I'm kind of surprised we didn't have a topic on this; at least I couldn't find anything with the word "Utica" in the title in this forum.
Subway blogger Benjamin Kabak opines on this proposal: Second Avenue Sagas
Brief, fair-use:
Subway blogger Benjamin Kabak opines on this proposal: Second Avenue Sagas
Brief, fair-use:
On the Utica Ave. subway, a half-baked idea with no championand an earlier post: http://secondavenuesagas.com/2015/04/23 ... interests/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Half a political lifetime ago, Bill de Blasio seemed interested in extending transit to under-served neighborhoods on his own. He didn’t require a giant push from real estate interests looking to boost property values in already-gentrified neighborhoods, and he seemed on the verge of following through on Mayor Bloomberg’s realization that the city could bypass Albany by funding its own subway expansion plans. That moment involved the OneNYC proposal and the Mayor’s call for a study to assess a Utica Ave. subway.
Perhaps we — the general transit-lovin’ community of New Yorkers who pay close attention to this kind of stuff — got too excited by it. After all, when I went back tonight to re-read my post from April of 2015, it seems clear that de Blasio wasn’t asking for much. He wanted a study of Utica Ave. and committed the bare minimum of dollars to the project. But as we sit here in 2017, the year in which the MTA was expected to spend the dollars for the study, nothing has happened.
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...The document doesn’t go too far here. The mayor wants simply “a study to explore the expansion of the subway system south along Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, one of the densest areas of the city without direct access to the subway,” and on its face, it’s exciting that someone in City Hall is talking about this idea in an official document. It is so far unclear how a Utica Ave. subway would take shape. It could involve an extension of the 4 train from the Eastern Parkway line. It could call back to Second System plans to run trains from 2nd Ave. through South 4th St. and, eventually, down Utica Ave. But there you have it.The Times article referenced above had a nice map: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/nyre ... f=nyregion" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
As The Times noted, this is far from the first time this idea has arisen. A Utica Ave. subway was part of the early 1900s plans for the subway and were included in expansion plans in the 1920s, 1930s and 1960s. Another study today seems like overkill, but it’s the first step toward securing funding. It’s a very preliminary first step though.
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...The dream of a Utica Avenue line has had plenty of false starts.
Its plight was outlined in the 2013 book “The Routes Not Taken: A Trip Through New York City’s Unbuilt Subway System,” by Joseph B. Raskin, a former New York City Transit employee. Past proposals would have connected it to the No. 3 and 4 lines, the A and C lines, or even to Lower Manhattan. “It’s always been to me one of the lines that should have been built all along,” Mr. Raskin said. “The question was always what line is it going to plug into — and the cost.”
Next stop, Willoughby
~el Jefe :: RAILROAD.NET Site Administrator/Co-Owner; Carman at Naugatuck Railroad
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~el Jefe :: RAILROAD.NET Site Administrator/Co-Owner; Carman at Naugatuck Railroad
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