The MTA has for more than 70 years promised New Yorkers a Second Avenue subway in downtown Manhattan — but that dream has once again been put on the backburner.
The agency in a report published last year said an extension of the line from E. 63rd Street to Houston Street wasn’t a priority. The MTA is already working to extend the line north from E. 96th St. to 125th St. and Lexington Avenue — but now says extending the line farther west into Harlem is a better idea than building a new downtown line.
Officials estimated the downtown extension featuring six new stations would cost $13.5 billion to construct and serve 230,400 daily riders.
Extending the line across Harlem to Broadway from Lexington Avenue and 125th St. — where the Second Avenue subway will terminate once its next phase is completed — would cost $7.5 billion and serve 239,7000 daily riders, officials said.
The estimates are laid out in the MTA’s 20-year needs assessment, a semi-decennial tome that prioritizes infrastructure repairs and grades the feasibility of expansion projects.
Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year put her support behind the uptown extension over the downtown one.
Dashing the dreams of a downtown subway along Second Avenue is a tale as old as the MTA.
When the agency was formed in 1968, consolidating the city’s disparate transportation authorities, officials promised the Second Avenue subway would run along Manhattan’s East Side. The line was to run from the Battery up to East Harlem and, eventually, into the Bronx.
The plan had been discussed for decades, but inaugural MTA chairman William Ronan declared the line would be a centerpiece of his master transit plan that aimed to make up for “30 years of do-nothingness.”
But a group of lawmakers led by then-member of Congress Ed Koch decried the downtown route as one that would be too far away from those who lived in Alphabet City. The city Board of Estimate in June 1969 tabled approval of the route, and the following month approved an alternate line that would loop around Avenue A before extending down to the Battery.
Construction broke ground on that alternate line within two years, but was quickly halted during the city’s financial crisis of the mid-1970s.
By the time the MTA came back to the Second Avenue subway in the 2000s, the agency began by building three stops on the Upper East Side — and promised that, one day, it would run downtown.
The fare increase, which received unanimous support from NJ Transit’s board on Wednesday, is still subject to approval by the state Legislature when it finalizes its budget this June. Read more.
MTA CEO Janno Lieber said he’s confident New Jersey’s lawsuit over congestion pricing won’t stop the tolling program from taking effect this summer as expected. Read more.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers say they want to crack down on the increasingly bold ways New York drivers evade tolls. They just haven’t agreed on how to do it. Read more.
Police said a New York City Department of Environmental Protection employee was arrested Monday for fatally striking a Queens woman with a city truck while on the job. Read more.
The transit workers’ union said the MTA denied eight Muslim bus drivers their last-minute requests to take Wednesday off to observe Eid al-Fitr. Read more.
Mayor Eric Adams said this week that while he often rides the subway in the middle of the night, it’s not “realistic” for him to ride the train to work every day because of his schedule. Read more.
Through the first three months of 2024, there were 48 fires caused by lithium-ion batteries used in e-bikes and e-scooters, resulting in 29 injuries and one death, according to the FDNY. Here are three ways the city is trying to prevent these fires. Read more.
The city Department of Transportation said it’s phasing out printed receipts at parking meters and turning to a fully digital system, which will save 2,500 miles of receipt paper each year. Read more.
Curious commuter
“I am not a dog hater but I do hate that they are allowed on buses. Why?”
- Mary, New York
What Clayton says:
We’ve reported in depth about how dogs are becoming a more common sight on subway trains — and many owners are flouting the MTA’s rules. If the canines are taken on board they must be “enclosed in a container and carried in a manner which would not annoy other passengers.” The MTA says the same rule applies for buses. Data on enforcement of the rule aboard buses wasn’t immediately available. But our previous reporting found that the NYPD has largely stopped issuing violations for dogs on subways.
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Service Tips
The Queens-bound side of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be fully offline from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street from April 13 at 2 a.m. to April 15 at 4 a.m. for repairs. Read more.
Friday night through early Monday morning:
2 trains won’t run between 3 Av-149 St, Bronx and 96 St, Manhattan.
All 3 train service will be suspended.
In the Bronx, Norwood-bound D trains will skip 170 St, 174-175 Sts and 182-183 Sts.
In Brooklyn, late night Coney Island-bound N trains will skip Union St, 4 Av-9 St, Prospect Av, and 25 St, and R trains won’t run between between Whitehall St-South Ferry and 59 St, Brooklyn.
This week in NYC transit history
Stephen Nessen/WNYC
MTA IG hits NYPD over subway trash
The MTA inspector general in April 2006 blamed the NYPD for failing to enforce littering laws in the subways, saying police officers weren’t doing enough to keep the system clean. The IG report found the NYPD issued some 11,000 summonses for littering in the subways in 2004, but the crackdown wasn’t as aggressive as the MTA had requested. The IG blamed litter for clogging up subway drains, leading the system to flood during heavy downpours.
