Steam and elevated era Before becoming a BRT elevated line in 1906, the Canarsie Line operated as a
steam dummy line. It was first owned by the
Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad, chartered December 24, 1863, and opened October 21, 1865, from the
Long Island Rail Road in East New York to a pier at Canarsie Landing, very close to the current junction of Rockaway Parkway and the
Belt Parkway, where ferries continued on to
Rockaway. North of New Lots Avenue, the line served as part of the
New York, Brooklyn and Manhattan Beach Railway; the B&RB owned the section of that line between Jefferson Street and East New York, though this section was solely operated by the NYB&MB. The line was single-tracked until 1894. The
Canarsie Railroad was chartered on May 8, 1906, as a BRT subsidiary (leased to the
Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad) and acquired the line on May 31, 1906. It saw the rebuilding of the complex train junction at Manhattan Junction into an even more complex flyover junction now known as Broadway Junction. The expansion extended south to the point at which the Canarsie and Fulton Street Elevateds diverged, including a six-track, three-platform station at Atlantic Avenue. The complex was rebuilt under traffic and opened in stages, reaching completion in 1919. One
grade crossing was retained at East 105th Street despite the third rail, and was the last public
rapid transit grade crossing in New York City. It was closed by 1973 as part of the
Flatlands Industrial Park project, which was built on either side of the ground-level Canarsie Line. A pedestrian overpass above the tracks was built to replace the grade crossing.
14th Street–Eastern Line Initial subway The Dual Contracts also called for a subway line initially known as the
14th Street–Eastern District Line, usually shortened to
14th Street–Eastern Line. The line would run beneath 14th Street in Manhattan, from
Sixth Avenue under the East River and through Williamsburg to
Montrose and Bushwick Avenues in Brooklyn. In late 1915, the Public Service Commission began receiving bids for the construction of the 14th Street Line.
Booth and Flinn was awarded the first contract for the line—section 3, comprising the tunnel under the East River—on January 13, 1916. At the time, the Public Service Commission was completing plans for the rest of the line. A
groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 8, 1916. The commission began accepting bids for the next two sections of the line, sections 1 and 2 in Manhattan, in April 1916. The next month, the commission reviewed bids for section 4, running from Bedford Avenue to Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn; Mason and Hanger submitted a low bid of $1.847 million for this section. The commission also reviewed bids for section 1, awarding a contract for that section to Booth and Flinn. That June, the Degnon Construction Company received a $1.972 million contract to construct section 2 of the line, from
Irving Place to
Avenue B in Manhattan. MacArthur Brothers Co. received a $1.336 million contract for the construction of section 5 in Brooklyn. The line's opening was delayed by several years. In 1922, Mayor
John Francis Hylan blocked some construction contracts, claiming that the costs were excessively high. The Station Finish Corporation was contracted to build the stations in Brooklyn and the Charles H. Brown & Son Corporation was contracted to build the stations in Manhattan. Track-laying in the tunnels between Sixth and Montrose Avenues started in the last week of October 1922. Due to the city's failure to approve the section of the line between Montrose Avenue and East New York, the 14th Street/Eastern Line was initially isolated from the rest of the system. In 1924, a temporary connection was built from the
Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s
Bushwick Yard that ran via Montrose Avenue and then connected to the 14th Street/Eastern Line under
Bushwick Avenue just near the Montrose Avenue station. This was done to allow the delivery of
BMT Standard subway cars. The first of the cars were delivered by this ramp on June 20, 1924. On June 30, 1924, the section between Sixth Avenue in Manhattan and Montrose Avenue in Brooklyn opened. The line collected 9,196 fares in its first day of operation, which constituted its entire ridership for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1924. Ridership rose from 15 million in fiscal 1925 to 23 million in fiscal 1928.
Extensions For the extension of the 14th Street/Eastern Line from Montrose Avenue to East New York, the
New York City Board of Estimate had initially given its consent to an elevated line over the
Evergreen Branch of the LIRR. The Board of Estimate subsequently refused to allow a construction contract for the elevated line, while the BRT did not want to build an underground line. In September 1924, the BOT approved the remaining section of the route between Eldert Street and Broadway Junction in East New York. East of Eldert Street, the route would turn south to a ground-level alignment parallel to the LIRR's
Bay Ridge Branch, then run southeast in a tunnel underneath private property to the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Bushwick Avenue, where it would emerge onto a ramp leading to the existing Canarsie elevated. An ornamental viaduct over Bushwick Avenue and Eastern Parkway was removed from the original plans due to opposition from property owners who called it a "
Chinese wall". The BOT also dropped a plan to have a connection from the new subway extension to the Jamaica Line to and from
168th Street, since adding such a connection would slow the movement of trains. This route was adopted by the Board of Estimate the following month. Three contracts for the construction of the extension were awarded in December at a total cost of $9,531,204. The section from Montrose Avenue to Varick Avenue was awarded to the Underpinning and Foundation Company, while the section from Varick Avenue to Bleecker Street and from Bleecker Street to Halsey Street went to the Oakdale Contracting Company. Another delay occurred in November 1925 regarding the alignment of the 14th Street/Eastern Line along a three-block section from Cooper Street to Central Avenue, which was to parallel the Bay Ridge Branch. This section, near what is now the
Wilson Avenue station, was to run between the LIRR tracks to the west and the
Cemetery of the Evergreens and the Most Holy Trinity Cemetery to the east. This section would contain portals for the subway to rise to ground level on either side of the Wilson Avenue station, with space separating the LIRR and subway tracks. However, the LIRR said it needed the space for
overhead electrification poles as a result of the
Kaufman Act and that these poles would prevent the construction of the subway portals. In January 1926, the Oakdale Contracting Company submitted a low bid of $1,345,778 for the section from Halsey Street to Cooper Street. On July 14, 1928, the line was extended further east beneath Wyckoff Avenue and then south paralleling the Bay Ridge Branch to a new station at Broadway Junction, above the existing station on the
Broadway Elevated (Jamaica Line). At this time, it was connected to the Canarsie Line. At noon on May 30, 1931, a two-block extension to Eighth Avenue in Manhattan was opened, allowing passengers to transfer to the new
IND Eighth Avenue Line. This station was built to look like the other Independent Subway stations. At this point, the Canarsie Line's route took the shape that it still has to this day. Parts were built over, and other parts can still be seen as broad alleys or narrow parking lots. This right-of-way ran between East 95th and East 96th Streets as far south as Seaview Avenue. Some trolley poles from the line still exist, but the line's right-of-way was destroyed by developments in the area.
Early 21st century upgrades Automation and post-automation orders on the
L route, which runs on the Canarsie Line. The Canarsie Line is one of only two New York City non-
shuttle subway lines that hosts only a single service and does not share operating trackage with any other line or service; the other is the
IRT Flushing Line, carrying the . Because of this, it was chosen as the location of the first fully automated line of the New York City Subway. The automation project was among the first in the world to use a
radio frequency-based system. The plans for installation were laid out between 1999 and 2002.
Communications-based train control (CBTC) was installed in pieces between 2003 and January 2006: the elevated section of the line south of Broadway Junction was completed first, followed by the underground section north of Broadway Junction. The project cost $340 million, with $78 million of it used to upgrade track interlockings on the line. Automation was achieved with the R143s assigned exclusively to the L, but since the
R160As were not CBTC-compatible until August 2010, some trains were manually operated alongside automatically driven trains. The L fully began automatic train operation in early 2012. The repairs are slated to start in April 2019 and would replace damaged communications, power and signal wires, third rails and tracks, duct banks, pump rooms, circuit breaker houses, tunnel lighting, concrete lining, and fire protection systems. The renovations would cost between $800 million and $1 billion. It was later announced that the MTA had chosen the 18-month full closure option. To provide alternate service, the MTA devised preliminary mitigation plans in which it proposed adding shuttle bus, ferry, and subway service; adding bus and high-occupancy vehicle lanes; extending train routes; and providing free or improved transfers. The MTA named Judlau Contracting and TC Electric as the project's contractors on April 3, 2017. At this time, the duration of the shutdown was shortened to 15 months, so the shutdown would begin in April instead of in January. In June 2018, as part of a lawsuit settlement, additional changes were made to the shutdown mitigation plans. The shutdown was expected to begin on April 27, 2019. In January 2019, the shutdown was changed to limited closures between
Third Avenue and Bedford Avenue on late nights and weekends. It was expected to last about 15 to 20 months. On April 26, 2020, New York governor
Andrew Cuomo announced the completion of the project, months ahead of schedule. == Service patterns ==