Imagine a subway line that would take you from Brooklyn to Queens and the Bronx without going into Manhattan. You could transfer to more than 20 other lines, and travel to transportation-starved neighborhoods like East Flatbush and Maspeth. Building it might cost less than extending the 7 line for a single stop.
Such an idea exists. In 1996, the Regional Plan Association proposed converting little-used freight lines, the Long Island Railroad’s Bay Ridge line and the New York Connecting Railroad in Queens, into a subway-linked "beltway" called the Triboro RX line.
Starting at the Brooklyn waterfront, the RX would pass near Brooklyn College, parallel the L line from East New York to Broadway Junction and Bushwick, then turn into Queens and head up toward Roosevelt Avenue/Jackson Heights. The last leg would go through Astoria and over the Hell Gate Bridge to meet the 6 line in Hunts Point.
The idea for the RX languished in obscurity until last year, when Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer endorsed it, saying that "very little of the subway system connects the boroughs."
"The beauty of this is that you've got the right of way, and it's all grade-separated," says Jeff Zupan of the RPA, who wrote the transportation section of the 1996 plan. That, he explains, means it could be converted to subway use without digging new tunnels, the most costly part of subway construction. The main expenses would be in building stations and installing signals. The RPA estimated that the Triboro RX would cost $1 billion, less than half the $2.1 billion slated for the 7 line extension.
"It's certainly doable," says George Haikalis of the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, who has long advocated a circumferential rail line around the city. The tracks are "very high-quality infrastructure" that's "basically lying fallow."
Before you start dancing on the G train's grave, there are two major obstacles to the RX plan.
First, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has already committed more than $16 billion to projects like the first phase of the long-overdue Second Avenue subway and connecting the LIRR to Grand Central Station, would have to find money.
Second, some people say it would be next to impossible for subways to share the tracks with freight trains.
"It isn't compatible with freight use," says Joan Byron, director of policy at the Pratt Center for Community Development. There would be problems with scheduling, and the MTA couldn't use regular subway cars, as they're not strong enough to meet federal safety rules for passenger trains sharing freight routes.
Rarely-used tracks under Nostrand Avenue, one and a half blocks from the Brooklyn College 2/5 stop (Steven Wishnia)
Currently only one or two freight trains a day use the line, but that is expected to increase after the federal government releases an environmental impact statement later this year on ferrying additional freight cars from Jersey City to the line's terminus in Bay Ridge.
Traffic would increase to around 15 daily trains once ferrying starts, and that number would rise to around 30 if a cross-harbor rail tunnel is built. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has been advocating such a tunnel for more than 20 years.
"The Bay Ridge rail line is the only line dedicated to freight in New York City and the surrounding area. We must preserve this line for freight if we want to meaningfully reduce truck traffic in New York City," Nadler says.
Byron says not expanding freight rail in the metropolitan area would be "suicidal." More than 90 percent of freight that comes in is transported by truck, she explains, and that's polluting the air, jamming the highways, and "murdering our roads." Truck traffic is projected to increase more than 25 percent by 2035.
"I am a longtime supporter of increased investment in passenger rail and transit," Nadler adds. "But the Triboro RX proposal is not compatible with the Bay Ridge line."
The MTA is less definitive in its assessment. A spokesperson said that it's open to the Triboro RX idea, but there would have to be evidence of sufficient ridership to make it worth spending the money. Freight operations would have to be preserved, and funds would have to be found to upgrade the tracks and build stations, storage yards, and maintenance facilities. The spokesperson noted that constructing each station would be a multimillion-dollar undertaking.
The RPA's 1996 plan projected that the Triboro RX would attract 76,000 riders a day, well below the 125,000 people the MTA recently estimated use the G line on an average weekday. Since 1996, however, overall subway ridership has increased by more than 22 percent, and the number of people working in the outer boroughs has also risen.
A 2011 study by the Center for an Urban Future estimated that more than 150,000 people commute between Brooklyn and Queens. More than 20,000 people work in Hunts Point and at the Kings County-SUNY Downstate medical centers in East Flatbush, and more than 55,000 work at JFK Airport in Queens.
Clearly, the outer boroughs need more public transportation. Most of the sentiment for that, however, is going towards expanding "bus rapid transit."
BRT designates anything from "select bus service," in which passengers pay their fares in advance at the stop instead of one at a time while boarding, to more sophisticated systems that separate buses from regular traffic. These involve buses-only lanes and control of traffic lights to turn them green when a bus is coming through.
Several mayoral candidates support BRT. A transportation adviser to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio says connecting the "spokes" coming out of Manhattan with the Triboro RX looks good on paper, but the conflict with expanding rail freight takes it off the table. Comptroller John Liu's platform says that given "an aging and inadequately funded transit system," expanding the city's bus network "is our best bet...without breaking the bank."
More freight tracks lie on the east side of Flatbush Avenue (Steven Wishnia)
"While subway/rail transit may be quicker in the long term, dedicated bus lanes can trim down costs and cause fewer disruptions to neighborhoods right now," says former Comptroller Bill Thompson, who also pledged to review the "sharing tracks issue" and include Staten Island.
Former MTA chairman and Republican mayoral candidate Joseph Lhota did not respond to our requests for comment.
On July 26, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed creating an "X" bus line with designated lanes that would follow a similar route to the Triboro RX. She said it could be done for $25 million.
Yet as the Ramones sang about the Woodhaven Boulevard line in 1977, "bus ride's too slow." The Center for an Urban Future study said that New York has some of the slowest bus speeds in the country, averaging 8 mph in 2006.
BRT would still be slow once you get into denser areas like downtown Flushing, says Byron, but "you don't have to have rapid speed to make really significant improvements in people's access." BRT "can move fast over long distances." The new rush-hour express bus on Webster Avenue in the Bronx, for example, has a lane of its own for most of its route, but runs in regular traffic in the South Bronx business district.
City Councilmember Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn) has introduced a bill requiring the city and the MTA to create a 10-year plan for BRT networks. He envisions bus lines that would run down the middle of streets, stopping only at enclosed stations.
None of these transit improvements are likely to happen soon. The first three stops on the Second Avenue subway, scheduled to open in 2016, are only its initial phase; the MTA is slowly inaugurating SBS bus lines around the city; and the cross-harbor rail tunnel is far from being funded. Expanding transit in New York, says Benjamin Kabak of Second Avenue Sagas, is a "multiyear painful process."
Steven Wishnia is a New York-based journalist and musician, and the editor of Tenant/Inquilino. He is also the author of "When the Drumming Stops," "Exit 25 Utopia," and "The Cannabis Companion." His previous work for Gothamist includes "Why The Push To Abolish Rent Control Is Stupid And Irresponsible"
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