NEW YORK — A superfast subway train for Long Island commuters going downtown won’t save enough time to be worth the multibillion-dollar price tag, critics say.
Newsday reports that the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown, a coalition of more than 75 business, community and environmental groups, voted last week to oppose the plan floated by Brookfield Financial Properties, which could take five years to build.
“We’re all for helping lower Manhattan, but let’s not rush to judgment on a project whose benefits are very small,” said Jeff Zupan, senior transportation fellow at the Regional Plan Association, a member of the Civic Alliance. Brookfield, a top downtown landlord, has proposed running rapid transit subway cars from the Long Island Rail Road’s Jamaica station to downtown Brooklyn and on to lower Manhattan. The plan would combine construction of two new tunnels and the use of existing A and C lines.
To do that, C trains would be diverted to the F-line tunnel to the Lower East Side and V train service in Manhattan would be rerouted.
About two-thirds of commuters using the so-called “supershuttle” would save three minutes or less on their commute, while one-fourth would save five or more minutes, according to Zupan’s analysis. At most, commuters going west of Broadway would save 7.4 minutes.
However, a Brookfield spokesman said the savings would be closer to 15 minutes, claiming that Zupan’s analysis doesn’t account for new construction, improved subway stations or new transit options attracting new riders.
“As we’re talking to the transit authority, and the issue is not whether it attract too few riders, because it will be so attractive to Long Island and eastern Queens, but that it may attract too many riders,” said Brookfield spokesman Lloyd Kaplan.
While Brookfield estimates the price tag at $1.9 billion, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s initial estimates range from $3 billion to $5 billion. The agency had not seen the study and would not comment, said MTA spokesman Tom Kelly.
The proposal is one of several being considered to bring commuters from Long Island and Kennedy Airport, said Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff.
“It’s absolutely critical to bring more people from more places to lower Manhattan more quickly,” said Doctoroff. “An analysis needs to be done about how much time it actually saves.”
Zupan claims that if the plan were put into place, 52 percent of Long Island commuters to lower Manhattan would not use the “supershuttle” during rush hour, but would continue to use Penn Station or Brooklyn’s Atlantic Terminal.
The Alliance for Downtown New York’s Carl Weisbrod doubts that, citing the analysis of Brookfield’s contractor, transportation expert Parsons Brinckerhoff.
“A majority of major downtown employers think the Brookfield proposal will help downtown,” said Weisbrod, also a Lower Manhattan Development Corp. board member. “If we didn’t think so, why would we support it?”