After a week of good news for the 2nd Ave. subway, leave it to Dan Doctoroff to come and sleet, snow and freezing rain on everyone’s parade.
The Deputy Mayor and former head of the NYC2012 Olympics group threw some not-so-veiled threats in the direction of the MTA yesterday. Doctoroff is concerned about the finances behind the project. It’s so nice of him to worry about money after he was leading the fight to sink $1 billion into an ugly behemoth on the far West Side. The Sun had more:
“It will be the third groundbreaking for the same project. It sounds like the Freedom Tower,” Mr. Doctoroff told a gathering of about 400 transportation professionals at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council’s annual meeting yesterday, referring to the ground zero memorial that has celebrated multiple groundbreakings but has seen little work thereafter. “We’ve seen how these things play out before.”
The Second Avenue line, known as the city’s greatest transportation project never built, is a planned two-track subway line that will run along Manhattan’s East Side to the financial district from 125th street. Construction on such a line stopped in 1975, when funds for the project ran dry. “We can’t afford that mistake again,” Mr. Doctoroff said. He stressed that even the expected federal funding for the project “does not mean a commitment to completing the job.”
But some involved think that Doctoroff is politicking around. The city – after signing up forthe project originally – has reneged on their promise to construct the 7 line extension; they won’t commit to cover the projected cost overruns.
The MTA has challenged all parties involved to come up with constructive funding proposals to avoid sending the MTA further into debt, and MTA CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander noted that the agency may split construction into small pieces to allow more contractors to bid.
So take that, Dan Doctoroff. This subway will be built with or without your negativity.
That sexy shot of Dan Doctoroff courtesy of Building Congress.
4 comments
He should hate it. It is the most absurd project conceivable.
You’ll have a hard time convincing me of that, peter. But let’s hear it. What are your arguments for a very badly needed subway line possibly being “the most absurd project conceivable”?
For starters, the economics of it don’t add up. One day we read in the papers that Kalikow says there is no stopping the building of 2nd Ave.Subway; but soon after we read in the press that the MTA has deficits running in the billions, is considering a fare hike, can’t afford to complete maintenance projects that were supposed to be completed years ago, etc. The MTA claims the project will cost 3.8B. But that is what they said it would cost back in 2002. The cost hasn’t risen in the last 5 or 6 years? Who are they kidding? The price tag must be nearly 5B now. Where is the extra money going to come from? The logistics of it make no sense. Take only the traffic issue. Where are all the trucks and cars that use 2nd Ave. going to go? To Lex or the FDR? There are going to be calamitous traffic messes for 7 or 8 years. Nothing makes sense. They say phase 1 by itself will take at least 6 years, yet they also claim the rest of the line, which includes up to 125th St. and down to the tip of Manhattan, will take only 7 more years to complete. It is a farce.
[…] bad news was swirling on Tuesday. A few days after Dan Doctoroff expressed his concerns with the SAS funding and just a few hours after The Times reported on the rising real estate costs of buildings along […]