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Gov. Hochul unveils new study with more details about
Interborough Express between Brooklyn and Queens
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Governor Kathy Hochul and the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
released a first analysis of
the recently revived project to run
mass transit along freight rail lines
in Brooklyn and Queens known as
the Interborough Express.
The governor promoted her signature
infrastructure initiative
during a Thursday, Jan. 20, press
conference at the Brooklyn Army
Terminal near the southern end
of the underused infrastructure
she hopes to upcycle to passenger
transport.
“Now we have an opportunity — a
once-in-a-generation opportunity —
to make the investments that should
have been made all along,” Hochul
said. “But also to just reimagine
some of the infrastructure that has
been lying fallow for so many years
that no one saw the possibilities of.”
The 2020-commissioned feasibility
study for the MTA by consultancy
firm AECOM offered an early
look on how the new line — dubbed
the IBX — could shape out over the
coming years.
The IBX will run from the Bay
Ridge-Sunset Park waterfront
through central and eastern Brooklyn,
and up to Jackson Heights,
Queens, along 14 miles of freight rail
right of way.
The scheme would connect 17
subway lines on its route and serve
between 74,000 and 88,000 riders every
weekday for a roughly 40-minute
journey end-to-end, according to the
report.
Passenger rail first rolled out on
these tracks in 1876 as part of the
New York and Manhattan Beach
Railway, but the line was converted
to freight operations in 1924 and currently
carries no more than three
freight trips per day.
The MTA’s Long Island Rail Road
owns 11 miles of track operated by
the New York and Atlantic Railway,
while three miles at the northern
end in Queens are owned by Floridabased
freight company CSX.
AECOM looked at three modes of
transport for the new route and how
they would fit in with the current industrial
trains: A regular rail line,
light rail and bus rapid transit.
A rendering of an IBX stop on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Courtesy of MTA
A trolley or a bus would need to
be physically separated from the existing
trail lines, according to Federal
Railroad Administration regulations,
while a heavy passenger
rail would not have to do that.
That takes up more space, so
those two modes would have to run
above the freight track or on existing
streets for some tighter portions
of the line.
A passenger train would largely
run along the western side of the
tracks, but make a quick switch over
to the east around East New York,
before going back.
Any project would also have to
account for the Buckeye Pipeline,
which carries jet fuel to LaGuardia
and JFK airports and runs along the
line, and occupies one of four tubes
of the route’s East New York Tunnel.
TIMESLEDGER | Q 16 NS.COM | JAN. 28 - FEB. 3, 2022
Hochul first announced the project
in her State of the State address
on Jan. 5, but her scheme chopped
off a section extending further to
the Bronx that was part of the socalled
Triboro originally proposed
by the nonprofit Regional Plan Association
in the 1990s.
The new report claims that there
would not be enough space on the
Hell Gate Line to carry the new
service every 5 to 15 minutes in addition
to Amtrak, freight and the
planned Metro-North service there.
To accommodate more trains, the
MTA would have to build costly new
tracks and bridges.
The study’s findings will feed
into the MTA’s upcoming environmental
review of the project, which
could unlock federal funding, the
agency’s chairperson and chief executive
officer Janno Lieber told
reporters.
The transit guru was hesitant to
give a specific cost for the IBX, but
said it would be in the “single-digit
billions,” or below $10 billion.
Lieber said the environmental
review could put the IBX on pace to
become part of the MTA’s next fiveyear
capital plan starting in 2025,
and construction would take three
to five years.
A separate study by the Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey
is looking at building a freight tunnel
across the harbor to New Jersey,
which would increase the daily
freight traffic to up to 21 trains by
2035.
The AECOM study has accounted
for the IBX to run alongside such increased
freight traffic, Lieber said.
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