Benjamin Kabak

MTA contractors survey an unfinished station at 34th St. and 11th Ave. (Photo: Benjamin Kabak)

It will be six months yet — and, judging from the photos I snapped, maybe more — before passengers can ride the 7 train to 34th St. and 11th Ave., but as Friday’s ceremonial first ride demonstrated, uncharted territories of Manhattan will soon be on the (subway) map. When the official ribbon-cutting arrives, it will be a big day with New York’s first new subway stop nearly three decades, and as with any project of this magnitude, the gains are real but so are the mistakes. As Mayor Bloomberg stood at his podium Friday afternoon, I pondered some of those mistakes.

As has been the party line for some time now, Bloomberg repeated that the 7 line extension was “on time and on budget.” It’s a $2.4 billion, one-stop extension from 41st St. between 7th and 8th Avenues to 26th and 11th with a station that spans 34th-36th St. in front of the Javits Center. By the time the Hudson Yards development is in full swing, it will see tens of thousands of riders per day and has already opened up some of the last underutilized space in Manhattan to development. Even in 2013, where the subways go, people and business will follow.

But what did we give up to make sure the 7 line extension was on time and on budget? The economics of it all are a bit shady. The city forked over $2.1 billion initially, and the MTA had to pick up some cost overruns. Ultimately, as the MTA didn’t want to build this subway extension if it had to fund any of it, the parties agreed on a funding scheme that worked for all involved but at a big cost. The initial plans called for a two-stop extension with a interim station at 41st St. and 10th Ave. Shortly after I started this site in 2006, that station fell by the wayside, and the MTA and Mayor’s Office engaged in a battle of attrition over the project’s plans.

A panoramic view of the mezzanine at the 7 line’s 34th St. station. (Photo: Benjamin Kabak)

When it became clear that the second station wouldn’t see the light of day during the initial stages of construction, the city and MTA tried to come to an agreement on a station shell. The construction would have cost around $500 million. Again, the city wouldn’t pay, and the MTA had no spare capital funding. So the shell was axed, and the MTA built in bare provisioning for a future station. The incline of the tunnel flattens out for a few hundred feet near 10th Ave. should money materialize in the future for two platforms on either side of the street. In a fight over the paltry sum of half a billion dollars, New York residents of today and tomorrow lost out. That station will cost significantly more to build in the future than it would have today.

During the battle over that station, we had a glimpse into the machinations of the Mayor’s Office. Dan Doctoroff, when he was the deputy mayor for economic development, was the public face of the fight over the second station, and one line from a Bloomberg P.R. rep, in particular, highlights Doctoroff’s and Bloomberg’s thinking. “Unlike the extension to 34th Street and 11th Avenue, which the city is funding, a 10th Avenue station is not necessary to drive growth there,” the statement said. “A Tenth Avenue station would be nice, but it’s really a straight transportation project versus an economic development catalyst. We do recognize the difficult financial situation in which the M.T.A. finds itself as pressure on all of our budgets intensifies.”

Doctoroff has pursued this line of thinking in recent comments on the Second Ave. Subway, and I worry about what it means for future city investment in transit expansion. During Friday’s ceremony, Ann Weisbrod of the Hudson Yards Development Corporation spoke, and Stephen M. Ross, the chairman of the Related Companies took the mic as well. For all the pomp and circumstance over infrastructure expansion, this was about development first and transportation a distant second.

So what happens in the future? Are we doomed to subway expansion efforts funded by the city only if they feed development in the relative wildness of New York? If so, we’re out of luck because there are no more Hudson Yards-type spaces in New York City. The need to invest in transportation for the sake of transportation looms large, and Bloomberg, as a fighter for congestion pricing, traffic calming and pedestrian safety, should have recognized it five years ago as he did through his words on Friday. Where can we expand next is a very good question indeed.

Mayor Bloomberg flashes a thumbs up as his 7 train heads east from 34th St. and 11th Ave. (Photo: Benjamin Kabak)

The 7 line extension down to 11th Ave. and 34th St. isn’t quite what I’d call ready for passengers. In some spots, the floor is down; in some areas — conveniently behind the train that pulled in carrying the mayor this afternoon — the wile tiling is there. But mostly, it’s a station without finishes. Wiring, paneling, ceilings, walls and floors: None of it is in place yet, and it doesn’t have to be. The opening date for the station, perhaps optimistically, isn’t until June of 2014.

Still, with Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure up in a little bit more than a week, he wanted the opportunity to talk about his contributions to New York City. It wasn’t quite a ribbon-cutting; that will come when the station is complete. But it was a ceremony as a 7 train rolled down the tracks from 42nd St. to deliver the mayor to the station he helped see through with $2.4 billion in city money. Since this was, after all, the first city-funded subway extension since the Queens Boulevard line went east to Jamaica-179th Street in 1950, the mayor, flanked by his daughters, wanted to be there himself to see something through. I don’t blame him.

A wall, nearly finished, just for the mayor. (Photo: Benjamin Kabak)

Press materials distributed by the Mayor’s Office today spoke about how the extension “demonstrates the commitment by the Bloomberg Administration to invest in infrastructure projects that will ensure New York City continues to be a leading global city in the future.” For a one-stop subway extension priced at $2.4 billion, the pomp and circumstance was almost too much, and when Bloomberg dropped an “on time and on budget” reference into his remarks, I shed a tear for our dearly departed station at 41st St. and 10th Ave. Yet, in the mayor’s comments, what he said about investment rang true.

The mayor, who flashed his senior MetroCard, admitted to “virtually never taking the bus” and spoke about how he rides the subway often, spoke about the need to invest in infrastructure. New York City, he noted, will not have more streets, and it is going to be even more dependent on mass transit. Yet, the transportation network hasn’t kept pace with the growth of the city. “We stopped building subways,” he said, “but the population keep moving.”

In his remarks, Bloomberg touched upon areas I’ve covered over the years. He spoke about subway service deeper into Brooklyn, extending lines into eastern Queens and a connection for Staten Island. He talked about he need to renovate and overhaul the city’s aging airports, and he discussed how he expects congestion pricing to one day return and pass. “There will never be a time,” he said, “when you don’t have the opportunity or necessity to expand infrastructure.”

Much work remains on the 7 line extension stop at 34th St. and 11th Ave. (Photo: Benjamin Kabak)

Through it all, I thought about my lukewarm embrace of Bill de Blasio and if he truly understands the need to focus on infrastructure expansion, but I also thought on Bloomberg’s past 12 years. He seems to get the role mass transit plays, and his contributions — Select Bus Service, borough taxis, Citi Bikes, pedestrian plazas — have been multi-faceted. But considering how many areas could use a subway extension, even of a stop or two, and how there are no firm plans on the horizon for more capital work after Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway wraps, I wondered if we had missed some good opportunities to exploit shorter expansions to deliver better service for New Yorkers. We don’t always need to build full lines; even just 2.5 miles down Utica Ave., for instance, would make a big difference.

So today the 7 line had its moment in the sun, but it’s debut is a while away. The wall tiling is up only where the Mayor’s train pulled in, and the floor isn’t in place everywhere. Work remains to be done on the mezzanine and platform, but it’s coming along. And when it opens and tens of thousands of people a day start using this new station, the Far West Side won’t be so far after all.

After the jump, a slideshow of all of my photographs from today. You can find a few more on my Instagram account as well.