Right in the Short Run

Last Thursday, New York City held its ceremonial groundbreaking for the Second Avenue subway line. The line was first proposed as part of the IND Second System, an ambitious plan by New York City to increase the coverage of its subway lines. Only problem is, the Second System was proposed in 1929.

Yes, it’s a subway line 80 years in the making. The Second System went the way of the dinosaur within a few years (the Great Depression didn’t leave much money for new subway lines) but the Second Avenue Subway was never quite taken off the table. Interest in it picked up during the 1970s, and construction work began in 1972 in East Harlem. However, by 1975 the city was bankrupt and construction was halted.

Is it for real this time? Will we finally get a subway to serve one of the worst-connected parts of Manhattan?

Sort of.

It seems pretty clear that the first section of the line, running from the existing 63rd street Q station to 96th Street and Second Avenue, will get built. Unfortunately nearly a quarter of the funds needed are still unallocated. It seems like once construction gets going, it will be difficult to call it off, so I imagine that the city will manage to come up with the missing $800 million.

The second stage runs from 96th street to 125th Street. The troublesome thing is, no money has been set aside for it. On the other hand, something like 16 blocks along this route were already tunneled in the early 1970s. This stage is effectively very low hanging fruit, so I have some hope that it will be built.

Stages 3 and 4, which stretch south of 63rd street, seem quite unlikely. They will be expensive and less important than stages 1 and 2, and no money has been set aside for them.

The more interesting question to me is, why is it so difficult to build a new subway line these days? Before World War II, it seems like miles were added to the system every year. In a series of upcoming posts, I’m going to talk about what changed, and how it’s influencing the construction of the Second Avenue Subway today.