The 60th Street Tunnel Connection or 11th Street Cut is a short rapid transit line of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

, within the

Long Island City Long Island City (LIC) is a neighborhood within the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered by Astoria to the north; the East River to the west; Sunnyside to the east; and Newtown Creek, which separates Queens from Greenpoint, Brook ...

neighborhood in

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

. It connects the 60th Street Tunnel under the

East River The East River is a saltwater Estuary, tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, ...

(which connects to the

BMT Broadway Line The BMT Broadway Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division (New York City Subway), B Division of the New York City Subway in Manhattan. , it is served by four services, all colored : the on the express tracks and the on the local tracks ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

) with the IND Queens Boulevard Line west of Queens Plaza. The 11th Street Connection name comes from the street above the split from the 60th Street Tunnel. The line does not have any stations, and carries trains at all times but late nights.

History

The connection opened on December 1, 1955, and permitted BMT trains from Brooklyn to use the IND Queens Boulevard Line; the first service to do so was the ''Brighton Beach Local via Tunnel'' ( 1, now Q). This connection allowed for an increase of 20 trains per hour on Queens Boulevard. Unlike the later Chrystie Street Connection, this was of the nature of a

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may c ...

operation, without the mixing of BMT and IND equipment or crews, as opposed to a true operating integration.

Service history

The first service to use the connection was the daytime 1 local via Montague Street Tunnel, which became the QT in the early 1960s. The QT was rerouted to Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard on January 1, 1961, and the RR was sent through the connection during daytime hours. The EE was created on November 26, 1967, when the Chrystie Street Connection opened and the RR moved back to Astoria. On August 27, 1976, the N was extended through the connection, absorbing the EE; this change sent late night and weekend trains through the tunnel for the first time. The N and R were swapped in Queens on May 24, 1987, taking the R through the connection in a move that reassigned a former BMT route (the R) to the IND's Jamaica Yard (it had heretofore used the Coney Island Yard). Late night service was later truncated to 36th Street in Brooklyn, then later extended to

Whitehall Street Whitehall Street is a street in the South Ferry (Manhattan), South Ferry/Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City, near the southern tip of Manhattan Island. The street begins at Bowling ...

in Manhattan. The connection is not being used during late nights .

Routing

References

{{NYCS navbox Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation New York City Subway lines