Терминология Нью-Йоркского метрополитена

Terminology of the New York City Subway

New York City Subway nomenclature is the terminology used in the New York City Subway system as derived from railroading practice, historical origins of the system, and engineering, publicity, and legal usage. Important terms include lines, or individual sections of subway, like the BMT Brighton Line; services, like the B, which is a single train route along several lines; and stations, such as Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, which connects multiple lines and services. Lines and services on the New York City Subway are often confused with each other. Lines are physical train tracks, while services are the routes that use the tracks. This distinction is also made on other systems, including the Washington Metro and historically Taipei Metro, although the exact terms used differ.

Each section of the subway has three identifying characteristics, line, service and color.

The most constant is the line, the physical structure and the tracks that trains run over. Each section of the system is assigned a unique line name, usually paired with its original operating company or division: Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), Independent Subway System (IND). For example, the line under Eighth Avenue is the IND Eighth Avenue Line. Some lines have changed names (and even divisions), but this happens relatively infrequently. Public usage of the line names varies widely, although the MTA's public usage of trunk names has increased since 2012, especially on Fastrack signs. Internally, the MTA also uses the names, both for legal reasons and to describe lines, services and locations without ambiguity. Although the three major subway systems are now unified, the terms BMT, IRT and IND are still used in line, structure and building descriptions and capital contract specifications. However, the names of the former companies are no longer used by much of the general public.

Each operating service or route is assigned a letter or number. This is a path that the train service uses along the various lines. These are the most familiar names among the public, but may change frequently during construction or as services are rerouted to make best use of the network. Former IRT services (now known as A Division) are assigned numbers, and former BMT and IND services (now known as B Division) are assigned letters. Prior to consolidation under city ownership in 1940, the BMT routes were also assigned numbers. As track connections were built between IND and BMT lines to create a unified division, the BMT routes were gradually assigned letters for consistency with the IND naming scheme. IRT trains and tunnels are narrower, however, so the two divisions do not mix in revenue service.

Despite its efforts toward single identifiers for each service, the MTA has adopted a variation of a signage practice that began with street railways, in which a variant service is identified with a special color or symbol on the route number signs. This has been implemented on the subway by use of diamond services. Since a route letter or number is ordinarily presented inside a circle, variants of the same service are shown as the same letter or number inside a diamond shape.

6 regular service operates local at all times; weekday peak direction <6> diamond service runs express in the Bronx (with local service in the same direction cut back to Parkchester). 7 regular service operates local at all times; weekday rush hour peak direction <7> diamond service runs express in Queens. F regular service operates at all times; weekday rush hour peak direction <F> diamond service runs express in Brooklyn.

Until May 2005, rush hour 5 service to Nereid Avenue–238th Street in the Bronx was marked with a diamond with regular "circle" service to Eastchester–Dyre Avenue. Both services were express services in the Bronx between East 180th Street and Third Avenue–149th Street during rush hours in peak direction. Diamond service operated on the BMT Brighton Line while the north side of the Manhattan Bridge was closed for repairs from 2001 to 2004. Full time local service was designated with a circle Q while weekday only express service was designated with a diamond <Q>. <B> and <C> to Bedford Park Boulevard, <D> express on the IND Concourse Line, and the <M> to Bay Parkway. In May 2004, the map was changed to show only the diamond <6> and <7>. The diamond symbol usage has thus been redefined to indicate a variant rush hour express service running simultaneously with a local service in the same direction.

Special is a signifier for a train that is running along a nonstandard route. It is sometimes used for special holiday trains, baseball game service, or for emergency or custom routes. Most trains have a "Special" option on the rollsigns or LCD/LED displays.

Each service is also assigned a color. Since 1979, each service's color corresponds to the line a service primarily uses in Midtown Manhattan. In the case of the BMT Nassau Street Line and BMT Canarsie Line, the color corresponds to the line used within Lower Manhattan, and in the case of the IND Crosstown Line (which never enters Manhattan), the color is This is defined as the trunk line. All shuttle services are The list of trunk lines and colors is shown in the following table.

Stations usually bear street names, but may also be named after neighborhoods or prominent locations (e. g., "Brighton Beach" for Brighton Beach; "Cypress Hills" for Cypress Hills, Brooklyn) or combinations of these (e. g., "Times Square–42nd Street" for Times Square and 42nd Street; "Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard" for Astoria and Ditmars Boulevard), especially at line terminals. Others are named after major destinations, either along with the street names (e. g., "68th Street–Hunter College" for Hunter College, "81st Street–Museum of Natural History" for American Museum of Natural History) or in some cases without (e. g., "Pelham Bay Park" for Pelham Bay Park, "Borough Hall" for Brooklyn Borough Hall). Of the system's stations, more than 300 are named after streets or street intersections alone, while the remainder are identified by different combinations of streets, neighborhoods and landmarks. Many stations share names, so to uniquely identify a station, the line name or cross street must be specified: for example, there are three stations named Kings Highway in Brooklyn. Usually, identifying the service is also sufficient (e. g., "Kings Highway on the B and Q" to denote the station at East 16th Street), but as services are transient, this is not a permanent label. The MTA has looked at certain station names as a source of revenue. In June 2009, the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street station in Brooklyn was renamed Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center following a deal with Forest City Ratner who pay $200,000 per year for the rights to the name. Additionally, Willets Point–Shea Stadium on the other hand was renamed Mets–Willets Point because the MTA could not reach a deal with the Mets organization. Had the naming rights deal been achieved, the station would have been known as Willets Point–Citi Field.

Directions along a line in Manhattan or the Bronx are usually described as uptown and downtown, roughly corresponding to compass north and south. Uptown and downtown are not always meaningful on lines in the other boroughs or on the crosstown IRT Flushing and BMT Canarsie Lines or the downtown only BMT Nassau Street Line, so these are usually described as terminus bound (with terminus being the name of the terminal station) for "downtown" and Brooklyn bound or Queens bound for "uptown." On the BMT system, most in station signage specified to city and from city. Currently signs typically read to Manhattan, if the train is heading toward Manhattan, and to destination (e. g. to Coney Island or to Canarsie), if the train is heading toward an outer borough destination. If the train is headed to a different borough, it is described as borough bound (e. g. Manhattan bound or Brooklyn bound). If its terminus is in the same borough, it will be described as terminus bound, for example, Eighth Avenue bound or Rockaway Parkway bound. If the final destination is more than one borough away, signs will generally display the name of the next one or two boroughs that the route will pass through. Trains would display to Uptown and Borough if the train is heading uptown and into another borough, or to Downtown and Borough if the train is heading downtown and into another borough.

In the United States, most railroads have only two rail directions. In this vein, all New York City subway lines are deemed to run north–south. In many cases, this is close to the related compass direction, but this is not always possible. Any line that enters Manhattan from the Bronx or Queens heads south into Manhattan; any line entering Manhattan from Brooklyn goes north into Manhattan, with the BMT Nassau Street Line and BMT Canarsie Lines being the only exception, as the Nassau Street Line heads further south into Manhattan's Financial District after entering Manhattan over the Williamsburg Bridge, and the Canarsie Line goes neither north nor south. Directions of other lines are determined by following the services that run over them; except for the BMT Eastern Division services (over the Williamsburg Bridge), which change direction at Chambers Street, every service has one north end and one south end. On the 42nd Street Shuttle, railroad north is compass west, due to the line's former status as part of the main line. In fact, very few track connections exist to allow a train to reverse railroad direction without running around a loop or literally reversing direction by backing up. The IND system (except on the ex LIRR Rockaway Line) has none of these; this philosophy may explain the lack of track connections between parallel IND lines at Seventh Avenue in Manhattan and Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets in Brooklyn. Before unification, all BMT lines ran east–west, west being towards Manhattan. After unification, west became north and east became south.

This nomenclature has been complicated by the differing systems and cultures of the former private companies that operated parts of the system, by the need for non ambiguous names in a city where there are stations with the same name on different lines in different locations and even different boroughs, and by changing perceptions of the best way to communicate information to a diverse public. Up until 1940, there were three major operators of New York subway and elevated lines, the privately owned Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the privately owned Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the municipally owned Independent Subway System (ISS or ICOS before 1940, now IND). Service labels have always been assigned based on their outer line (Brooklyn on the BMT, Bronx on the IRT and IND) and then by the Manhattan trunk if necessary to distinguish multiple services on the same line.

Since the unsuccessful attempts at applying the briefly popular schematic theory of diagrammatic maps, line by line color coding, and exclusive use of numbers and letters for service and line descriptions, the MTA has moved steadily toward a more traditional approach, with more geographically correct maps and use of traditional line and community names on maps and public signage. Concurrently, it has been refining its use of the number and letter system to try to achieve consistency across the system. One major push has been an attempt to have as many services as possible serve the same stations, routes and terminals at all times, with the major exception for most services being the early morning hours of approximately midnight to 5 a. m. For instance, the B and C swapped northern terminals in 1998 so the C could serve the entire local portion of the IND Eighth Avenue Line at all times except nights; previously, the A had made two local stops north of 145th Street on weekends, while being express on the whole line south of 145th Street, because the B did not operate in Manhattan on weekends. In another case, the MTA took advantage of unavoidable service changes forced by the partial Manhattan Bridge closures to swap the Brooklyn segments of the B and D services, with the B becoming the BMT Brighton Line express service and the D becoming the BMT West End Line local (previously the B had been the West End Local and the D the Brighton Local). This enabled the D, a full time service, to operate continuously on the same route and terminals from Norwood–205th Street in the Bronx to Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn, while the part time B became the part time Brighton Express service, formerly served by the express <Q> (notated with a diamond).

This is a table of when each service has existed (and been signed for the public). Shuttles were SS until 1985, when they became S (which had been used for specials). Various colors were used for shuttles in 1967; in 1968 all six became green, and in 1979 all shuttles became dark gray.