BMT Broadway Line - Extent and Service

Extent and Service

The BMT Broadway Line begins at the 60th Street Tunnel from Queens. It runs west as a two-track subway line under 60th Street (east of Fifth Avenue) and 59th Street (west of Fifth Avenue), with stations at Lexington Avenue / 59th Street and Fifth Avenue / 59th Street. It then turns south to Seventh Avenue into the local tracks at 57th Street – Seventh Avenue. This segment of the line carries the N Q services from the BMT Astoria Line and the R service from the IND Queens Boulevard Line.

At the 57th Street station, the line joins two express tracks that enter the station from the north via the BMT 63rd Street Line. There is no scheduled BMT service on the 63rd Street Line at present. The BMT 63rd Street Line will carry the Q service across 63rd Street and up the proposed Second Avenue Line. The express tracks at 57th Street are currently used as terminal tracks for the Q train on late nights and weekends.

The BMT Broadway Line proceeds as a four-track subway down Seventh Avenue to its intersection with Broadway, and then continues down Broadway to a point north of Canal Street, where the express tracks carrying the N Q services descend and turn sharply east into the Canal Street (formerly Broadway) station of the BMT Broadway – Manhattan Bridge Line.

Immediately after Canal Street, the express tracks resume again (originally they had been intended to run through) and serve as storage and turning tracks, bypassing the Canal Street local station and ending in the disused lower level of City Hall. The local tracks continue south as a two-track subway to Whitehall Street – South Ferry station. Whitehall Street – South Ferry is a three track, two-platform station, with the center track set up as a terminal track, formerly used as the south terminal for now defunct W service. Now, the center track is currently only used during service disruptions. A pair of bellmouths exists here, allowing for a connection to a never-built East River tunnel south of the Montague Street Tunnel. It has been proposed to use this as part of the Lower Manhattan – Jamaica/JFK Transportation Project, connecting to the Court Street station (New York Transit Museum) in Brooklyn.

The BMT Broadway Line then curves east carrying the N R trains to a trailing junction with the BMT Nassau Street Line (no regular service trains) and enters the Montague Street Tunnel to Brooklyn.