Comments on: Staten Island board rep pushing for projects

By: sean

sean — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 08:39:50 +0000

First of all Adam and A-W MTA should not focus on transportation to or through new jersey they should focus on connecting staten island with the rest of new york city.Staten island is apart of new york NOT new jersey.Therefore there should be no light rail or any other transportation to/through new jersey.Also i agree with the tunnels to brooklyn,manhattan,and the connection to the 4th ave subway.It would be a great way to help staten islanders to commute around the rest of new york city and it would attract more people to the low populated staten island.

By: David Moog

David Moog — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:27:13 +0000

Back about 90 years ago the owner of the Hudson Manhattan Railway (the precusor of the PATH) proposed running his trains to Staten Island. They would have run from Journal Square, down the CNY tracks (now the Bergan Hudsson Light Rail) down Bayonne and through a tunnel to St George. Another proposal had a tunnel running from Manhattan to Ellis Island and then on a viaduct near the Jersy side to Staten Island with a tunnel under the Kill Van Kull (with a variation of having a tunnel under Liberty Island and surface tracks through Bayonne).

If you look at other Federally funded subways a Staten Island to Manhattan tunnel would carry more passengers then most of the awarded projects.

By: Jo' Gahtar

Jo' Gahtar — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:15:31 +0000

I like that there is an idea to connect Staten Island w/ the rest of New York City, not New Jersey. The Brooklyn-Staten Island tunnel can become a reality (no matter how much it costs cause nothing is impossible) but we have to put effort and heart to make it happen. I would have this happen first then light rail to New Jersey.

By: Rhywun

Rhywun — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:20:29 +0000

I live in Bay Ridge, so to me “those people” means the hordes of SI’ers who overrun my neighborhood with their cars–especially on Friday and Saturday evenings….

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:11:47 +0000

Like I said before, leave the MTA out of Staten Island and have the Port Authority run transit there (seeing as the most direct route to Manhattan runs through NJ, not Brooklyn). Tunneling under NY harbor is going to cost probably upwards of $25 billion, let alone doing it longways would probably cost even more ($40-50 billion maybe?) A PATH tunnel through Bayonne and Jersey City would probably cost a lot less. The trains could run on a new ROW along Newark Bay and Route 440 in Jersey City, then tunnel under Kennedy Boulevard in Bayonne (if the PA REALLY wants to splurge, an even better option would be under West Side Avenue in Jersey City, which would provide another connection to the HBLR).

There’s a rail line that runs along the north shore of SI right on the other side of the Bayonne Bridge, and the PATH could then use that to get to destinations on the north side of SI. Now how to get into the heart of SI I have no idea…

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:54:38 +0000

It won’t just shave 9 minutes from SI to Canal, but also make it feasible to get from SI to Lower Manhattan, which the N doesn’t serve. My pet proposal is connecting the SIR not to the subway but to commuter rail, with a north-south tunnel with stops at St. George, Fulton, Union Square, and Grand Central. This would also enable higher fares than $2, in accordance with the faster service and the higher maintenance costs of a long underwater tunnel.

By: AlexB

AlexB — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:46:24 +0000

You are probably right about SI culture. Who knows though. I guess it’s all about your frame of reference. Would you prefer to keep out “those people” more than you would prefer to shave hours and hundreds of dollars off your commute? I know what I’d pick. But then again, I live in Brooklyn.

My cost assumptions are super-vague, based generally on what the 7 extension and 2nd ave subway cost. Half a billion per subway station and a billion per tunnel mile seems pretty typical these days for NYC. The express tracks already exist on the 4th Ave line to 59th, so no, I did not include their build out.

By: AlexB

AlexB — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:37:15 +0000

For an extra $2 billion or so, you could extend the W train (or possibly the 1 or E), and shave 3 miles off the trip between St George and Canal (6-9 minutes). I would think that that route should include a stop in Red Hook as it’s basically on the way, but that would add a bit more time and another half billion for the station. If you are headed to midtown, your time savings would be more like 4-6 minutes because the N would make the longer trip with 4 fewer stops (6 on the N vs 10 on the W to Herald Square). (By the way, my assumption in my first comment was that the M would run full time on what’s now the D, the D would be re-routed to what’s now the N and the N would run to Staten Island.)

By: Rhywun

Rhywun — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:56:47 +0000

Oh, I was assuming it would travel all the way down 4th Avenue as an express, stop at 86th Street, then on to SI.

By: AlexB

AlexB — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:38:27 +0000

I have seen those maps before of the original proposal and they are what got me thinking about the project to begin with. Connecting the SIR to the 4th Ave line is not a new idea. It’s the age of the idea that makes it seems so far-fetched now, not the feasibility. I think they actually built a part of the tunnel under 67th St. If you look at the track map from the Brooklyn side, there are switches that would allow the local connection to immediately move to the express just north of the 59th st station.