The MetroLink plan put for by the RPA in 1999 was far more extensive than the MTA's SAS proposal.
In the recent history of the Second Ave. Subway, 1999 was a pivotal year for the long-aborning subway line. With New York’s economy on the upswing and subway ridership along Lexington Ave. creating cattle car-like conditions, New York politicians and transit activists were pressuring the authority to include a funding request for the Second Ave. line as it got ready to propose the 2000-2004 capital plan. How ambitious the MTA would be in its plans for Second Ave. though was an open question.
As the debate over Second Avenue’s subway future wore on that summer, three contending proposal emerged. The first was a very modest one put forward by their MTA that featured four potential solutions to the Lexington Ave. subway crunch. The first was a no-build plan that would look to improve current service through signal upgrades and increases in train capacity. The second focused on creating priority bus lanes on First and Second Aves. from 96th St. to Houston St. The third involved building a subway line from 125th St. to 63rd St. with a connection to the Broadway line via the unused tunnel at 63rd St. — also known today as Phases 1 and 2 of the SAS. The fourth involved that new subway line but with a streetcar that go from 14th St. and Union Square to Broad St. via the Lower East Side.
Reaction to these proposals was intense and immediate: No one liked them. ”The M.T.A. has proposed mere tokens,” then-Public Advocate Mark Green, head of a group of politicians pushing a full Second Ave. line, said. This group later called upon the MTA to ask for funding for the full line. ”We expect the M.T.A. to offer bold solutions to big problems,” they said.
The Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA echoed those politicians. ”We do support the north subway, but only as a step toward a full-length subway,” Michael T. Doyle, the committee’s transportation planner, said. ”It’s a good first step but they can’t just stop with that.”
As city politicians spent the summer urging the MTA to plan for a full-length Second Ave. Subway, a third proposal from the Regional Plan Association remained on the table. Released in early January 1999, this call for transit expansion on a grander scale — 19 miles of new subway tunnel, 31 new stations and five new subway lines with the Second Ave. subway as the trunk line. The plan had a price tag of $13 billion, a figure we scoff at today, but RPA analysts defended their work 11 years ago. ”This plan makes it possible for almost everyone in the city to benefit,” the association’s Jeffrey Zupan said. ”Despite the price tag, people will say it’s worth it, if it does enough for enough people.”
As for the details, the plan — still available here on the RPA’s website — would have been the most extensive subway expansion project since the IND Second System, and it all relied on the Second Ave. Subway. The blue line on the map above would have served Co-Op City and Lower Manhattan. The green route would run as a super-express from Grand Central Terminal to Water Street and then onto Kennedy Airport via a new line over the Van Wyck. The brown line would have traveled from Grand Central to the Financial District and into Brooklyn via Second Ave. and the Nassau St. line. The black route would run via Second Ave. to Jamaica. The red line would go from Laurelton to Gravesend via LIRR tracks, head down Second Ave. and spur off at 14th St. to Ave. C as original SAS planners had hoped. This line would then enter Brooklyn on the F and run express via the IND Culver line to Ave. X.
Over a decade later, we still argue for these transit expansions, but MetroLink never came to be. One day, we hope for F express service in Brooklyn and a high-speed rail link from Lower Manhattan to JFK Airport. We want to see the Second Ave. Subway extended into the Bronx and to Co-Op City, and Alphabet City too yearns for closer subway access. The planners who don’t have to write the checks can afford to dream big.
Meanwhile, we know how the story ended. The MTA earned approval for a four-phase plan to build the Second Ave. Subway from 125th St. to Hanover Square, and I can’t shake the feeling that the authority’s original goal to build a subway only from 125th St. to 63rd St. may be all that we get. The agency has money for Phase 1, and Phase 2 relies on a good portion of preexisting track. Beyond that, Phases 3 and 4 await money, a political ally and time. The politicians may have won on paper in 1999, but an Upper East Side Second Ave. subway stub remains a very distinct possibility. It’s better than nothing even as the RPA’s MetroLink remains alluring and oh-so-far out of reach.
As the MTA has spent the last few years careening from one financial crisis to another, it has become abundantly clear that Albany isn’t going to help the New York Metropolitan Area’s transit network stay solvent. As our state representatives have refused to acknowledge the vital role public transportation plays in the region’s — and indeed the state’s — economy, our legislatures have offered half-hearted measures with faulty economic bases while ignoring comprehensive solutions with economic, environmental and social rationales. It has been an utter derogation of responsibility.
