In the New York City Subway there are several types of transfer stations:
A station complex is where two or more stations are connected with a passageway inside fare control. There are stations of the New York City Subway when each station is counted separately. When station complexes are counted as one station each, the count of stations is . Station serving two or more lines. It may be a multi-level or adjacent-platform station and is considered to be one station as classified by the MTA. Typically each track in a station belongs to a certain line. Station serving two or more services. Different services may share tracks. These stations are not included in this article; see List of New York City Subway stations.
Transfers are not limited to enclosed passageways. The New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), manager of the New York City Subway, also offers limited free transfers between subway lines that allow passengers to reenter the system's fare control. This was originally done through a paper ticketing system before it was replaced by the MetroCard. Now the only permanent MetroCard subway-to-subway transfers are between the Lexington Avenue/59th Street complex () and the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station () in Manhattan and between the Junius Street () and Livonia Avenue () stations in Brooklyn. The contactless OMNY fare payment system installed in 2019-2020 supports the same free transfers as the MetroCard does.
Some paper transfers between specific subway stations and bus routes also existed prior to July 4, 1997, when the MetroCard allowed free system-wide subway–bus transfers with fewer restrictions. The Rockaway Parkway station on the BMT Canarsie Line () offers a transfer to the B42 bus within the station's fare control, the only such transfer within the NYCTA.
Context
The system was created from the consolidation of three separate companies that merged in 1940: the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), and the Independent Subway System (IND). The earliest transfer stations were between lines of the same system: either the IRT, BMT or IND. The earliest free connection between lines that remains in existence is at Grand Central–42nd Street between the IRT Flushing Line and the original IRT subway (now served by the IRT 42nd Street Shuttle), which opened on June 22, 1915. Some stations were constructed with passageways that connected different systems, such as the original IRT subway's (now IRT Lexington Avenue Line) Brooklyn Bridge station with the BMT Centre Street Loop Subway's (now BMT Nassau Street Line) Chambers Street station. On July 1, 1948, post-unification, many free transfers between the former systems were created coincident with the doubling of the fare from five to ten cents.
The most recently created station complex is the Jay Street–MetroTech complex in Brooklyn on the IND Culver Line, IND Fulton Street Line and BMT Fourth Avenue Line; opened on December 8, 2010. The Court Square complex in Queens, which opened in 1988 as a connection between the IND Queens Boulevard and IND Crosstown lines, was expanded by adding a passageway to the IRT Flushing Line on June 3, 2011. A free transfer from Broadway–Lafayette Street to the uptown platform of Bleecker Street opened on September 25, 2012. A transfer to the downtown platform has existed since May 19, 1957. A passageway between Cortlandt Street and World Trade Center opened on December 29, 2017, along with a connection to the World Trade Center Transportation Hub. A passageway between the Times Square–42nd Street and Port Authority Bus Terminal station complex, and the Bryant Park station complex, was built in 2021, along with a new platform at the shuttle station (both the platform and passageway are closed during late nights).
Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (14th Street and below)
Former transfers
When the elevated IRT Third Avenue Line closed from Chatham Square to South Ferry on December 22, 1950, a paper transfer was given to the M15 bus route. The Third Avenue Line was closed in Manhattan on May 12, 1955, removing this transfer.