Advocates who are calling for a north-south subway line in central Queens say the proposal is more feasible than what the MTA estimates.
A new report commissioned by supporters of the proposal, dubbed the QueensLink Corridor, found that the project would be billions of dollars less than what the MTA has pegged it to be.
The QueensLink Corridor would create a north-south subway line through central Queens that would connect Rego Park to Ozone Park by extending the M line. The line would use 3.5 miles of abandoned LIRR tracks that were once part of the Rockaway Beach Branch line.
The MTA published a study looking at the cost and feasibility of the project in 2019. The study, completed by Systra Engineering, estimated the cost would be about $8.1 billion.
However, the study commissioned by QueensLink supporters and completed by transportation firm TEMS Inc., found the cost to be between $3.4 and $3.7 billion.
The advocates’ report also included the cost of creating green space along the railway line.
The cost difference lies not in the actual price of construction, but in what the TEMS’ report calls “soft costs” — things like professional services and contingency factors.
TEMS said the estimates of such costs “are out of line with industry standards.”
5 comments:
""connect Rego Park to Ozone Park by extending the M line""
Huh ?
Dopes cant get facts or wording straight.
This cant happen without using a bus or part of the LIRR Montauk line as a shuttle for the "M" to connect to that old LIRR line.
Meaning using 2 LIRR lines
It likely have to be a bus, M on rail would need a trestle bridge to cross the CTX Bay Ridge tracks. (expensive)
Public transportation AND parks! Where do they think we live? Manhattan? They'd let us rot before they'd buy us one new train car.
Don't Worry. The owners and developers will make sure to inflate the costs so it will cost NY Taxpayers more so they can pocket the money for selfish reasons.
The “M” line? Do they mean the J line?
When I was foolish enough to work for city government (before I understood what a racket looked like), I almost immediately noticed how many Administrative Staff Analysts were hired to change lightbulbs and make coffee (at a patronizing starting salary of $75K or higher). But, not a single one of these patronage jobs ever came by way of any permanent civil service status qualifications (the 1-in-3 rule) to work for a living (one such 'outsider crony automaton' who earned $149K for just showing up, and openly studying his French textbooks in preparation for his summer vacation on the French Riviera, would routinely hide in the broom closet whenever senior management came a knockin').
Meanwhile, the REAL staff analysts, meaning those who actually passed civil service tests who were qualified to handle complex, budgetary analysis and strict mathematical probability theorems were busy lying and covering up for their derelict bosses (not by choice). This was a daily occurrence at the MTA's umbrella headquarters on Madison Avenue (and to larger exploitation at 370 Jay Street). Unsurprisingly, the incompetence trickled down to the lowest, mostly hidden and vastly overpaid management units of complete assignment failure. Worse, even respected management teams would tread lightly at the sight of insubordination in order to protect their jobs and pensions; many others at the senior, mid level range of upwardly mobile management (that required no demonstrative skill set) would simply pretend that the waste and mismanagement didn't exist.
And, people still wonder why privatization is rampant.
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