Jamaica Bottleneck Editorial
I just stumbled upon a short editorial written in the Newsday relating to the Jamaica bottleneck that the Long Island Railroad plans to fix. No writer was listed but here is the short editorial anyway:
Jamaica sprint
Anybody who has crawled ever so slowly into the LIRR’s Jamaica station – especially after a speedy express from, say, Huntington – will happily greet the news: This quick-trip killer is going to be removed (although it will take six years to do it). One way to deal with our energy problem is to get more commuters onto trains and out of their cars. But that will only happen if commuters know they can make better time on the train.
No Hitching
Once those LIRR passengers get into the city, they should be sure to stay safe on the subways – by riding inside the cars. A 23-year-old was killed this week after he attempted to hitch a ride on the outside of a C train. It was the second subway-surfing incident in as many months to get attention, though there are likely many other daredevils who tempt fate this way. The MTA is right to keep up its efforts to cut down the practice.
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East of the Jamaica Station platforms, between the ramps that lead the Atlantic Division track down and southeast towards Locust Manor, are 2 dead end tail tracks.
At least one of these tracks could be connected by a new short trestle over 150th Street to the other Main Line and Babylon tracks east of Jamaica.
This would lessen the bottleneck where the tracks approaching Jamaica from eastern Queens & LI, converge into only 2 tracks.
This would give the LIRR a critical 3rd track for west bound trains entering Jamaica, without crossing trains onto tracks usually used for east bound service.
This extension and trestle (bridge) over 150th Street could be done at relatively low cost, all on existing LIRR property, probably with little or no environmental impact after construction.
Near the LIRR Main Line station at Floral Park there is an old unused trestle (bridge) which was from an old decommissioned branch freight line.
That trestle could be moved to 150th Street after the proper sight construction created the new, or strengthened foundation, for this track.