WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES JANUARY 27, 2022 7
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Governor unveils more details about
Interborough Express in new study
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
Governor Kathy Hochul and the
Metropolitan Transportation
Authority released a fi rst 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
fi rm AECOM off ered 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 fi rst 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 Florida-based
freight company CSX.
AECOM looked at three modes of
A rendering of an IBX stop on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Courtesy of MTA
transport for the new route and how
they would fi t in with the current
industrial trains: A regular rail line,
light rail and bus rapid transit.
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.
Hochul fi rst 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 so-called
Triboro originally proposed by the
nonprofi t 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 fi ndings will feed into
the MTA’s upcoming environmental
review of the project, which could
unlock federal funding, the agency’s
chairperson and chief executive offi
cer Janno Lieber told reporters.
The transit guru was hesitant to
give a specifi c 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 fi veyear
capital plan starting in 2025, and
construction would take three to fi ve
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 traffi c to up to 21 trains by
2035.
The AECOM study has accounted
for the IBX to run alongside such
increased freight traffi c, Lieber said.
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