New York Metropolis’s mass-transit system is doubtlessly on monitor for what could possibly be its most bold enlargement in near a century thanks, partially, to a booster from the state’s western edge.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal final week to advance the opportunity of sometime extending the Second Avenue Subway west to 3 new stations beneath a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue marked her newest transfer to place her stamp on signature transportation initiatives.
Whereas Hochul took plenty of warmth from advocates for pausing congestion pricing lower than a month earlier than its unique June 2024 begin date, she’s now received many over with sustained help for main initiatives to construct out the system that strikes thousands and thousands of New Yorkers day by day.
Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks to reporters in a never-used Second Avenue Subway tunnel constructed within the early Nineteen Seventies, Nov. 23, 2021. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“She’s building a transit legacy for herself,” mentioned Kate Slevin, government vice chairman at Regional Plan Affiliation. “New Yorkers, for generations, will benefit if this comes to fruition.”
The high-profile deal with mapping out and probably constructing a number of enlargement initiatives without delay — even because the MTA’s present $68 billion five-year capital program is centered nearly completely on sustaining the present system — comes a few decade after three sizable MTA enlargement efforts have been within the works.
That’s when the authority was extending the No. 7 line from Instances Sq. to thirty fourth Avenue-Hudson Yards, constructing a cavernous Lengthy Island Rail Street hub deep beneath Grand Central Terminal and ending three new Q line stations beneath Second Avenue on the Higher East Aspect.
The sooner enlargement wave started shifting from renderings towards actuality underneath then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in 2021.
Whereas the MTA accomplished an almost 10-mile third monitor LIRR enlargement on Lengthy Island in 2022, its newer big-ticket capital initiatives within the metropolis have largely been geared towards maintenance of a subway system that’s greater than a century previous.
“Our focus in the last couple of years has been making sure that everybody understood it was time that we must invest in the existing system in New York’s interest, in the interest of our riders,” Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and chief government, instructed THE CITY.
Hochul, a Buffalo native, introduced in her January 13 State of the State deal with that the MTA will have a look at the potential westward enlargement of the Second Avenue Subway. She additionally unveiled plans to fund design work on a reimagined Jamaica Station that might higher combine subway, LIRR and AirTrain service on the Queens transportation complicated.
One development possibility for the Harlem subway proposal can be retaining the 700-ton tunnel boring machine that can carve north to a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue within the floor on its path to a Broadway terminal.
The MTA launched renderings exhibiting the deliberate a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue terminal for section two of the Second Avenue Subway, Aug. 18, 2025. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“We’re preserving the opportunity to save hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars by continuing west,” Lieber mentioned. “So we haven’t made the final commitment, but we know we don’t want that opportunity to slip away.”
It got here after Hochul beforehand backed proposals to stretch the Second Avenue Subway from 96th Avenue to East Harlem and to hyperlink Brooklyn and Queens by way of the Interborough Specific mild rail line. The MTA can be pushing to convey Metro-North trains to Manhattan’s West Aspect by means of the Penn Entry challenge, which incorporates constructing 4 new commuter rail stations in The Bronx.
Hochul touted the long-term prospects for transit at an August occasion marking the beginning of design and engineering work on the IBX.
“We’re turning bold ideas into real results and transforming the way New Yorkers live, commute and travel,” she mentioned on the time.
The IBX can be the primary end-to-end mass-transit route constructed within the metropolis for the reason that IND Crosstown Line — now the G — absolutely opened in 1937.
“Once the governor says she likes it, that changes the ballgame,” mentioned Philip Plotch, principal researcher and senior fellow on the Eno Heart for Transportation and a former MTA planning and coverage supervisor. “That raises its profile, it means there’s going to be more resources.”
“Every project needs a champion,” added Plotch, creator of “Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City,” a historical past of the Second Avenue Subway.
The MTA’s personal 20-Yr Wants Evaluation in 2023 recognized the IBX and the Second Avenue Subway West extension as essentially the most promising in a comparative analysis of 25 potential enlargement and enhancement initiatives.
“It checks the boxes in terms of really high value for money, in terms of transportation and time savings and equity, as well, opportunities for people of limited means,” Lieber mentioned.
Among the many different unrealized initiatives included within the evaluation have been constructing a No. 7 line station at tenth Avenue, extending the subway to Pink Hook, reviving the LIRR’s long-dormant Rockaway Seashore Department and constructing out the Second Avenue Subway south of 63rd Avenue.
“We know it’s a great project,” Lieber mentioned of the Hochul-boosted concept for a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue. “How great and whether we can fund it and getting into all those specifics, that’s what we’re going to do in the next year.”
U-Flip for the Gov
The governor’s transition into championing MTA enlargement efforts — whereas additionally backing key regional transportation initiatives such because the Gateway Program to construct a brand new Hudson River rail tunnel — follows the 2024 interval when she paused congestion pricing for months, till reviving it at a lowered fee days after Donald Trump was elected president in November of that yr.
“She’s certainly the best governor for transit in more than a generation,” mentioned Danny Pearlstein, coverage analyst for Riders Alliance, an advocacy group. “Partly, that comes from not being a New Yorker, by coming from Buffalo and showing up in the city and demonstrating that state government can work for the people.”
The Manhattan vehicle-tolling scheme was designed to assist pay for transit enhancements that embrace extending the Q north to stops at 106th, 116th and a hundred and twenty fifth streets. This month marked one yr of tolling motorists south of sixtieth Avenue, a interval highlighted by much less visitors, speedier buses and a brand new funding stream for the perennially cash-strapped authority’s capital initiatives.
The MTA’s working price range can be financially secure for the close to time period, after a 2023 effort by Hochul and Albany lawmakers pulled the transit system from the so-called fiscal cliff of service cuts, layoffs and better fare will increase.
“What sets her apart is she’s funded both the capital projects and the operations,” Slevin mentioned. “She’s investing her political capital in longer-term projects that will go beyond the tenure of her being governor of New York.”
Congestion pricing is now seen as a crowning achievement for Hochul and Lieber, who led MTA Development & Growth from 2017 to 2021, when he was nominated as appearing chairperson and chief government by Cuomo.
After Cuomo resigned, Hochul tapped Lieber for the highest job on the MTA in January 2022 and he or she has discovered an influential ally within the development and federal authorities veteran.
“I think Janno’s not-so-secret power is that he has been extraordinarily effective in hyping the governor up for this stuff,” mentioned Eric Goldwyn, an assistant professor on the NYU Marron Institute and a member of its Transit Prices Venture.
That has Hochul and MTA officers wanting past the subsequent part of the Second Avenue line, which might go north from 96th Avenue. With the governor in attendance, the MTA board final August accredited a $1.9 billion contract to bore a brand new tunnel to East Harlem, as a part of the $7.7 billion, three-station extension that makes up the second leg of the road.
“She likes visionary, challenging stuff,” Lieber mentioned. “So she dug in on the IBX very early and she’s been a great supporter.”
The feasibility examine for the westward extension initiatives that proposed stations at Lenox Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue and Broadway could possibly be constructed by having a number of tunnel-boring machines carve out the complete size of a route now closely utilized by crosstown bus passengers.
As he waited in sub-freezing temperatures Friday for an eastbound bus close to a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue and Broadway, development employee Lazaro Ramos mentioned commuting at road degree is commonly irritating.
Commuters board an MTA bus on East a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue, Jan. 16, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“A train would be so much faster to get across town,” mentioned Ramos, 38. “We wouldn’t have all that traffic and the bus stopping, stopping, stopping and filling up with people.”
The subsequent step within the course of can be to start out design and preliminary engineering work on the right way to advance tunneling west from East Harlem.
“Doing this on 125th would really shorten a lot of subway commutes or eliminate a bus transfer for very large numbers of people,” Pearlstein mentioned. “[Buses] crawl and this is the most important route between 53rd Street and Fordham Road, but it’s very, very slow.”
A proposed subway extension alongside a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue may sometime connect with seven present traces and 27 MTA bus routes, Jan. 16, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Every of the Hochul-backed enlargement initiatives faces obstacles, questions over how they might be paid for and an unclear urge for food for funding from the federal authorities.
“The big issue in New York is, how the hell do you pay for this stuff?” Goldwyn mentioned.
The 19-station, $5.5 billion Interborough Specific light-rail line — which might run on an present freight route between Jackson Heights and Bay Ridge — is in its early engineering and design stage and never but absolutely funded. President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold funding from Part Two of the Second Avenue Subway. The plan to check the road’s western extension is in its infancy, with Hochul set to disclose its anticipated price for design this week.
Development of the $4.5 billion first stretch of the Second Avenue Subway and of the $11 billion LIRR terminal beneath Grand Central Terminal was marked by excessive prices and extreme staffing.
A 2017 New York Instances investigation famously labeled the primary leg of the Second Avenue line the “Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth.”
However Lieber instructed THE CITY that coming in on time on and underneath price range on current capital initiatives such because the LIRR third monitor enlargement and the 2020 completion of the L line repairs from Sandy-related injury has given the MTA “a ton more credibility” for managing megaprojects similar to people who may finally come off the drafting board.
“That’s part of how we’ve garnered the governor’s support and support in general for taking these next steps,” Lieber mentioned.
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