It is a typical four track, two island platform configuration. South of the station, the downtown local track splits into three tracks. One is the loop track that returns to the uptown side, passing through the City Hall station noted above. The other two are layup tracks parallel to the downtown express track. Until the 1960s they merged into the downtown express track north of Fulton Street station but since then they are spurs ending a little ways north of Fulton St. Trains are occasionally stored there.
Plans are on the books to rejoin the layup tracks to the express track.
This station provides transfer to the BMT Nassau St. Subway . The Brooklyn Bridge station has a number of abandoned areas as construction and service patterns have required changes to be made to the station. In addition to the two existing island platforms, there are two short local platforms on the outer edges of the station. Like those at 14th St. and 96th St., these local platforms were built to accommodate extra passenger volume and were built to the 5-car length of original IRT local trains. These side platforms did not see much use as they were located at express stations that required transfer via the island plaforms, and, as the trains were lengthened to their current 10-car length it was impractical to lengthen both these small side platforms and the island platforms.