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OCTOBER 27, 2019, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
MTA TO TEST LOCO-MOTIVE
Transit Authority eyeing billion-dollar passenger train through southern Brooklyn
BY ROSE ADAMS
Transit honchos are considering a
new billion-dollar passenger train that
would run through southern Brooklyn,
Queens, and the Bronx in an effort to
better serve the transit-starved outerboroughs,
authorities announced on
Oct. 15.
“Over the last 15 years, over half of
job growth has been in the outer-boroughs,”
said Maulin Mehta, a senior
associate at the Regional Plan Association,
which first proposed the commuter
rail in 1996. “But right now, a lot
of the train service is very Manhattancentric.”
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority will test the feasibility of
retrofitting a series of pre-existing
freight lines for use ferrying commuters,
of fering crosstown service
from the Brooklyn Army Terminal
in Sunset Park to East New York, before
veering north parallel to the L
line through Brownsville and Bushwick,
and on to distant Queens and
the Bronx.
The train, which the Transit Authority
has dubbed the Triboro Line ,
would make 11 stops at new and preexisting
stations in Brooklyn, providing
connections to the R, N, D, F, Q,
2, 3, 5, and L trains. In all, the train
would make 22 stops between Brooklyn
Army Terminal and Co-Op City in
the Bronx.
Brooklyn trains would travel on
the Bay Ridge Branch — a freight line
that is currently owned and operated
by Amtrak, Long Island Railroad, and
freight operator CSX.
The recently-announced study will
examine the feasibility of roughly
half the route from Brooklyn to Astoria,
Queens, and would determine
the project’s potential construction
costs, impacts on the community, and
frequency of service, according to
Mehta.
Support for the Triboro Line ramped
up after Assemblywoman Latrice
Walker (D-Brownsville) proposed a bill
calling on the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority to conduct a study for
the project in June.
Sadly, the project’s hefty price tag
makes the Triboro Line a distant reality
at best — Mehta pegged the projected
cost between $1 billion and $2 billion,
which would eat up a sizable chunk of
the transit authority’s $5.7 billion budget
for all LIRR-related work in its 2020-
2024 Capital Plan .
Another recent MTA study revealed
that a similar proposal to restore passenger
The proposed train line would make stops in Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Midwood, and East Flatbush. Regional Plan Association
service along an existing Rockaway
line would cost a jaw-dropping
$6.8 billion, according to a NY1 report.
The Bay Ridge Branch rail line hasn’t
carried passenger trains since 1924 , but
urban planners say that the freight line
is well-suited for the project because its
tracks are currently underutilized, and
the existing infrastructure would help
keep costs down relative to building
new tunnels.
And while no other passenger trains
in the city share rails with freight lines,
Mehta claimed that the practice is common
in other big cities.
“London and Chicago have commingled
freight and passenger service,
and have had success,” he
said.
The Transit Authority’s study will
begin by the end of the year, according
to MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan.