IND Queens Boulevard Line
The routes experience frequent overcrowding during weekdays, and the Queens Boulevard Line has among the highest rush-hour train frequencies in the system.
[3] Just after curving north under the Van Wyck Expressway, a flying junction joins the two-track Archer Avenue Line (E train) to the local and express tracks.
Near Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue, an abandoned trackless tunnel for the IND Second System branches off into an unused upper part of the station which is used for storage.
[12] The R enters Queens Boulevard from the Broadway Line and the 60th Street Tunnel before making local stops to Forest Hills–71st Avenue at all times except late nights.
[18] The proposed route via Kew Gardens Road was supported by Queens Borough President Maurice Connolly because it would have served Richmond Hill as well.
[28] From the mezzanine at Union Turnpike, an entrance was built from the Interboro Parkway, allowing passengers from buses and automobiles to be dropped off here instead of from Queens Boulevard.
In addition, Delaney submitted the capital outlay program for the year, which called for the completion of the extension of the line to 177th Street and Hillside Avenue on January 1, 1935.
[37][38] The construction of the Queens Boulevard subway line offered the possibility of quick commutes to the central business district in Midtown Manhattan.
In the late 1920s, speculators, upon learning the route of the proposed line, quickly bought up property on and around Queens Boulevard, and real estate prices soared, and older buildings were demolished in order to make way for new development.
[41] They built apartment buildings in order to accommodate the influx of residents from Midtown Manhattan that would desire a quick and cheap commute to their jobs.
[31] With the introduction of the subway, Forest Hills and Kew Gardens were transformed from quiet residential communities of one-family houses to active population centers.
To allow the subway line to curve into Queens Boulevard from Broadway, the northeast corner of the two streets was removed, in addition to some stores and an old Presbyterian chapel.
[48] The first section of the line, west from Roosevelt Avenue to 50th Street, opened on August 19, 1933 at 12:01 a.m.[22] E trains ran local to Hudson Terminal (today's World Trade Center) in Manhattan, while the GG (predecessor to current G service) ran as a shuttle service between Queens Plaza and Nassau Avenue on the IND Crosstown Line.
[54] On January 21, 1935, BOT Chairman John Delaney said that express service in Queens would not begin until construction on the proposed IND Sixth Avenue Line was completed.
The LIRR had said that it anticipated a loss of annual revenue between $750,000 and $1 million with the opening of the extension of the Queens Boulevard Line to Jamaica.
[58] In April 1936, William Jerome Daly, the secretary of the BOT, stated, in response to requests for a stop at 178th Street, that constructing a station at that location would prevent express service from operating past Continental Avenue.
The World's Fair line ran via a connection through the Jamaica Yard and through Flushing Meadows–Corona Park along the current right-of-way of the Van Wyck Expressway.
As a result, on January 30, 1941, Councilman James A. Burke proposed extending the line one stop to a temporary station at 178th Street to the Transit Commission at a conference on the issue of slow bus service.
[89] On October 22, 1946, it was revealed that work on the extension might begin in early November as the BOT prepared to award the contract to Van Wagner Construction Company, which submitted a low bid of $5,284,888.
[97] Because local service was only offered by the GG trains which only ran into Brooklyn, riders were forced to transfer at express stations to reach Manhattan.
Fifteen years later, on December 1, 1955, a connection to the 60th Street Tunnel opened, allowing trains from the BMT Broadway Line to serve Queens Boulevard as an additional local from 71st−Continental.
The third option was expected to help 13,880 people at former local stops with the introduction of direct express service, while lengthening trips by three minutes for 30,010 riders at Parsons Boulevard and 179th Street.
The new peak-hour V train was created to replace the F via 53rd Street while running local on Queens Boulevard, requiring the truncation of the G to Court Square during weekdays.
[136] The automation of the Queens Boulevard Line means that the E, F, and
[140]: 15 The 2015–2019 Capital Program was revised in April 2018 to fund to the design for the expedited installation of the Queens Boulevard Line east of Kew Gardens–Union Turnpike, the second phase.
[143] On March 17, 2023, New York City Transit made adjustments to evening and late night E, F and R service to accommodate long-term CBTC installation on the Queens Boulevard Line between Union Turnpike and 179th Street, which requires using the express tracks west of Forest Hills to be used for overnight train storage.
[147] The line would have gone at least to the intersection of Hillside, Springfield Boulevard and Braddock Avenue (the latter two both formerly part of Rocky Hill Road) in Queens Village, with later plans to go as far as Little Neck Parkway in Bellerose near the Nassau County border.
[49][110] The 63rd Street tunnel would have facilitated service between the Queens Boulevard line and the Second Avenue Subway, via bellmouths west of Roosevelt Island which turn south towards Midtown and Lower Manhattan.
[149][160] Later proposals suggested routing the bypass directly to the Archer Avenue line via the LIRR Montauk Branch (which no longer has passenger service).
The subway tracks would have been placed under the expressway or its service roads, or in the median of a widened LIE in a similar manner to the Congress Branch of the Chicago "L".
