New York City Subway nomenclature
Each section of the system is assigned a unique line name, usually paired with its original operating company or division: Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), Independent Subway System (IND).
Internally, the MTA also uses the names, both for legal reasons and to describe lines, services and locations without ambiguity.
Although the three major subway systems are now unified, the terms BMT, IRT and IND are still used in line, structure and building descriptions and capital contract specifications.
These are the most familiar names among the public, but may change frequently during construction or as services are rerouted to make best use of the network.
Diamond service operated on the BMT Brighton Line while the north side of the Manhattan Bridge was closed for repairs from 2001 to 2004.
It is sometimes used for special holiday trains,[7][8] baseball game service,[9] or for emergency or custom routes.
Others are named after major destinations, either along with the street names (e.g., "68th Street–Hunter College" for Hunter College, "81st Street–Museum of Natural History" for American Museum of Natural History) or in some cases without (e.g., "Pelham Bay Park" for Pelham Bay Park, "Borough Hall" for Brooklyn Borough Hall).
[15] Additionally, Willets Point–Shea Stadium on the other hand was renamed Mets–Willets Point because the MTA could not reach a deal with the Mets organization.
[17] Directions along a line in Manhattan or the Bronx are usually described as uptown and downtown, roughly corresponding to compass north and south.
Up until 1940, there were three major operators of New York subway and elevated lines, the privately owned Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the privately owned Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the municipally-owned Independent Subway System (ISS or ICOS before 1940, now IND).
The BMT was the inheritor of subway, elevated and surface rapid transit lines that had been built in Brooklyn and Queens by a variety of previous operators, mainly surface steam railroads to Coney Island and elevated railroads in more populated areas.
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 trains were signed for Coney Island, Canarsie and Jamaica rather than Stillwell Avenue, Rockaway Parkway and 168th Street.
The IRT was the contractor with the City of New York to operate the first subway line; by that time it was already leasing all the elevated railways in Manhattan.
Unlike the BMT, the IRT had multiple long mainlines (eventually six of them) from which several branch lines extended into the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.
Where a service ended in downtown Manhattan, it simply carried the destination name, for example South Ferry or Chatham Square.
Due to the lack of new IRT construction, this system has largely stayed intact to this day, with the only major changes being at the Brooklyn end.
The IND also adopted a similar logical labeling system, but used them publicly on trains and maps.
Unlike the IRT labels, the IND letters no longer follow the original pattern; the uptown branches of the B and C services have been switched via a complex process that involved the former AA eventually becoming the C and the B moving to the Concourse Line.
A more likely theory suggests that it was originally planned for the last segment of Culver service to Manhattan, which was cut back to a shuttle permanently in 1959, right before the letters were introduced.
For instance the two Brighton Local services, one via the Manhattan Bridge and the other via the Montague Street Tunnel, were designated QB and QT respectively.
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.
In anticipation of the 1967 opening of the Chrystie Street Connection, which combined two major BMT and IND services as single routes and resulted in numerous other changes (especially on the 14 and 15), the TA decided to adopt universal systems of signage and nomenclature.
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 in or even confused by historic or community names, or might not be native English speakers.
On May 5, 1985, the last significant change in route identification policy was made after the TA had decided in 1981 that the single and 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.
On BMT/IND equipment, branch line names frequently appear on operating trains, in addition to the route letter.
The JFK Express, started in 1978 and discontinued in 1990, used a turquoise bullet with an airplane symbol; this stayed through the color change.
One major push has been an attempt to have as many services as possible serve the same stations, routes and terminals at all times, with the major exception for most services being the early morning hours of approximately midnight to 5 a.m. For instance, the B and C swapped northern terminals in 1998 so the C could serve the entire local portion of the IND Eighth Avenue Line at all times except nights; previously, the A had made two local stops north of 145th Street on weekends, while being express on the whole line south of 145th Street, because the B did not operate in Manhattan on weekends.
This enabled the D, a full-time service, to operate continuously on the same route and terminals from Norwood–205th Street in the Bronx to Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn, while the part-time B became the part-time Brighton Express service, formerly served by the express (notated with a diamond).
