Taxpayers could end up paying an extra half-billion dollars to build a streetcar connecting Brooklyn and Queens under current financing plans, according to a watch dog group's estimate.
In February, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans for a 16-mile streetcar, known as the Brooklyn-Queens Connector, or the BQX, which would run from Sunset Park along Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront to Astoria, in Queens. Typically, the city would pay for an infrastructure project this big by issuing a municipal bond, which requires the government to pay off the debt, plus interest, over a certain time period. But to fund the tram line, the mayor will likely create a nonprofit development corporation that will float the bonds instead, according to a recent article in Gotham Gazette.
Funding the entire project using that arrangement could add an estimated $400 million to $500 million in interest to the total cost over a 40-year period, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. The commission came up with its estimate by looking at 2011 bonds issued for the Hudson Yards project, which used a similar financing setup to the one proposed for the streetcar. Mayor Bill de Blasio has pegged the cost of the streetcar's construction at $2.5 billion, though that figure does not include interest payments.
9 comments:
"... the mayor will likely create a nonprofit development corporation..." Or, perhaps "likely" is the operative word and there's no story here.
Look for a LOT more of these pie in the sky projects. It will never get built and they know it. It's a going to be used as a campaign item. The whole project is a sham. DiBlasio & Crowley (From whom he stole the idea) get to say "Look what we're trying to do to ease your commute" and they'll both include this on their platform for re-election. Wise up you're being shafted by career leeches.
Another non-profit (oxymoron)? This is going to get built by any means necessary. Everyone for this, from the special interests groups to the sellout transportation experts and of course the notorious BdB, his agents of the city and the predator developers are collectively mentally ill.
idiots.
Regardless of wether these systems are installed, these elected officials will use them as justification to raise taxes...
It just makes no sense. No sense at all. Have they come up with a reason why they can't add or expand a bus line or several? We already have a (mostly) functioning MTA - why do we have to reinvent the wheel?
"DiBlasio & Crowley (From whom he stole the idea)"... Dizzy Lizzy has never had an original idea in her life. The idea of a light rail was spoon fed to her by developers, my guess would be the Atlas Terminal people (Hemmerdinger who used to run the MTA, Wilner who wants to open the homeless shelter and her pals at Broadway Stages).
"DiBlasio & Crowley (From whom he stole the idea)"... Dizzy Lizzy has never had an original idea in her life. The idea of a light rail was spoon fed to her by developers, my guess would be the Atlas Terminal people (Hemmerdinger who used to run the MTA, Wilner who wants to open the homeless shelter and her pals at Broadway Stages)."
yea you're right she's not a "Thinker" if she ever had an original though in her head, it would die from lonliness
Bi'll bet Der Mayor gets indicted before the trolley is built.
Anyone who goes along with Dumb-Blasio's foley is...well...off their trolley!
What else in transit could we get for 2.5 B?
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