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Our Town, October
27, 2005 What’s Happening
With The Edward-Isaac Dovere On October 27, the mayor, the governor and a host of other
elected officials gathered at
“There is just one man responsible for this groundbreaking this morning” the governor said. “And that’s man is President Richard Nixon”
It was October 27 1972. The governor was Nelson
Rockefeller and the mayor John Lindsay, who could have looked up on their
ways to the opening ceremony to see the
And they would have said that the trains running under
Despite 33 years, millions of dollars, hundreds of speeches, and immeasurable straphanger frustration, the Second Avenue line is barely one stop closer to reality then it was that day in 1972-and for that matter, in the 1920’s, when it was first proposed. Construction of the latest incarnation was supposed to begin last December, but it was delayed. The MTA’s official documents now put the start date in 2005, but there seems little evidence they will be able to follow through.
Yet this nov.8 the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
(MTA) is asking voters to sign off on the Transportation Bond Act, which
would permit $.9 billion in state bonds. Half the money would go to upstate
roads, and half to projects around the city. Of the city portion, $450 million
to East side access. Which would add new stop for the
Without this money, the MTA says it will fall short in its own funds, despite announcing close to a $1 billion deficit in April and a nearly equal surplus in July, all while still planning to raise fares again in 2007.
“There’s no logic,” said John Liu, chair of the City Council Transportation Committee and one of many who question the wisdom bonding the MTA more money. “It’s certainly not a compelling reason to give them another billion and a half more to use.”
Nonetheless, he said the importance of the lines is “self
evident” from the economic studies an increase in business and in real estate
values along the line and the environmental studies showing reductions in
automobile traffic, and thus the noise and emission. He also noted concerns
about overcrowding on the
So she will vote for the bond act, despite enough skepticism about the MTA to keep him from encountering others to do so. However, it has received more enthusiastic support from most politicians, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic opponents Fernando Ferrer. Chief state and city financial watchdog Comptrollers Alan Hevesi and William Thompson back it as well.
“We move, we grow, we function based on our mass transit system. Anything that you can do by using other dollars than just yours or just MTA dollars to expand it is good,” Thompson said.
The bonds were conceived as part of a five-year, $35.9
billion MTA capital plan agreed upon in
Some would be pleased to see it fail. Its not out of opportunity to see the projects-indeed, through there are people who complain that they may endangered local business and neighborhood quality of life, the majority of the public and political sentiment seems to favor them.
The state already $47.6 billion in debt, and the MTA has borrowed heavily as well. Within three years, a fifth of the agency budget is likely to be devoted to paying its debt service.
“To have the level of indebtedness the
People would be better served by relocating new or existing tax revenues.
“It’s a system that is financed through the cobbling together of a variety of different sources and it shouldn’t be,” she said. “It needs to be financed in a sensible, consistent fashion, and that every means everyone needs to kick in.”
These are also worries about the MTA’s ability to undertake al these projects simultaneously without encountering problems from scattered focus.
Tied to this is the question of whether the money will actually go toward the construction or disappear-as it has before.
No major cash had been allocated to the
In 1967, $84 million state and $43 million city bond were
issued, along with an additional $25 million federal grand to build from 34th
to
Since Rep. Carolyn Maloney spearheaded the project’s revival a decade ago, she has won $ 1.5 million in federal money for it. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has secured $1.05 billion in state funds. Earlier in the year, the federal Transportation Administration announced it would be distribute $158 million between the line and five other projects nationwide,
But if all this money went to the line along with $450 million more from the bond act, the total would be just $1.7 billion dollar, or 10% of the $16.8 billion the fully built line is projected to cost. That is the lowest ratio funds to projected costs of the three attempts.
The city has been down this road before. Shortly after Lindsay and Rockefeller
Stood smiling for the camera in 1972, digging began for four approximately portions of completed tunnel scattered along proposed route, covering between 25 and 30 blocks in total. They are till waiting there for trains.
State Senator Eric Schriderman is concerned that the prospects do not yet look much better for this incarnation of the line.
“I find myself frequently in the position oh having to give people a reality check of how far away we are from being able to actually build the second avenue subway,” He said “if its an $11 or $12 billion project- and that may be low- putting in $450 million keeps it moving, but no one has identify where we’re going to get the other $11.5 billion
Scheiderman noted that when it comes to getting more money
from
“All of our long-term fiscal problems result from the fact that we borrowed money pay for our expenses, which is just insane,” Schneiderman said.
On the MTA’s website there is a subway map with 16 stops
of the turquoise “T” superimposed along
Aside from this map, the old tunnels and some new preparatory studies, there is not yet much to the project, though the MTA still expects it to be completed by 2012. Even optimistic estimates put it several years later, and even many of the most ardent supporters are now talking about the type of interim solutions like Bus Rapid Transit that could well become permanent alternatives.
Neither East Side Access nor any proposed transportation
project in the city-posed and perhaps in the world-has as long or storied a
history as the
This sort of question, coupled with general dissatisfaction among riders, creates a threat to bond act, and thus a threat to the completion of the subway line and a slew of other projects.
“The state of
Most indication show support for the proposal. Though city
voters expected to turn but in larger numbers, given the race for mayor and
other offices in the city, the bond act seems to have been received well
across the state-by 56 percent margin, according to a recent
Krueger does not anticipate real progress until there is a new governor, particularly if that governor is from the city, as is expected frontrunner Eliot Spitzer. But with strong and carefully chosen phrasing, she said all well be moot if the bond act does not provide the MTA with necessary funds in place.
“A lot is riding on this,” she said. |
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