Second Avenue Subway Discussion

[Fresh Pond]

The sad part is, if funding was there we could at least have Phase III started; didn't the TBMs go south from 96th St?

It did and after it was done tunneling, it was pulled back to 96 St and taken out

[leo2car]

I think that Phase 2 can be completed by 2025 if Albany and City Hall get their act together, i can hope right???

Phase 2 stations were built in the the many tries before, when this incarnation of the plan was discussed they pointed out that the old structures can be used, so if we dont get it built, shame!!!

 

While we are building Phase 2, we can also start building Phase 3 as they do not touch each other. Like always the question is funding. That is probably done by 2030. 

[biGC323232]

Dang 2029...lol

[traingoat]

We will all be dead and buried before this project is finished. At costs of 2.1 billion a mile and rising it isn't going to happen.

[bobtehpanda]

We will all be dead and buried before this project is finished. At costs of 2.1 billion a mile and rising it isn't going to happen.

 

It's a very important metric, but not the most important. FTA primarily uses cost per rider, and the full SAS is projected to be about $30,000 per rider, which is actually one of the better projects in the United States.

 

Cost per mile just means that the SAS is going to soak up all available money for the region for the foreseeable future (along with the Gateway Tunnel and ESA), not that it will be impossible to build all of SAS in the first place.

Edited May 21, 2014 by bobtehpanda

[biGC323232]

We will all be dead and buried before this project is finished. At costs of 2.1 billion a mile and rising it isn't going to happen.

 

Lol...Word

[Roadcruiser1]

What's sad is that it's an 8 mile subway line. In other countries this did be bigger, and almost done by now.........

Edited May 25, 2014 by Roadcruiser1

[CenSin]

and almost done by now.........

and done ALREADY.

[MTA Dude]

This is actually the main reason why I don't like the idea of having a free transfer between the Lex and SAS at 125-East Harlem. 125 should just be under 125 St and 2 Av instead, without a free transfer to/from the Lex, the M60 bus and Metro-North. Any , and riders coming from the Bronx who want Broadway should just continue transfering at either 59 or 14.

 

But then it probably might make less of a difference on crowding on the      . If there was a transfer at 125th/Lex, then      riders would transfer to the     , thus, relieving crowding on the Lex. Also, if the  were to be extended to Bronx, it will most likely run on Third Avenue, and there'd be a connection to the         and relieving crowding on the 7th Avenue line (maybe).

[LTA1992]

What's sad is that it's an 8 mile subway line. In other countries this did be bigger, and almost done by now.........

You seem to forget that our money problems come from getting into useless conflicts that cost trillions of dollars, as well as our government printing money out of thin air. There are many factors to why things cost so much here, but it all comes down to the fact this country is screwed financially. Some other countries have more valuable money, or just more money. Others have less strict labor laws. 

 

And if you wanna get technical, had World Wars One and Two not happened, it would have been done a long time ago. These wars almost caused the IND First Phase to not be finished. Another thing that delayed this thing is peoples hate for Els. Sorry, I'm rambling.

 

I give the U.S. until 2025.

[bobtehpanda]

You seem to forget that our money problems come from getting into useless conflicts that cost trillions of dollars, as well as our government printing money out of thin air. There are many factors to why things cost so much here, but it all comes down to the fact this country is screwed financially. Some other countries have more valuable money, or just more money. Others have less strict labor laws. 

 

And if you wanna get technical, had World Wars One and Two not happened, it would have been done a long time ago. These wars almost caused the IND First Phase to not be finished. Another thing that delayed this thing is peoples hate for Els. Sorry, I'm rambling.

 

I give the U.S. until 2025.

 

Most of the cost is the legal system. All English-speaking countries have significantly higher subway costs; London and New York are the only cities building for over a billion per kilometer, and Los Angeles, Singapore, and Delhi also all are well above international norms at their stage of development. (In fact, the only English-speaking city with even normal costs is Vancouver, but Vancouver had Olympic spending.)

 

Between that, the conflicts of interest in bidding, and the lack of qualified firms that can actually do that sort of work in this city, costs are bound to be expensive. Not to mention, for some reason we love building really large stations with full mezzanines (and I believe 34th Hudson Yards has two of them?), which is most of the cost of building prpjects. The actual physical tunnels are cheap; it's the property acquisition and the rock blasting that comes afterwards. Hopefully this will mean that the significantly lower costs in the outer boroughs will lead to much lower costs.

[LTA1992]

I love the fact you mentioned London, considering it's the only other city in the world at the same economic level as New York City.

[bobtehpanda]

I love the fact you mentioned London, considering it's the only other city in the world at the same economic level as New York City.

 

Well, there's Tokyo, but Tokyo refuses to build any more subway lines because they'll cost more than $500 million per kilometer, in a densely packed earthquake zone. New York is building straight lines under broad avenues for two or three times that (but a good deal of it is probably property acquisition and full-mezzanine stations; Tokyo is less expensive per sq ft these days, and most countries build small pocket mezzanines like the ones at Jamaica Center and Sutphin/Archer.)

[realizm]

Well, there's Tokyo, but Tokyo refuses to build any more subway lines because they'll cost more than $500 million per kilometer, in a densely packed earthquake zone. New York is building straight lines under broad avenues for two or three times that (but a good deal of it is probably property acquisition and full-mezzanine stations; Tokyo is less expensive per sq ft these days, and most countries build small pocket mezzanines like the ones at Jamaica Center and Sutphin/Archer.)

 

Not to mention that Japan is in a crushing recession so if I may ask in your opinion, would this also be a factor?

[Wallyhorse]

Agree 100%.  Tokyo has been in a 25-year recession (people forget the Nikkei was at 39,000+ when 1990 started).

Edited June 10, 2014 by Wallyhorse

[bobtehpanda]

Not to mention that Japan is in a crushing recession so if I may ask in your opinion, would this also be a factor?

 

Nope. Tokyo's subway operators, like much of the Japanese railway sector, are at least partially privatized, and the most recently opened line was completed five years ago. The railway sector is very healthy, and on top of that, the Japanese government's preferred way of dealing with the past 25 years of on-off recession/weak growth has been massive infrastructure investment. Most of the refusal to build is the fact that the companies are undergoing more privatization, so investors would be less likely to want to shovel money into massive infrastructure projects that could break the bank. Japan's railway sector is so healthy that the planned Chuo Shinkansen maglev is going to be paid for without government financing (although with a forecast completion date of 2045, politicians are clamoring to use government assistance to speed up the line.)

 

It's also debatable about the recession: if the government's statistics are to be believed, Japan actually had fairly healthy growth last year. Their methods may have been unconventional, but everything about the Japanese economy is unconventional. If you adjust for PPP, GDP per capita has never stopped rising, although the Japanese population figures certainly have.

Edited June 12, 2014 by bobtehpanda

[realizm]

Okay fair enough. 

[LTA1992]

Well, there's Tokyo, but Tokyo refuses to build any more subway lines because they'll cost more than $500 million per kilometer, in a densely packed earthquake zone. New York is building straight lines under broad avenues for two or three times that (but a good deal of it is probably property acquisition and full-mezzanine stations; Tokyo is less expensive per sq ft these days, and most countries build small pocket mezzanines like the ones at Jamaica Center and Sutphin/Archer.)

Well Tokyo (Almost typed Tokkyu which means Special Express) is a level below us from a global standpoint. Tokyo (almost did it again. Damn you Ressha Sentai ToQger [Tokkyuger]) is one of the cities that fills the global services that London and NYC don't have.

[CenSin]

(almost did it again. Damn you Ressha Sentai ToQger [Tokkyuger])

It's a bit early to be drinking.

[SmallParkShuttle]

Hi all,

 

I don't post often, but I read this citylab article about the need for a full length SAS, and the political hurdles that hinder such a view. If seen these ideas and houghts on the forums, but never in an article as such. Link: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/nyc-cant-afford-to-build-the-second-avenue-subway-and-it-cant-afford-not-to/374538/

 

"In New York City history and lore, the Second Avenue subway is the Loch Ness Monster crossed with the Abominable Snowman. Politicians, transit planners, and everyone in between have witnessed this East Side subway line face countless stops and starts, lost promises and changed plans. So even as construction crews work around the clock to build a portion of this long-aborning line, many native New Yorkers (my father among them) say they won't believe in its existence until they ride the train itself."

[realizm]

The key goal is to relieve the crowding conditions on the IRT Lexington Ave line as much as possible since ridership continues to be almost capacity at many stations against smaller cars. Originally this was a IND Second System proposal and this is why the 6th Ave express tracks preexisted as stubs for expansion. (Later completed with the Christie St Cut by the current MTA. Bronx access is not a priority but this was also why the SAS currently will have a Bronx provision with phase 2.

 

So trains according to Two Timer (I remember talking with him a long time ago) is stating that all trains to Queens must stop at 49th Street for a reason. But I still think that if trains can if the interlockings are overhauled to improve the situations with the lineups, we can still achieve good headways on the Q going all the way uptown on the express tracks. If this is what happens, the delays may be minimal, as the person will not encounter a bottleneck at 59th/Lexington with the 60th Street tunnel. We still need a local train to Astoria one of two adjacent services to meet Queens demands. 

[Lance]

This quote really stuck out to me:

 

 

 

Thinking big—building more than 750 miles of track in five boroughs—made this city great, and to keep it great, New Yorkers will have to remember how to think big. 

That's been a major problem as of late. Remember the 1939 Second System proposal and the '68 Program for Action? Those had ambitious goals besides one project. Even the '99 RPA proposal was more than a simple stubway to the east side. We can't keep up with the rapidly growing demand if we build lines on the pace of a couple of miles a decade. We also need willpower to get these projects past the drawing stage. We need politicians who are actually in support of mass transit, rather than simply making a token effort and then taking the credit when everything's running smoothly.

[bobtehpanda]

The nice thing about SAS is that it also provides a future backbone for more outer borough expansion, since our current system is maxed out in the core (or pretty close to it). I would like for us to do the same thing LA did and vote for a city or regionwide penny tax to fund projects with, but we don't have the legal referendum mechanism to do so. Think of what it could do; a penny tax raised LA $40B for the next 30 years, and New York has a much bigger retail economy.

[Wallyhorse]

This quote really stuck out to me:

 

That's been a major problem as of late. Remember the 1939 Second System proposal and the '68 Program for Action? Those had ambitious goals besides one project. Even the '99 RPA proposal was more than a simple stubway to the east side. We can't keep up with the rapidly growing demand if we build lines on the pace of a couple of miles a decade. We also need willpower to get these projects past the drawing stage. We need politicians who are actually in support of mass transit, rather than simply making a token effort and then taking the credit when everything's running smoothly.

 

They did, and there are things that need to be done.  The other thing that needs to happen is for people to realize for instance that elevated lines can be a good thing, especially if they can be built quicker than subway and can be done so to handle storms twice as strong as Sandy.  If it can be cheaper to rebuild some of the previously torn down Els and for instance finish Phase 2 of the SAS as an El (coming out of a portal at the end of the stretch that was built in the '70s), then that needs to be looked at with it noted the transportation is needed (and as previously noted, my plans for a Bronx portion of a revived 3rd Avenue El would be to have a line from there AND FROM the SAS for example).  NIMBYs may have to educated and be made to realize that building (or rebuilding) Els do not have to be the worst thing.

 

The nice thing about SAS is that it also provides a future backbone for more outer borough expansion, since our current system is maxed out in the core (or pretty close to it). I would like for us to do the same thing LA did and vote for a city or regionwide penny tax to fund projects with, but we don't have the legal referendum mechanism to do so. Think of what it could do; a penny tax raised LA $40B for the next 30 years, and New York has a much bigger retail economy.

That would be easier said than done in New York.  If you can get that passed and it can raise money dedicated to transit, however, then it would really help in getting projects going forward.

[Lance]

You can forget about an elevated line being built pretty much anywhere nowadays, especially in such a dense area as East Harlem.