BMT Fourth Avenue Line

BMT Fourth Avenue Line
D, N and R trains are the primary service at most BMT Fourth Avenue Line stations. At one station is also served by B and Q trains, in normal conditions.
Overview
Type	Rapid transit line
System	New York City Subway
Status	Operational
Locale	Brooklyn, New York City, NY
Termini	Court Street Bay Ridge – 95th Street
Stations	16
Operation
Opened	1915-1925
Owner	New York City
Operator(s)	New York City Transit Authority
Character	Underground
Technical
Number of tracks	2-6
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ^1⁄2 in)
Electrification	600V DC third rail

The Fourth Avenue Line is a rapid transit line of the BMT division of the New York City Subway, mainly running under Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. Fourth Avenue never had a streetcar line or elevated railway due to the provisions of the assessment charged to neighboring property owners when the street was widened.^[1] The line is served by the D, N and R, while the B and Q serve DeKalb Avenue. One station, Myrtle Avenue, was abandoned in 1956.

Route

Fourth Avenue Garfield Place substation

BMT Fourth Avenue Line
Legend
BMT Broadway Line local tracks | express tracks BMT Nassau Street Line IND Sixth Avenue Line Montague Street Tunnel | Manhattan Bridge East River Court Street IRT Eastern Parkway Line IND Culver Line Myrtle Avenue (closed) Jay Street – MetroTech DeKalb Avenue IND Crosstown Line IND Fulton Street Line BMT Brighton Line IRT Eastern Parkway Line Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center Union Street Ninth Street IND Culver Line Prospect Avenue 25th Street 36th Street Ninth Avenue BMT Culver Line (demolished) BMT West End Line New York Cross Harbor Railroad 45th Street 53rd Street 59th Street BMT Sea Beach Line LIRR Bay Ridge Branch Bay Ridge Avenue 77th Street 86th Street Bay Ridge – 95th Street

Coming south from DeKalb Avenue and off of Fulton Street, the four-track line runs entirely under Fourth Avenue to just past 59th Street. South of 36th Street, the West End Line (formerly the New Utrecht Avenue elevated line) branches off eastwards, running to its terminus at Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue. Until 1954, the BMT Culver Line also branched off from here. South of 59th Street, after the Sea Beach Line branches off eastwards towards Coney Island via an open-cut right-of-way, the line becomes two-tracked and continues under Fourth Avenue to its terminus at Bay Ridge – 95th Street. While this section of the line was built with two tracks, there were provisions to add two additional express tracks between 59th and 85th Streets if the need was ever to arise.^[2]

In its upper section, the line serves Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn. The central section serves Park Slope east of Fourth Avenue, on the west side, Boerum Hill then Gowanus; and Sunset Park. In its lower section, it serves the community of Bay Ridge.

Services

The following services use the Fourth Avenue Line:

Route		Stops
	Time period	West of Court St	Between Court St and DeKalb Ave	DeKalb Ave	Between Atlantic Ave and 36 St	Between 36 St and 59th Street	Between 59 St and 95 St
D	All except nights	no service			express	no service
	Nights	no service		local		no service
N	All except nights	no service			express		no service
	Nights	local					no service
R	All except nights	local
	Nights	no service				local (express northbound)	local

The line normally carries the Fourth Avenue R service on the local tracks and the Sea Beach N and West End D services on the express tracks. Manhattan-bound from DeKalb Avenue, the local tracks run via the Montague Street Tunnel to Lower Manhattan, serving either Whitehall Street on the BMT Broadway Line (N, R) or Broad Street on the BMT Nassau Street Line (no service; the last service to use these tracks was the M, rerouted in 2010). The express tracks go to Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge to either the BMT Broadway Line's Canal Street express station (N) or the IND Sixth Avenue Line's Grand Street station (D).

History

Bridge over LIRR tracks

The Fourth Avenue Line was built as part of the Dual Contracts. It replaced the parallel elements of an old, now long-ago-demolished elevated system running above Fifth Avenue and Third Avenue.^[2]

Groundbreaking for the first section of the subway, between DeKalb Avenue and 43rd Street (ending at 36th Street), took place in November of 1909 at DeKalb and Flatbush Avenue.^[3] Construction on the southernmost section of the line to 89th Street, just south of the 86th Street station, began in late October of 1912.^[2][4] The lower section of the line was constructed along with several branch lines, which replaced former surface railroads. These lines are the BMT West End Line splitting south of 36th Street, and the BMT Sea Beach Line leaving south of 59th Street.^[2] In anticipation of the opening of the subway, several housing and development booms occurred along Fourth Avenue, particularly in Bay Ridge.^[5]

The line was planned to be connected via one of two tunnels to Staten Island and the Staten Island Railway. The first would be in Bay Ridge, south of the 59th Street station, connecting to both SIR branches near the Tompkinsville station. The other would have been south of 95th Street in Fort Hamilton, following the current routing of the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge. Construction on the first plan, known as the Staten Island Tunnel was started in 1923 but soon halted. Later proposals called for connecting the line and the SIR via the Verrazano Bridge, though the bridge was built with no railroad provisions.^{[2][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

Formerly, the Fourth Avenue Line served trains from the BMT Culver Line, which connected to the 36th Street station via the lower level of the Ninth Avenue station south of Green-Wood Cemetery from a now-demolished elevated structure.^[2] Following the connection of the Culver Line to the South Brooklyn Line of the IND in 1954, the only access to the line from the 4th Avenue subway was via the Culver Shuttle at Ninth Avenue. Shuttle service ended in 1975, with homes and housing developments erected over the right-of-way of the two demolished stations in the 1980s and again in the 2010s. The barest stub of the old elevated line is still visible at Ditmas Avenue.^[12][13]

Chaining information

The Fourth Avenue Line is chained BMT F.

Station listing

Station service legend
	Stops all times
	Stops all times except late nights
	Stops late nights only
	Stops late nights and weekends only
	Stops weekdays only
	Stops rush hours only
Time period details

Neighborhood (approximate)		Station	Tracks	Services	Opened	Transfers and notes
Montague Street Tunnel branch (N  R )
Downtown Brooklyn		Court Street	local	N  R	March 11, 1920	2  3  (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line at Borough Hall) 4  5  (IRT Eastern Parkway Line at Borough Hall)
		Jay Street – MetroTech	local	N  R	March 11, 1920	formerly Lawrence Street A  C  (IND Fulton Street Line) F  (IND Culver Line)
	Manhattan Bridge branch (B  D  N  Q )
		Myrtle Avenue	local		June 22, 1915	Closed 1956; only Manhattan-bound platform remains
	Tunnel and Bridge tracks merge
		DeKalb Avenue	bridge, tunnel	B  D  N  Q  R	June 22, 1915	6 tracks; tunnel tracks and one set of bridge tracks stop at station; the other set of bridge tracks bypass through the middle
	bridge & tunnel tracks stopping at DeKalb Avenue split to the BMT Brighton Line (B  Q ); bypass tracks continue as the BMT Fourth Avenue Line express tracks
		Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center	all	D  N  R	June 22, 1915	2  3  4  5  (IRT Eastern Parkway Line) B  Q  (BMT Brighton Line) Connection to LIRR at Atlantic Terminal; Originally named "Pacific Street"
Park Slope		Union Street	local	D  N  R	June 22, 1915
		Ninth Street	local	D  N  R	June 22, 1915	F  G  (IND Culver Line at Fourth Avenue)
		Prospect Avenue	local	D  N  R	June 22, 1915
Greenwood Heights		25th Street	local	D  N  R	June 22, 1915
Sunset Park		36th Street	all	D  N  R	June 22, 1915
	split with BMT West End Line (D ) and former split with BMT Culver Line (abandoned)
		45th Street	local	N  R	June 22, 1915
		53rd Street	local	N  R	June 22, 1915
		59th Street	all	N  R	June 22, 1915
express tracks become BMT Sea Beach Line (N )
Bay Ridge		Bay Ridge Avenue	local	R	January 15, 1916
		77th Street	local	R	January 15, 1916
		86th Street	local	R	January 15, 1916
Fort Hamilton		Bay Ridge – 95th Street	local	R	October 31, 1925

References

Route map: Bing / Google

1. "Bold Schemes". Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, NY). June 4, 1892.
2. "Brooklyn Subway Extension Plan: Fourth Ave. Line to 86th St., Tunnel to Staten Island, and Eventually a Through Route to Coney Island". nytimes.com. The New York Times. February 16, 1912. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
3. "Fourth Ave. Subway Dirt Begins to Fly". nytimes.com. The New York Times. November 14, 1909. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
4. "Bay Ridge Turns Out For Start of Subway". nytimes.com. The New York Times. October 27, 1912. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
5. "Two Subway Branches Open Up New Era of Prosperity for Brooklyn and Queens". nytimes.com. The New York Times. June 27, 1915. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
6. "To Extend Subway to Fort Hamilton". nytimes.com. The New York Times. August 26, 1922. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
7. "To Act This Year on the Richmond Tube: Route Approved in 1912 Still Alive-May Soon Be Adopted Anew or Amended". nytimes.com. The New York Times. February 13, 1919. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
8. Martin, Douglas (November 17, 1996). "Subway Planners' Lofty Ambitions Are Buried as Dead-End Curiosities". nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
9. Staten Island Rapid Transit; The Essential History, by Irvin Leigh and Paul Matus; Page 9 (The Third Rail Online)
10. Levine, Richard (December 22, 1986). "S.I. TRAINS UNDERGOING RENOVATION". nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
11. "Annual Report of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co. for The Year Ending June 30, 1912" (PDF). bmt-lines.com. Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. June 30, 1912. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
12. Klein, Helen (July 6, 2010). "Board backs housing on former Culver Shuttle land". nypost.com. New York Post. Retrieved 28 June 2015.
13. Daley, Jessica (June 13, 2012). "The Culver Shuttle: Lost Beneath Borough Park for 40 Years". ny.curbed.com. Curbed. Retrieved 28 June 2015.