April 09, 2007
A Moment of Grandeur (By Guest Blogger Tom Elliott)
Here’s a hard hypothetical to imagine, but try anyway. Suppose you’re a contractor who’s been paid by a friend to add a new wing to his house. After beginning, you realize you’ll soon run out of money because of poor financial planning on your part, so you quit mid-job. Several years later, you start again. Then stop -- again because you’re just not that great at managing resources. Finally, 80 years after first giving it a go, you announce you’re starting once again – even wresting from the homeowner enough cash to pay for a ceremony in your honor.
Audacious, no?
This is what Governor Eliot Spitzer will be doing Thursday morning, as he hoists a pickax to become the fifth politico since 1925 to hold a groundbreaking ceremony on Manhattan’s Second Avenue subway line. Mayor John Hylan first proposed a 2nd Avenue line in the early 1920s. Yet the actual construction has never gotten very far, as the city is regularly thrown into debt thanks to irresponsible management of the public purse.
This hardly concerns the self-described Gov. Steamroller -- even if a Second Avenue line is no longer the most pressing mass-transit need. Consider that since the line was first proposed, Manhattan has lost almost half a million residents. Brooklyn, meanwhile, has grown by several hundred thousand. The most populous borough, Brooklyn is also the largest; yet subways are few and far between. Traveling from south Brooklyn anywhere north (besides Manhattan) is virtually impossible.
What is it, anyway, with politicians and these groundbreakings? Does anybody actually take them seriously? We’ve already had at least two at Ground Zero, yet embarrassingly little has since been built. Contrast that with the private sector, which skips the ceremonies and just gets it done.
At an estimated cost of $17 billion, a construction timeline spanning into 2020, and massive deficits forecast for both New York City and New York state in the very near future, something tells me Spitzer won’t be the last public official celebrating a renewed commitment to spending taxpayer dollars on the Second Avenue line.
Posted by Tom Elliott at April 9, 2007 11:18 PM | TrackBackTechnorati Tags:
"Brooklyn, meanwhile, has grown by several hundred thousand. The most populous borough, Brooklyn is also the largest; yet subways are few and far between. Traveling from south Brooklyn anywhere north (besides Manhattan) is virtually impossible."
Ohhhhh, you just want a subway in your hood. :-) I live on Second Avenue so, in theory, I welcome a train line there. I know, though, that when I inevitably move back to Brooklyn (in the distant future) still no line will exist.
Posted by: Karol at April 10, 2007 12:06 AMWhen I see the governor in a hard hat, I feel like he's gettin' work D-O-N-E.
Posted by: Marco at April 10, 2007 10:38 AMThe subways in this hood are amazing. He lives slightly farther from the Q/B and slightly closer to the 2/5 than I do.
On the other hand, Tom, you overstate how agressively the private sector does that sort of thing without massive subsidy and you understate how a 2d Avenue line is likely to draw people back to Manhattan and the UES. Insufficient public transportation is part of the problem with the neighborhood. But you are right, the history of that line isn't promising. When the first train rolls up the avenue, that's when I'll believe it is real.
Posted by: Charles at April 10, 2007 10:45 AMThe subways in our hood, Charles, are okay, but not quite amazing. On the weekends, the 5 is usually canceled and the B is always canceled.
I'm not opposed to the 2nd Avenue line -- the city needs more lines, more cars, more everything. Onward and upward, I say.
I'm just skeptical it'll get done.
Posted by: FunkyPundit at April 10, 2007 11:00 AMThe 2nd Ave Subway is being funded federally for one third of the costs.
I can see the federal money that this project is counting on vanishishing long before the line is built.
The way Bush had destroyed the federal budget and the money needed for our military, the rest of the country is not going to spend the money on NYC subway and the money will be cut by congress.
Leaving NYC with another 2nd ave subway groundbreaking but still no subway.
Posted by: PAUL at April 10, 2007 05:45 PMI can't think of a neighborhood with a better livability-to-access ratio than ours in Brooklyn except maybe Fort Greene near the Atlantic terminal. The B doesn't run on the weekends, but the Q runs to Altantic. (So dumb that the D skips DeKalb on the weekends. Or does it?) And it is faster to take transfer to the 5 at Altantic anyway.
If you're going South, the 2/5 are all the same stops and while it is a looooooooong trip to Coney, it ain't shorter from any other neighborhood.
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