The success or failure of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s marquee transit proposal, the Interborough Express (IBX) connecting Brooklyn and Queens by light rail, is centered on a short, skinny tunnel underneath a Queens cemetery that the MTA says requires the line to be routed away from existing railroad tracks and onto the street.
Based on a long-time dream of transit planners and aficionados, the IBX would utilize existing railroad tracks called the Bay Ridge Branch, which were built for the Long Island Rail Road but have long since been used only by freight, and only about one round trip per day at that. The 14-mile spur runs from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to Jackson Heights, Queens; Hochul first proposed reactivating the line for passenger service back in 2022.
The project is set to bring rail service to several transit-starved neighborhoods and connect to 17 other train lines, while providing a crucial new link for Brooklyn and Queens residents to move between boroughs without having to take a train through Manhattan first. Hochul has described her vision for the IBX as a “transformative” investment in expanding the city’s transit.
After undergoing a “feasibility study,” the MTA opted not to endorse building a subway along the right-of-way. Instead, the MTA endorsed building light rail, which it has never constructed before in New York City despite being in many cities around the world; the agency said this would be $3 billion cheaper (the overall plan is projected to cost $5.5 billion) without sacrificing speed or capacity.
The basis for that claim lies buried among the dead beneath All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, just across the way from the M train’s Metropolitan Avenue terminus. The cemetery opened for business in 1852, and today its 225 acres are the final resting place for 540,000 people, including the grandparents, parents, and older brother of former President Donald Trump.
Also underneath All Faiths is a short tunnel, about 520 feet in length and 30 feet in width, that freight trains under the CSX banner travel under en route to and from Bay Ridge. The MTA says this tunnel is too narrow to add in passenger tracks alongside the freight ones, and expanding it would be prohibitively expensive and require disturbing final resting places above it.
That, in effect, kills the possibility of using subways on the corridor, the MTA claims. Instead, light rail can be routed out of the railroad right-of-way and onto busy Metropolitan Avenue, turning left on 69th Street before returning to the Bay Ridge Branch tracks after two-thirds of a mile.
This is never going to happen.
8 comments:
15 million illegals, sexual perversion in schools, inflation, high city crimes, the crazy green agenda will not matter to the fools who will vote Democrat no matter what.
Woeful incompetence
NY has become a slow-moving car crash highlight reel.
To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.
Ayn Rand
I said this 2 years ago !! Along with there are gas lines going to LGA airport and Greenpoint buried along the sides of those tracks.
I have boots on the ground with this:
Back the the 1970s when Robert Hall Village was being built you could hang out in the cement stairways at night. When construction progressed and it became more enclosed we got kicked out and re-located to this tunnel.
Us, our girlfriends and others like Boogiemen gang members shared & hung out, all got along and NEVER left trash because why spoil a good thing?
Usually drinking and listening to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd on cassette tape boom boxes. Oh, when in season we had special mushrooms too.
Some of our signatures (not the nasty graffiti which came later) are still on its walls.
Fact: No way could a 3rd track fit, back then you made sure not to go more then 100 feet inside to get out should a train show up at night.
No shelter arches (worker sidings) in that long tunnel, If 2 trains were in the tunnel at once and you were deep inside it meant possible DEATH because you had little clearance for a small person, let along the wind concussion of a train, so forget about another track.
These "experts" should have known this long ago, DUH!!
-Joe
Thanks ~Joe good points once again.
I remember going to The Dome in Forest Park in the early 1970's.
>>>I remember going to The Dome in Forest Park in the early 1970's<<<
Bands played there, I was in one of them.
Back then you could bring in big sound and lights, big front of house PAs, Professional stuff.
Back then you could do anything you wanted and nobody gave a shit. Interesting thing there were never any trouble aside empty cases of beer stacked by the trash cans the park'ies didn't like.
It was all good until Governor King Cuomo.Sr got involved and said "no more of this" when his son was involved a some kind of fight that resulted in a fatality outside a bar.
One night the power was cut in the middle of a show and a big riot, resulted. It spilled out of the park all the way to Myrtle ave where a B-55 bus was destroyed.
The band was called "One Hand Clap" (The Clap) with a then Steve Schneider on guitar.
Steve later became Billy Idols guitar player as (Steve Stevens) and still is today.
You can hear his great work on songs like "Rebel Yell" "Dancing With Myself" "Eyes without a Face"
-Joe
@Joe Said...
Might have seen you play ~Joe but I don't remember your bands name.
I remember a mailman by day and rock star at night named Chucky. I think the band was called Battleaxe. Thanks for sharing...
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