David Rosenstein's Blog

McDonald Ave is the name of the station that will connect the IBX to the (lower) Culver Line, via the F train.

Much like the 4th Ave line, the existing station locations here are pretty terrible for an IBX connection. In fact, I don’t think these stations could be placed worse even if you tried, so that’s some impressive work by the BRT (especially since the Bay Ridge Branch that defines the right of way the IBX is running on predates the Culver line’s conversion from a street running line into an elevated line, but I digress). This is going to make having a seemless connection here difficult, but I have two ideas for improvement here that I am excited to share.

However before we start I just want to point out something important: I think this is one of the less important transfer options in Brooklyn. Lower Culver, the set of stations that are most likely to be positivly impacted by this project, are known for having some of the lesser used stations on the entire network. Riders seem to prefer to take the D, N, Q, and B trains, likely because of express service and/or better connections. In addition to all the of that, the F train runs insanely slow in Brooklyn, with stops that are under 1000 ft apart. In comparison, 14 st and 18 st on the 1, a set of stations complained about endlessly, are 1015 ft apart. There is a case that the IBX may induce demand on the F train, as potential riders who want to go somewhere on the IBX might want to take the F instead of the D or N because it will connect to the IBX closer to their final destination, but that is a pretty fluky basis for predicting higher ridership compared to the more real potential of serving under served neighborhoods and providing new connections.

Base Case: OSI down McDonald Ave

When I was first going through all the stations for this project, I was under the impression that this would be the worst connection planned on the IBX, and that it wasn’t really getting attention because of the lower ridership on lower Culver. Until I ran this Google Maps query and realized that the walk between them would be… two minutes

(note there is already an entrance around that point that could be used, despite what Google Map will tell you)

The BRT really built something special here… Due to the excessive number of stops on lower Culver, we are actually fine with an OSI here. It would be a shorter interchange than some in system transfers (like 1/2/3 to L), so I really can’t complain about this one. The one suggestion I have for this that OSI’s should be provided in both directions – to both 18 Ave and Ave I on F. This would provide a slight convenience bump for Lower Culver riders to get off a stop early, likely saving them a minute on their journey. It isn’t much, but people don’t like backtracking if they don’t have to.

Option 1: Station Consolidation

Ok but isn’t the spacing between these stations like… really dumb? Why are these two stations so close to each other? It clearly has nothing to do with capacity, as in 2023 both these stations were in the bottom third of subway stations by ridership, with Ave I nearing the bottom 20. Why not kill two birds with one stone here? We can combine the two stops into one centered around the IBX, providing a better in system transfer while also lessening the number stops on one of the longest local-only sections in the entire system.

I located the station closer to 18th Ave, because it sees the higher ridership of the two stations. I am going to call this new station Foster Ave. Lets do a full impact profile of this station consolidation. First let’s look at 18th Ave riders. 18th Ave riders who relied on the South entrance will see no impact. This is because the north entrance of Foster Ave is located in the exact same spot as the south entrance of 18 ave. 18th Ave riders who relied on the northern entrance of 18th ave will see an increase of up to 3 min to their walk, which is fairly minimal. For most it will probably be less as they can use the diagonal nature of the roads in the area to make the difference near 0. Ave I riders will see a slightly greater impact. Riders using the northern entrance will see an up to 2 min increase to their walk, which is not too worrying. However, users of the southern entrance could see up to 5 min added to their walks which is more concerning. To address these folks, I would also suggest the addition of staircases on the northern side of the Bay Pkwy station. These would be a shorter walk than the new Foster Ave station (up to 4 min from the existing southern entrance) and would probably do a better job covering the biggest losers of this plan.

While the long term effects of this plan are pretty minimal, it is the cost and short term effects of this plan that has me cautious about making it my actual suggestion. While I don’t think the cost will be particularly high for this station, likely in the hundreds of millions range, it still would have a significant impact on the overall IBX bill for something that is definitively a “nice to have”. More worryingly though is the short term impact of building this. It would essentially completely break the F train in Brooklyn to build this. What I think the MTA would have to do is cut the F train back to 18 Ave station (having many of them turn around at Church Ave as well!!), completely stop service between 18 Ave and Kings Highway, and run a shuttle service between Kings Highway and Coney Island. This service change would probably be for months too as the MTA has to essentially destroy and rebuild the existing structure between these two stations to allow for island platforms here (I have island platforms here for a reason and this would still need to be done with side platforms because of the curved track in this area). Again, all of this for something that is far from necessary. I just have a hard time justifying it. Maybe in the future when the current F stations need to be refurbished we can revisit this idea, but for now I think I prefer the base case.

Bonus: An extension to the G

Regardless of which option is chosen we will now have an island platform, 3 track station located right near the main transfer station to the IBX here. This means that we could turn around trains here! Since the G train already interlines with the F train and provides additional service to the more used upper Culver section (and Crosstown service that is otherwise not connected to the IBX!) and ends only two stops away at Church Ave, I think it is a prime candidate to be extended to 18 Ave (or Foster Ave in Option 1). F trains that need to turn around early will still be able to at Kings Highway, and to my knowledge no F trains currently turn around at 18 Ave, so this really shouldn’t have a major impact on operations and seems like a no brainer to me.

Conclusion

Long story short, the current presumed option of an OSI is fine. Given the lower ridership on Culver and the acceptable state of the current transfer, I don’t think its worth it to develop anything better. If you do want to, station consolidation is the name of the game, but that would require a pretty major service disruption on the F line. And finally, a G extension would be a nice touch to make the connections of the IBX even better.