BRONX’S Park Avenue is a northern extension of Manhattan’s (much like Broadway and Third Avenue) and its house numbers follow the sequence that started all the way south at East 32nd Street. In the Bronx, Park Avenue is a far cry from the ultimate urban boulevard between East 46th and 96th Streets in Manhattan with its St. Bartholomew Church, Lever Building, and ritzy penthoused apartments. Here, it’s merely a neighborhood street on both sides of the Metro North tracks; when the old NY Central was extended into the Bronx in the 1800s, Park Avenue was laid out alongside it.
The Metro-North, formerly part of the New York Central, runs north along Park Ave. both in Manhattan and the Bronx into Westchester, where it ends at various upstate terminals. Within the Bronx, there are stations at Melrose, Tremont, Fordham, Botanic Gardens, Williamsbridge, Woodlawn and Wakefield. Of these only the Botanic Garden station, serving the popular Bronx Park gardens, is well–known or frequently used. Several blocks east of the Grand Concourse IND Subway, this is a relatively transit-starved area, and the Metro-North might be able to do decent business if it ran frequent local service here at a comparable price to the $2.90 MetroCard swipe, but the MTA isn’t that imaginative. Local politicians have been pushing for an arrangement similar to this, but I have my doubts.
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3/27/24
10 comments
The 183rd stop no longer exist. And Fordham is actually one of the busiest rail stations in the Bronx
A minor correction, if I may. The 183rd Street Station was closed years ago, as were two more stations at 138th Street and 168th St.-Morrisania. Also, the Fordham Station is well used because of the nearby university of the same name.
Until 1973, the surrounding area featured the old Third Avenue elevated line, a short distance to the east of the Metro North tracks. Both rail routes were the catalysts for developing the central spine of the The Bronx in the late 19th century, as the NY Central trains arrived in the 1850s and the elevated in the 1890s. The Third Avenue elevated had direct service to Manhattan until 1955, and remained a shuttle between 149th Street (with subway transfers available) and Gun Hill Road till its 1973 closure.
Botanical Garden station in the Bronx. Botanic Garden station is in Brooklyn.
THE Bronx if you don’t mind!
How many commuters from Westchester will fight against a ride from the Bronx to Manhattan for the price of a Metro Card in order to keep the unwashed masses off their trains? In any case, it looks like the $7 for a City Ticket is the same price as the express bus, but without a free transfer.
The City ticket is a step in the right direction, and I see decent foot traffic at the Woodlawn station to/from work.
This area became a transit desert after the city abandoned Third Avenue El in 1973 with promises to run a subway line on the Metro-North route.
Hopefully, there will be a Metro North RR page in the near future, because I’m still waiting on that as there already was for LIRR and PATH.
The NYC subway, LIRR, and Metro-North should all be integrated into a single rail system with a flat $3 fare. This should be possible with omni.
Unlimited cross-agency transfers: great for the public, money nightmare for the agencies.