks me how to get to the “Red Line” I want to say, “Go to the airport and buy a ticket to Boston. And stay there until you’re ready to get a clue here in NYC!”

Thoughts?

2

Anything that helps those non natives get around without killing themselves is a welcome change. I have used the NYC subway system since 1960 and recently looked up to find myself in the wrong boro! It is a very difficult system to navigate, a point that was brought home to me when I visited London and was able to navigate the underground easily (I was also approached by friendly people offering directions if I so much as opened a map, as opposed to being told to “go to the airport & buy a ticket to Manchester”). Not that I am questioning your right to be a cranky New Yorker. If there weren’t cranky New Yorkers, there wouldn’t be any New Yorkers at all.

I haven’t heard this “Red Line” business myself, but I am willing to give it a chance.

3

As someone who frequents NY semiweekly at least, I suspect the problem is not with “non-natives” per se as with pansified English-speaking yuppie scumbags. A person who can be reasonably assumed to have emigrated from a rank shithole can ask a NYer directions pretty much anywhere and not get cranked at.

4

DC also had a red line. We’re getting it from North & South.

But I have never heard this myself. You might want to gently educate it is not a good way to describe the subways – just within “red” for instance (1,2,& 3) the different line numbers actually go to different places, some are express and some are local.

5

I haven’t heard it either, actually. And I ride the red line. Okay, okay it’s the freakin’ 2, but whatever.

Then again, whenever I’ve seen someone staring at the little map in the train with a baffled expression, I’ve also seen someone or another (myself occasionally) start giving them advice how to get to wherever-it-is they’re going. Sometimes more than one person at the same time. With different advice.

I’m not sure that’s helpful, actually.

6

Just a hijack to mention that once again last night I had a subway nightmare. I haven’t lived there in eight years but I still dream about having to catch the 2 train and for whatever reason I simply can’t get to my destination: long convoluted path to the 2 train (while the other lines are right in front of me), it ends up where it shouldn’t, I lose my tokens (although last night it was the Metrocard so I guess I have updated my psyche), I fly out the window of the train, etc… It’s my most common recurring drezm, after the student nightmare.

7

I’m a native New Yorker, and I must confess that I think of the 1,2, and 3 as the “Red Lines,” and may have even given directions that way. On the other hand, as a native of the 6, I never think of it and the 4 and 5 as the “Green Lines,” perhaps because the G is light green.

Have you heard kind of color description with regard to any lines but the 1,2, and 3?

8

Hey, in NY, help is as much about the helper as the helpee.

9

Seriously? You want to get your undies in a twist over this?

10

To continue the hijack: I also had a New York transportation dream last night. (However, this was upstate NY, and it involved driving through towns with marble streets [no, paved with marble, not marbles, which would really be a nightmare]).

And this one town had one of those trick paintings that makes you think it’s part of the builkding but really isn’t, except that inside that painting was a painting of another building with a trick painting in it. And then I passed the building depicted in the other painting, and it had a trick painting on it! And so on and so forth until I at last passed by a building with only a regular painting on it.

This hijack brought to you by the Subway line 3 and the Color Red.

11

You just have to love NYC; full of people who think the city is the center of the Universe and everyone who isn’t attuned to its peculiarities must be some hayseed from West Fatback, AK. Next to Paris, France, it’s one of the most provincial, snobbishly supercilious metropolitan areas on the face of the planet. Oddly enough (and again like Paris), once you get outside of its domains and suburbs the people become a lot more friendly and helpful.

Personally, as a favorite American Big City, I’ll take Chicago, bad weather, insane drivers and all.

Stranger

12

My favorite NYC subway-related movie, BTW is The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three. It’s kind of a prototype to Die Hard, with Walter Mattheau in the Bruce Willis role. The dialogue alone is priceless: “Screw the goddamn passengers! What the hell did they expect for their lousy 35 cents - to live forever?”

My apologies to those minority of New Yorkers who are affable, polite, and helpful. (I wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of Eve or Colibri. :wink: )

Stranger

13

I have only visited New York once, and I found the subway system to be completely baffling. (Seriously, explain to me why some of the trains have letters and some have numbers.) On the rare occasion I have voiced this opinion, I have been shouted down that it’s really simple, I must be a moron. I am so glad to see someone else agree with me. For comparison, I found the Paris Metro to be significantly easier to navigate than the New York subways, and I don’t speak a word of French.

BTW, Chicago has a Red Line, too.

14

  1. This non-east-coaster thinks Chicago when he hears “Red Line.”

  2. Chill.

15

No we don’t.

See location

16

My favorite reference was the opening credits for NYPD Blue when the 2 train emerges from underground. Every morning, heading from Allerton Avenue down underground, and every afternoon waiting for when we emerged into open air again–aaah.

17

The reason that Boston and Washington can use colors is that they have just a few lines. New York subways seem complicated because they are complicated. On the plus side, having grown up riding them, any other subway system is easy.

BART by the way doesn’t use colors, but rather destinations.

BTW, Tom Lehrer had a song about the Boston Red line - not on any CDs I know, but quoted in the second volume (near the beginning) of Isaac Asimov’s first autobiography.

18

No, the NYC subway system is very complicated. However, it offers comprehensive coverage to nearly every part of NYC, AND it runs 24/7, and you can’t say that about any other system in the US, or any European system that I’m aware of (London closes the Underground at midnight? wtf?) Therefor, it is the Greatest :slight_smile:

There is a functional difference between the lettered and numbered lines. The numbered lines (built by the Interborough Rapid Transit company and known to die-hards as the IRT) runs on a different, narrower track gauge than the lettered lines (built by the Brooklyn-Manhattan transit Co. (BMT letters H-Z) and the Independent Rapid Transit Co. (IND – letters A-G). Therefor, when re-routing of a train occurs, the “lettered” trains cannot be rerouted onto “numbered” track. There are also relatively few direct transfer points between the two groups – they are almost coexisting subsystems. This is also why the cars of the “numbered” have a different interior configuration.

It seems to me the letter/number signifier is important to the operators, more so than the users, since the lines are not functionally interchangable.

19

Short answer: Because there aren’t enough single letters or one-digit numbers for all of them.

Long answer: What is now the NYC subway was built by three (or four, depending on how you look at it) separate organizations, some of which were formed by mergers of existing railroads and trolley lines all over the city. The first underground line in Manhattan was built by the IRT company, and soon after their competition, the BMT, started building lines as well. The BMT built their tunnels wider and their cars longer, so they could not inter-operate with the IRT system. (Although they all used the same standard North American track gauge of four feet eight and a half inches.)

Later, the city-owned IND system was built with the same loading gauges as the BMT, so the two could inter-operate. When the City acquired the IRT and the BMT to run the whole system, the former IRT lines were called “Division A” and the former BMT and IND lines were designated “Division B.” With the completion of the Chrystie Street Connection, Division B can operate as one large system, while Division A remains separate. (Although there are track connections between the two, such as those at Queensboro Plaza.)

The city-run system went through a number of changes in nomenclature and map design, but in the current system, Division A lines use numbers, and Division B lines use letters. (An exception is shuttle lines, always given the designation “S,” even the 42nd Street Shuttle which is really part of the IRT. Internally, that line is actually called #8.)

The colors are determined by which Manhattan trunk line a given train service connects to. (There are also three colors that don’t have Manhattan trunk lines.)

Red: 7th Ave IRT
Green: Lexington Ave IRT
Orange: Sixth Ave IND
Blue: Eighth Ave IND
Yellow: Broadway BMT
Purple: Flushing Line IRT
Gray: Canarsie Line BMT
Light green: Brooklyn-Queens Crosstown IND (this is the only service that doesn’t touch Manhattan.)

Now that you know the Big Secret, you can more easily decipher some things. The reason why the Q changed from orange to yellow, for example, is because the Coney Island/Stillwell Ave line in Brooklyn changed routings due to construction on the Manhattan Bridge, and now connects to the Broadway BMT instead of the Sixth Ave IND in Manhattan.

The 2, 3, 4, and 5, despite being half-green and half-red, all run on the same tracks after Nevins Street in Brooklyn, (and then split again after Franlkin Ave.)

The E, F and G lines all run together on Queens Blvd, but the E and F connect to different lines in Manhattan and the G goes straight to Brooklyn, so they’re different colors.

A letter or number designation is properly called a “service,” although most people will use the terms “line” or “train” even though that’s not entirely accurate. A service is made up of routings on several lines. Some examples:

The Q service:

  1. Starts at Coney Island in Brooklyn,
  2. Operates on the Brighton Beach line in Brooklyn,
  3. Connects to the BMT Broadway line (thus earning its yellow color) via the Manhattan Bridge,
  4. Terminates at 57th Street in Manhattan.

The B service

  1. Starts at Brighton Beach in Brooklyn,
  2. Operates on the same Brighton Beach line as the Q, but on the express tracks instead of the local,
  3. Connects to the IND Sixth Ave line via the Manhattan Bridge and the Chrystie Street Connection (thus it is orange),
  4. Connects to the IND Eighth Ave line at Columbus Circle (an oddity),
  5. Branches off to the IND Concourse Line in the Bronx,
  6. Terminates at Norwood Ave.
20

The track gauges are the same – it’s the loading gauges (the size of the actual cars, and therefore the width of the tunnels and minimum distance between parallel sets of tracks) that are different.