BMT Canarsie Line


The BMT Canarsie Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway system, named after its terminus in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn. It is served by the L train at all times, which is shown in on the New York City Subway map and on station signs.
The line is part of the BMT Eastern Division, and is occasionally referred to as the Eastern District Line. This refers to Williamsburg, which was described as Brooklyn's "Eastern District" when the City of Williamsburg was annexed by the former City of Brooklyn. This was the location where the original Brooklyn subway portions of the line were laid out. Only later was the line connected to the tracks leading to Canarsie. Eastern District High School, near the line's Grand Street station, had preserved this toponym until it was closed in 1996, later reopened as Grand Street Educational Campus.
The Canarsie Line was first a steam railroad, then a Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, later Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, elevated line. It was extended into Manhattan via subway in 1924–1928. Since the early 2000s, the line's signal system has been converted to an automated system. The Manhattan section of the line was partially closed during off-peak hours from early 2019 to April 2020 to allow for a renovation of the 14th Street Tunnel, which the line uses to cross the East River.

Extent and service

Services that use the Canarsie Line are colored. The following service uses all of the Canarsie Line:
Time periodSection of line
All timesEntire line

The Canarsie Line runs from Eighth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan to Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie, Brooklyn. It is double-tracked along its entire length, except for short stretches of layup track in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The current line is a two-track subway from its Manhattan terminal to Broadway Junction in the East New York section of Brooklyn, with the exception of a short stretch at Wilson Avenue where it is a double-decked structure with the southbound track outdoors directly above the indoor, ground-level northbound track. Although the northbound track appears to be underground, it is in fact outdoors at ground-level for there are no stairs leading from the northbound platform to the station entrance at the dead-end of Wilson Avenue, southeast of Moffat Street. This is due to the line being pressed directly against the New York Connecting Railroad, which is pressed directly against the border of Trinity Cemetery. There are no express tracks on the Canarsie line; thus, all trains run local service throughout their route. However, in the past, express service has been run between Lorimer Street and Myrtle Avenue by skipping stops via the local tracks. This last operated in August 1956.
Just before Broadway Junction, the line emerges onto an elevated structure, passing over the BMT Jamaica Line. Between Broadway Junction and Atlantic Avenue are the Canarsie Line's only track connections to the rest of the system, via flyover ramps connecting the Canarsie line to the Jamaica Line and East New York Yard. The Canarsie Line used to share the structure at Atlantic Avenue with the connection from the Broadway and Fulton Street elevated lines to the Liberty Avenue Elevated.
East of Pitkin Avenue, the Canarsie Line enters the two-track elevated structure on which the line was originally grade-separated in 1906, entering Sutter Avenue station. At the next station, Livonia Avenue, the Livonia Avenue Elevated of the IRT New Lots Line passes overhead, and just beyond this point is a single track connection to the Linden Shops, which is now a track and structures facility. Besides the connection at Broadway Junction, this non-electrified yard connection is the only other connection to the rest of the subway system, as it is indirectly a connection to the New Lots Line. B Division-sized equipment cannot access this line, however, because of A Division width restrictions.
Beyond the next station, New Lots Avenue, the elevated structure ends, and an incline brings the Canarsie down to the original 1865 surface right-of-way, the second-oldest such right-of-way on the New York City Transit Authority system. The line operates on this ground-level route to the end of the line at Rockaway Parkway.
As with other BMT Eastern Division lines, the Canarsie Line can accommodate trains with eight or eight cars. Due to the narrow turning radiuses of the lines, cars could not be used on the Eastern Division. All platforms on the Canarsie Line are at least long, but only one station, Sixth Avenue, can accommodate trains without the need for extensions. Additionally, about half of stations on the Canarsie Line can fit trains with nine 60-foot-long cars, though the front and back ends of the trains would overshoot the platform at many of these stations.

History

Steam and elevated era

Before becoming a BRT elevated line in 1906, the Canarsie Line operated as a steam dummy line. It was first owned by the Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad, chartered December 24, 1863, and opened October 21, 1865, from the Long Island Rail Road in East New York to a pier at Canarsie Landing, very close to the current junction of Rockaway Parkway and the Belt Parkway, where ferries continued on to Rockaway. North of New Lots Avenue, the line served as part of the New York, Brooklyn and Manhattan Beach Railway; the B&RB owned the section of that line between Jefferson Street and East New York, though this section was solely operated by the NYB&MB. The line was single-tracked until 1894.
The Canarsie Railroad was chartered on May 8, 1906, as a BRT subsidiary and acquired the line on May 31, 1906. The line was partly elevated, and electrified with third rail on the elevated part and trolley wire on the rest, south of New Lots Avenue. The Long Island Rail Road, which had used the line north of New Lots to access their Bay Ridge Branch, built a new line just to the west, and acquired the rest of the line north from there. The East New York terminus was extended several blocks along a section of line formerly used for "East New York Loop" service to the Fulton Street Elevated and the Broadway Elevated, at a point known as Manhattan Junction.
Service first ran on July 28, 1906, from Canarsie Landing to the Broadway Ferry at the foot of Broadway in Williamsburg, at the East River. This route still exists as the BMT Jamaica Line, except for the last piece to the East River, where the Jamaica Line runs over the Williamsburg Bridge. The route was later extended over the bridge and along the BMT Nassau Street Line to Canal Street and then Chambers Street.

Dual Contracts rebuilding

The Dual Contracts subway expansion scheme was formalized in early 1913, specifying new lines or expansions to be built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and the BRT. It saw the rebuilding of the complex train junction at Manhattan Junction into an even more complex flyover junction now known as Broadway Junction. The expansion extended south to the point at which the Canarsie and Fulton Street Elevateds diverged, including a six-track, three-platform station at Atlantic Avenue. The complex was rebuilt under traffic and opened in stages, reaching completion in 1919.
At the same time, the BRT moved to eliminate remaining operations that required elevated trains to operate under overhead wire. In most cases this meant using third rail on fully grade-separated lines. When third rail was extended on the Canarsie Line it was decided to extend this power mode only as far as the important station at Rockaway Parkway and Glenwood Road. Beyond that point, frequent grade crossings made third rail impractical. This portion of the line was converted to the Canarsie Shuttle using elevated cars in October 1917 and converted to trolley cars on October 18, 1920.
One grade crossing was retained at East 105th Street despite the third rail, and was the last public rapid transit grade crossing in New York City. It was closed by 1973 as part of the Flatlands Industrial Park project, which was built on either side of the ground-level Canarsie Line. A pedestrian overpass above the tracks was built to replace the grade crossing.

14th Street–Eastern Line

Initial subway

The Dual Contracts also called for a subway line initially known as the 14th Street–Eastern District Line, usually shortened to 14th Street–Eastern Line. The line would run beneath 14th Street in Manhattan, from Sixth Avenue under the East River and through Williamsburg to Montrose and Bushwick Avenues in Brooklyn. In late 1915, the Public Service Commission began receiving bids for the construction of the 14th Street Line. Booth and Flinn was awarded the first contract for the line—section 3, comprising the tunnel under the East River—on January 13, 1916. At the time, the Public Service Commission was completing plans for the rest of the line.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 8, 1916. The commission began accepting bids for the next two sections of the line, sections 1 and 2 in Manhattan, in April 1916. The next month, the commission reviewed bids for section 4, running from Bedford Avenue to Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn; Mason and Hanger submitted a low bid of $1.847 million for this section. The commission also reviewed bids for section 1, awarding a contract for that section to Booth and Flinn. That June, the Degnon Construction Company received a $1.972 million contract to construct section 2 of the line, from Irving Place to Avenue B in Manhattan. MacArthur Brothers Co. received a $1.336 million contract for the construction of section 5 in Brooklyn.
The 14th Street Tunnel under the East River had been fully excavated by August 1919. The line's opening was delayed by several years. In 1922, Mayor John Francis Hylan blocked some construction contracts, claiming that the costs were excessively high. The Station Finish Corporation was contracted to build the stations in Brooklyn and the Charles H. Brown & Son Corporation was contracted to build the stations in Manhattan. Track-laying in the tunnels between Sixth and Montrose Avenues started in the last week of October 1922.
Due to the city's failure to approve the section of the line between Montrose Avenue and East New York, the 14th Street/Eastern Line was initially isolated from the rest of the system. In 1924, a temporary connection was built from the Long Island Rail Road 's Bushwick Yard that ran via Montrose Avenue and then connected to the 14th Street/Eastern Line under Bushwick Avenue just near the Montrose Avenue station. This was done to allow the delivery of BMT Standard subway cars. The first of the cars were delivered by this ramp on June 20, 1924. On June 30, 1924, the section between Sixth Avenue in Manhattan and Montrose Avenue in Brooklyn opened. The terminal in Brooklyn was close to the Bushwick station of the Long Island Rail Road's Bushwick Branch. Initial service was provided by three-car trains running every seven and a half minutes. The line collected 9,196 fares in its first day of operation, which constituted its entire ridership for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1924. Ridership rose from 15 million in fiscal 1925 to 23 million in fiscal 1928.