The SI-Manhattan tunnel doesn’t even have to connect to the subway. I’ve always envisioned it as connecting to commuter rail (Grand Central, one day, maybe – that would also support through-routing). Connecting to the subway is a problem because it’d make the combined line too long; a combined 1-SIR route would be even longer than the A to Far Rockaway.

In concert with a web site redesign, I would add “make a better subway map”. The current one stinks. I know there’s a huge fight between advocates of a “geographical” map versus those of a “diagrammatic” map–I don’t want to get into that. But I do think there are some major defects in the current map that could be addressed regardless of the overall design. First, it’s too big. Second, there’s too much gratuitous detail, especially those bus boxes. Third–and this problem has never been adequately addressed–the routes (e.g. express vs. local) are just too confusing for the average person to understand.

#5 – This is LONG overdue. Could be some legal ramifications though. Since the Staten Island Railroad connects to heavy-rail freight tracks, it falls under FRA rules, which are stricter than rapid-transit regulations. If SIR is physically connected to the subway, some sort of waiver or other scheme may be needed to avoid upgrading the entire subway system.

1. Cancel the 7 extension.

2. Go over the contracts for subway construction and figure out why a kilometer of two-track subway in Manhattan costs the same as four kilometers in Tokyo and seven kilometers in San Francisco. Until a solution emerges, freeze all construction that can’t be done under $500 million per km, which is twice the level of San Francisco. It may piss off Second Avenue interests right now, but in a year, when new contracts are tendered for one quarter the current cost, it’ll make everything go a lot more smoothly.

3. Through-route commuter rail lines. It’s okay if MNRR and the LIRR keep nominally separate corporate identities, as long as they as well as NJT can run trains on one another’s tracks. Tokyo and Paris have through-routing on multiple agencies and companies’ lines, and so can New York.

4. Triboro. As in point #2, the MTA should not tender contracts unless they’re at least of the same order of magnitude as anywhere else. Surface light rail construction typically costs $15-30 million per km; since Triboro is entirely on the surface, or in preexisting trenches, it should not cost any more.

5. Staten Island-Manhattan rail tunnel. It should cost about the same as the proposed Jersey-Brooklyn tunnel, $7.4 billion. It’s a lot, but it can shave 10-20 minutes off the one-way commutes of Staten Islanders, and promote transit-oriented development instead of sprawl.

And I’d even be cautious about website redesign: the London experience is that this results in all sorts of useful documents disappearing.