MTA Still Needs to Find $5.5 Billion to Build the IBX

By Yehudit Garmaise

Brooklynites will get to zip back and forth to Queens in a flash if the new Interborough Express (IBX) stays on track, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) admitted yesterday at a Town Hall meeting that the agency needs plenty of financial backing to complete the project.

MTA officials are exploring financing options to create the infrastructure of a new Brooklyn/Queens light rail that the agency estimates will cost approximately $5.5 billion.

To build the IBX, the MTA has long planned to repurpose the 14-mile freight line that extends from Bay Ridge to Jackson Heights.

While originally, the MTA claimed it could use right-of-way on the existing tracks, yesterday, Sean Fitzpatrick, the MTA’s deputy chief of staff in construction and development, admitted the conversion of the freight track to a commuter rail is proving to be more complicated than originally thought.

 “What would need to be done is a reconstruction of that right of way, in order to accommodate the existing freight track,” Fitzpatrick said.

Starting this winter, experts will begin their two-year environmental review of the IBX to lessen any of the project’s negative impacts on the environment.  

Once completed, the 900,000 New Yorkers who live along the route will get to travel directly between Brooklyn and Queens, without having to go by way of Manhattan.

Additionally, the IBX will connect seventeen subway lines and the Long Island Railroad.