Second Avenue El by Alexander Nobler Cohen

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Transportation planners now know that removing a transit line is not a good way to improve automobile traffic flow. Rather, transit is thought of in part as an important tool to fight automobile traffic congestion. As a result, transit is no longer expected to be self-sustaining. Instead, subsidized fares mean more riders, and more transit riders mean fewer cars clogging the streets. Government now will fund the construction of transit lines designed to fight congestion -- even if those lines are sure to be unprofitable. Moreover, funding for transit construction now comes state and Federal sources, and toll revenues, as well as from the city taxes.

So property owners have less reason to despise public transit. Conflicting community interests are still very much a political reality in 1999, but if enough New Yorkers view transit as an effective device to fight congestion, then new subway construction could become a citywide, or even region-wide, rather than a parochial, interest. After decades of deterioration, New York's subways have enjoyed a great renaissance in the 1990's. New York may be on the brink of recapturing the collective drive it once had to build new subway lines. If it does, the first new line it builds should be the long-delayed subway replacement for the Second Avenue el.

And Wasn't It a Long Way Down?--2001. The latest plan for a Second Avenue Subway is a far cry from the ambitious dreams of the past century. Prior plans called for a 4- to 6-track line stretching from Upper New York Bay to the northern Bronx. This plan consists of a 2-track subway extending from a connection with the existing 63rd Street Line to a stub-end transfer to the Lexington Avenue Line at 125th Street, earning it the derisive title "Second Avenue Stub-way" from its critics. As a compromise, however, it shows better planning than is readily apparent. Initial service would operate from the Upper East Side to 63rd Street, then swing west to take advantage of the well-situated and underused Broadway BMT express tracks, arguably offering a more useful one-seat service than a line running down the far East Side for the length of Manhattan. By making deft use of available trackage and available money, this plan might accomplish something none of the ambitious plans of the past can claim -- it might actually get built.

Updated Tuesday, December 25, 2001