Nine months ago, I reported on a proposed MTA plan to save money on the Second Ave. Subway construction costs by cutting the planned third track at 72nd St. While the track had been drawn up to allow other trains to bypass stalled cars, the MTA has officially decided it is an unnecessary expense, and Capital Construction cut it this week to save money. The agency is calling the cut a a $90 million savings, but because redesigning the 72nd St. station will cost $25 million, the decision to sacrifice future flexibility for present savings will net the project $65 million. It hardly seems worth it.
In talking about the cuts at yesterday’s MTA Board meeting, Michael Horodniceanu compared the revamped Second Ave. Subway design to a poorly made American car. “We’re getting a Chevy,” he said of the long-awaited line. (Audio here.) I hope the city doesn’t come to regret the need to skimp on construction of this important new line.
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I don’t think the 3rd track at 72nd street was originally intended to bypass stalled trains. I mean, if that were the purpose, it would help only when a train fortuitously stalled at that exact spot, which surely wouldn’t have happened all that often.
Rather, I think the 3rd track was for other purposes (short-turns, train storage, construction re-routes). And yes, it is a pity that we will be losing that flexibility.
I think the idea was to ease congestion at the merge. The extra track would have allowed uptown trains from both lower Second Avenue and the Broadway BMT to pull into the 72nd Street station at the same time. One train could have waited at the platform with its doors open while the other was sent ahead. Now, one train or the other may have to wait in the tunnel.
I happen to think it’s incredibly short sighted to not make this a full four-track system capable of handling local and express trains. But I suppose nobody in this day and age, at least in this city, is capable of thinking big enough for that sort of thing. We can’t even get funding for the barest of basics anymore.
So there’s no express service and now it will be constantly backed up due to stalled trains and sick passengers. Surely the 1.25% savings is worth it.
My spidey sense is once again ringing. This has all the hints of the MTA knowing damn well that the SAS is never moving beyond Phase 1 (or 2 if we’re lucky.) You could do without the 3rd track for turnarounds if you’re only building a 4 stop extension of the Q…
I’ve had the sinking feeling that this is true for the last few months. It’s better than nothing I guess…
I sadly agree, but that’s no excuse to completely block yourself from any possibility of future expansion. The system is littered with artifacts of planned expansions that never happened, but suddenly it’s more important to trade a few million bucks now for massive headaches later (that sounds familiar…).
That’s a bit over-dramatic. There are many places in the subway system where two lines merge, without the third track that is now being eliminated at 72nd Street. It would have been nice to have, but its absence does not “completely block…any possibility of future expansion.” It doesn’ block it in any sense whatsoever.
On the question of express service on 2nd Avenue, the die was cast over 40 years ago, when the current design (for all intents and purposes) was decided upon.
Well, I live on a line (the R in Bay Ridge) that was specifically designed for relatively easy expansion from two to four tracks. What part of the current design of the SAS addresses this issue?
Twenty or thirty years from now when this extension has long been paid for and is starting to show its age, they are going to think us foolish for not making better use of our one opportunity to do this right. How many millions of dollars in wasted productivity has been accumulated over the years by uptown 4 and 5 trains slowing to 5 mph to crawl through that tight curve into grand central. There was one chance to get that right decades ago and compromises were made and we’ll live with it forever. There are dozens of examples in the system — that’s the one that drives me crazy because I have to deal with it every morning. We need more focus on value — what are getting for our multi-billion dollar investment — and less on the bottom dollar, which nobody will remember or care about next year.