If you squint, you can almost see a subway. (The hole in the ground at Second Ave. from Curbed).
78thAnd2nd, an online friend of Second Ave. Sagas, is guest blogging at Curbed this week. For his post, he hit upon an interesting question: Why is it going to take so damn long to get this Second Ave. subway built?
The MTA shut down parts of Second Ave. a few weeks ago, and since then, not much has happened on the street. Meanwhile, as we all know quite well, the Second Ave. subway project is due to last until 2020, and even the three stops that make up Phase I of this project won’t be completed until 2013.
So to answer our question, we turn to a recent piece by Alex Marshall, editor of the Regional Plan Association’s newsletter. He writes:
The first phase of the Second Avenue subway is a tenth the size of the original IRT in track length and has three stations as opposed to 28. Yet it will take six years to complete as opposed to four for the much larger IRT. Why is this?…
I think part of the answer is funding. If the funding stream for the Second Avenue subway were doubled, for example, could construction time be cut in half? If you add up all the time lost to individuals stuffed onto overcrowded subways on the Lexington Avenue line, if you contemplated the dollar value of the new development that will spring from the East Side once the Second Avenue is completed, it would make sense to spend a lot more money sooner to make the subway happen more quickly.
Marshall also notes that micromanagement and the recent attention to environmental studies, historical impact and and workplace safety measures contribute to the snail’s pace of construction.
The point however is one I made earlier today, and the one those commenting on my post this morning are making. New York City should be willing to spend money now to get its public transportation infrastructure ready for the next 100 years. The city, once a visionary in this field, has stagnated. Now we need someone to deliver the proverbial kick in the pants. But what politician will shepherd through a multi-billion-dollar subway expansion plan? Anyone?