March 16, 2007
DOCTOROFF ACKNOWLEDGES THE OBVIOUS
One of the basic truisms of NYC transit projects is that the 2nd Avenue Subway line will never be built. Nonetheless, every ten years or so the city feels like it has to go through the motions. A few hundred million bucks are wasted on surveying work, planning, and maybe even a section of tunnel gets built, but the fact is, New Yorkers will be commuting on flying cars before a 2nd Avenue line is built. Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff finally had to admit as much publicly:
"It will be the third groundbreaking for the same project. It sounds like the Freedom Tower," Mr. Doctoroff told a gathering of about 400 transportation professionals at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council's annual meeting yesterday, referring to the ground zero memorial that has celebrated multiple groundbreakings but has seen little work thereafter. "We've seen how these things play out before."
The Second Avenue line, known as the city's greatest transportation project never built, is a planned two-track subway line that will run along Manhattan's East Side to the financial district from 125th street. Construction on such a line stopped in 1975, when funds for the project ran dry.
"We can't afford that mistake again," Mr. Doctoroff said. He stressed that even the expected federal funding for the project "does not mean a commitment to completing the job."
I don't doubt for a second that New York will continue to pour hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars down a whole drilled undernearth 2nd Avenue, but the safest bet over the last 100 years and for the next 100 years is that no one will ever take a trip anywhere on a 2nd Ave. line.
The long undistinguished history of the 2nd Ave. Subway can be examined here.
Tagged: 2nd avenue, subwayPosted by Lexiphane at March 16, 2007 1:03 PM
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