Question For New Yorkers To Ponder This Holiday Season

What difference does it make?

Matt is looking for a difference.

I walk along Second Avenue every day and there's definitely work going on with the subway line. My guess is that the first phrase between East 96th Street and East 63rd Street will be finished many years before 2029. Will the entire Second Avenue subway be completed in 20 years is another question. If I had to guess, I would say yes since there is a tremendous need for additional public transit on the East Side. But I wouldn't bet a large amount of money on this. Happy holidays and happy new year to the entire SE community- I've certainly learned alot reading the posts here.

But it apparently will be sad that Baby Boomers won't be paying full fare for it.

I think they'll get phase 1 done (and maybe phase 2, which is already tunneled) but beyond that, I have my doubts. What I don't understand is why they didn't start boring from 63rd and head north. This would have allowed them to open the 72nd St. station much earlier while the drilling continued. Just that one station would make a huge difference.

There was talk of other major improvements to public transit such as a LIRR connection at Grand Central and moving Penn Station to the 8th Avenue post office location. Those are projects that I've heard nothing about for a long time. Do you think that the Second Avenue subway is the most likely project to be completed of all the large public transit projects? Are there large public transit projects seriously contemplated in the other NYC boroughs?

lizyaNK, you worry too much about really stupid shit

EZRenter, I disagree. Many people are interested in the Second Avenue subway, especially if you live on the east side (or like me, you live right near the construction).

Well, to make Liz happy I assume we could start imposing an "MTA Baby Boomer Tax" right now, to ensure those nasty Baby Boomers pay their "fair share" before they die ...

lobster, is one of the projects you refer to the ARC? http://www.arctunnel.com/ FKA Trans-Hudson Express.

I believe it got some funding with the "stimulus" bill from earlier this year. Expected to open 2017 so that probably means 2020 or so.

Looking2return, I was thinking of the LIRR connection at Grand Central, but your information looks very interesting and I'll read it through. Happy holidays to you and yours.

Actually the question was spurred by a a conversation I had about the WPA and how necessary government intervention in economic meltdowns actually got things done for the public good. In fact in New York, we generally were able to get projects completed until the mid-60s. You may dislike housing projects but the were built and they provided better housing then the tenements they replaced (at least one bathroom to an apartment is an improvement, architecural value be damned or did not know anyone whose bathroom was in the hall?) I know Robert Moses was the devil incarnate but things moved forward under his tutalage and thus we have bridges, tunnels and more than a few state parks. I'm also sure that the time it will take to rebuild the WTC will be a multiple of the time it took to build it in the first place and its a damn shame the memorial won't be finished for the 10th annniversary.

The Second Avenue Subway project which I've been hearing about my entire Baby Boomer life (and no Matt I don't consider us to be nasty) is indicative of how impossible its become to get anything built regardless of how desperately its neeeded. And of course I shudder to think of how madly new runways are needed at JFK and LGA...at least we won't have to wait for longer than three hours on the tarmac any more.

Okay there's my Christmas rant. Ho Ho Ho and all that....