Should the MTA raise $5.5 Billion to Fix its Current System, or Launch the IBX?

By Yehudit Garmaise

Before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) undertakes the new Interborough Express (IBX) for faster, direct travel between Brooklyn and Queens, many New Yorkers wonder why the transit agency wouldn’t first use extra funds to improve its existing subways, tracks, and buses.

Should the MTA raise $5.5 billion to construct a 14-mile light rail route from Bay Ridge to Jackson Heights?

Many Boro Park residents say that the money would be much better spent improving New York’s current before going onto new projects.

“Public transportation in NYC would be much better if it: ran on time, made the tracks smoother, and provided working elevators,” said Avrumi Weinberger, who uses public transportation whenever he leaves Boro Park. “Ladies with baby carriages must climb tons of steps: tons! Few stations have working elevators.

“Also, the cars could be cleaner and nicer, as could the stations and bathrooms.”

Although the MTA is launching its environmental review for the IBX this winter, in October, the transit agency released a 20-year needs assessment, which provided an extensive list of urgent maintenance and repairs that must be resolved before 2043.

According to the MTA’s own report, more than 350 of the MTA’s 493 elevators at subway and railroad stations will need to be replaced in the next two decades.

In addition, 400 miles of subway tracks, half of Metro-North’s Hudson Line, and several Long Island Rail Road stations are in dire need of upgrades to stave off flooding and other extreme weather, the MTA wrote.

“If we ignore these threats, we risk the survival of the system itself : and of New York,” MTA’s assessment states.

We must prioritize, over the course of 20 years, those assets that are in poor and marginal condition,” Jamie Torres-Springer, head of the MTA’s construction department, said after the MTA released its report. “Expansion projects only really make sense if we get the resources we need to address the state of the existing system.” 

The MTA should not build the IBX until key fixes are made to the rest of the city’s transit infrastructure, Sean Fitzpatrick, the deputy chief of staff for the MTA’s construction department, said on Wednesday at an Open House at Brooklyn College.