Second Ave. Sagas

Horodniceanu: Expansion possible with popular, political will

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

Every week, GE releases an online-only magazine called Txchnologist, focusing on the intersection among science, technology and infrastructure. In this week issue’s, reporter Matthew Van Dusen sat down for a talk with MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu, and the good doctor’s responses to Van Dusen’s questions provide some interesting fodder for thoughts on the MTA’s future. Take a read:

Txch: What happens if Second Avenue isn’t completed?

MH: It will be a train that starts at 96th and services the East Side between 96th and 63rd streets. It resolves some of the issues that existed on the Upper East Side. I think that, to go further north would be easy. We have tail tracks that go all the way to 105th street. Then we have a five-block gap. Then from 110th to 120th streets we have a tunnel. If you build a station at 105th to 110th streets you now will have another station. So you can come from 110th Street all the way down. We will also provide the ability to go south from 63rd street.

It’s going to be the political will, the people’s will. The same way that No. 7 could go further south. Right now it stops at 34th but we have tail tracks down to 26th street. There are opportunities to expand the system to make it better. It’s just a matter of people’s desire to do that.

While the initial cost projections for Phase 2 of SAS aren’t much less than the Phase 1 price tag, I’ve long believed Phase 2 will happen. There’s simply too much preexisting infrastructure to forego this opportunity, and the need is too great. South of 63rd St. is another question though as the MTA would have to forge ahead through some very densely populated areas of Manhattan. Money, of course, remains an issue.

The more intriguing statement here though concerns the 7 line. Will the 7 line head to New Jersey? Will it loop over to Chelsea Piers or 14th St. to offer some sort of connection with the L? In the realm of the possible, the new extension is built to provide that hope for future. That discussion though should involve finding money for a station at 41st St. and 10th Ave. as well.

Anyway, check out the rest of the short piece. Horodniceanu talks about working with the community and how underappreciated the MTA’s services are in New York City. Unfortunately, the interviewer didn’t ask about onerous work rules that cause a spike in construction prices in the city, and until that part of the equation is reduced, these future projects will just remain good ideas that live on paper.

Comments

19 responses to “Horodniceanu: Expansion possible with popular, political will”

  1. Hank

    Great story. I hope that Lhota will be a better public communicator than prior heads. Maybe even Gov. Andy can forget about running for president for a while and become a transit champion.

    Reply
  2. Larry Littlefield

    “While the initial cost projections for Phase 2 of SAS aren’t much less than the Phase 1 price tag.”

    That’s nuts. Just nuts.

    Consider the new MTA policy of shutting down lines for maintenance, with riders shifted nearby lines. How much easier that would be if the SAS was extended to 125th with a transfer to the Lex. Not to mention the protection for the East Side that redundancy would bring if the maintenance was NOT done and the Lex had to be shut down for a while as a result.

    Reply
    1. Bolwerk

      Horodniceanu doesn’t address why construction costs here are so many times more expensive than in other countries.

      Reply
      1. Tom Grommell

        Not just more expensive than other countries. My understanding is that apples to apples projects are significantly more expensive in NY state than they are just across the border in NJ or CT, due to various factors including ” labor law ” governing workplace injuries from falls that don’t exist anywhere else.

        Reply
        1. Bolwerk

          Hmmm, is a highway project in Rockland County more expensive than in Bergen County?

          Reply
        2. Alon Levy

          Tom, I honestly don’t know how expensive New York is relative to the rest of the US. You can’t exactly measure subways – Californian cities are building subways that are in most ways inherently cheaper than tunneling in Manhattan (and at any rate California has the same labor issues as New York), and other US cities that build subways build above-ground exurban extensions. For what it’s worth, Portland’s entirely above-ground, mostly at-grade Milwaukie MAX, and Washington’s mostly above-ground Silver Line, both have the same cost range as the cheaper-than-average fully underground subways in Europe.

          For one indication that things aren’t better in Jersey, look at the cost of the HBLR. In today’s money, it’s about $50 million per kilometer. It’s reasonable for on-street light rail in a constrained area; it’s not reasonable for a project that’s about 80% on preexisting railroad ROWs, for which the only significant extra infrastructure is one short viaduct, a few km of on-street light rail, and an infill station in a preexisting tunnel.

          Reply
      2. pete

        The mob. http://articles.nydailynews.co…..-companies
        http://newyork.construction.co…..ling-1.asp http://www.plazaconstruction.c…..r-contract

        Reply
    2. Jerrold

      And another thing that’s nuts, just nuts: How could anybody even BEGIN to talk about extending the #7 further south, until AFTER the station is put in at 10th Ave./41st St.?

      Reply
      1. Woody

        C’mon. Connecting 34th@11th Ave, Times Square, Grand Central, and all the other Flushing line stations with the crosstown L line along 14th St would be huge. That’s a much better way to spend half a billion bucks than an infill station in an already developed neighborhood.

        Reply
        1. Bolwerk

          Except at the rate they spend, you’re probably looking at closer to $2B-3B, without a station between the 7 and L. And I don’t see what that achieves, since the vast majority of L riders are not going to want to go up the far west side.

          Reply
        2. J B

          Wouldn’t it still be more direct for most L riders headed midtown to just take other lines north? And even more importantly, why is it imperative to develop new areas? Seems to me that serving people who are already there is more important than serving people who might move somewhere in the future. Following your logic we should only build subway lines in under-developed areas.

          Reply
        3. Alon Levy

          It really isn’t that huge. All of the stations along 14th are already more or less accessible on a two-seat ride. It’s much faster to transfer at Grand Central or 5th Avenue and take a north-south line than to detour through 11th Avenue and then have to transfer to the L. The stations in Brooklyn are accessible via the G, or if its frequency sucks too much than via the 4/5/6; that’s a three-seat ride, but it saves a lot of time over the 11th Avenue detour again.

          Reply
      2. TJ

        Thank you, Jerrold!!
        They have built so many new high-rise residential buildings along 42nd St past 8th Ave and yet not ONE station out there to serve the 10s of thousands of people who call the neighborhood home. I desperately hope they find the funding (maybe the government can stop going to war?! crazy idea.. I know..) and build that station! We absolutely need it out here… and they’re only building more and more residential high-rises out here, so the demand is there.. we just need the supply! Thanks again for mentioning this critical issue.

        Reply
  3. Ed

    They badly need the redundancy on the East Side, which justifies continuing with the SAS even at the price of letting parts of the rest of the system deteriorate, and also justifies federal funding, since a successful terrorist attack on the Lexington Avenue line would be a disaster.

    For the same reason the East Side should be a priority for BRT as well, though I view BRT mainly as a stopgap in case the subway doesn’t come through.

    Reply
    1. Bolwerk

      I agree with you about the subway in principle, but they can probably achieve a lot of the goals of relieving the Lex more cheaply by building other services. I’m not sure obviating a terrorist attack excuses the construction costs.

      I doubt BRT is a substitute for a subway even at the most off-peak periods. LRT is a minimum option for actually offering that.

      Reply
  4. John T

    Mr. Horodniceanu makes an excellent point that political leadership is needed to get transit projects done. Lots of transit extensions are possible, and have been possible for decades, but the will to lead has not been there

    Reply
  5. Scott E

    A little bit off topic, but yesterday I was listening to NHL Home Ice on XM-Radio and hockey maven/subway guru Stan Fischler called in. They started talking to him about the subway, and asked how he got so interested.

    His response (paraphrased): One morning in the 1930s, he woke up and saw workers breaking up the street in front of his house near Myrtle-Willoughby. He asked his mother what they were doing, and she said they’re building a new subway. So he saw the entire thing under construction, start to finish. He claimed that if you see a subway built, right before your eyes, you can’t help but fall in love with it!

    It’s a shame the folks on Second Avenue don’t see it the same way.

    Reply
  6. Idea: The L train to the United Nations :: Second Ave. Sagas

    […] few days ago, Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA Capital Construction, spoke vaguely of extending the 7 train if the popular will and political muscle is in place to do so. Wright’s plan, a dream more […]

    Reply
  7. BrooklynBus

    They should have extended the L train using the High Line. To build a subway instead is just crazy.

    Reply

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