Flushing Line Front Window View Video of Extension to 34th Street

Flushing Line (#7) Extension Video.  Please find attached this news item dealing with the extension of the Flushing Line extension to 34th Street.  Although the line is not scheduled to open until 2014, the line is operational but the signals and stations are not complete.  All I can say is Wow! .  Posted originally in subchat.  This item can be used only for news services.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H6RiLzW7ng&feature=player_embedded#t=0


Some Comments:

 1. This new extension was constructed using a boring machine at great depth.  This is quite different than traditional "cut and cover" construction close to the surface.

 2.  Notice an unfinished shell of a future station.

3)  Notice the huge 34th Street station.  Why are new stations constructed so fancy and expensive?  Could a "generic station" serve its intended purpose while freeing up some money to extend the line to 23rd Street?  The tracks already extend south of the 34th street station to around West 25th Street.  In my humble opinion, having a "palace" of a station does not add more accessibility to a station than an extension does.

4)  There is no sign of the IND 42nd Street 8th Avenue Lower single track station that the line crosses as about track level at 90 degrees.  That  42nd Street lower station is now destroyed.  Perhaps if there was a link here, the IRT Flushing Line could have gone to 59th Street-Columbus Circle.  Of course there are many issues to solve, naming train width and signaling problems.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H6RiLzW7ng&feature=player_embedded#t=0

  A commenter at Subchat said that at 3:00 you can see the remains of the 42nd Street - 8 th Avenue IND Lower level station which is at right angles to the path of the train.  You can see a yellow painted pillar I believe.  The lower level 42nd Street station was the locale of some well known movies in past years.  The lower level, which is one track, saw some limited service and may have been the starting point of "Aqueduct Specials" to the racetrack, many years ago.  It is a strange station.