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Comment by donretag | Hacker News Reader

Good for them to open up new subway stops in rich white neighborhoods, while cutting bus service in the poorer ones.

While you're right that the 3 new stations are in a rich, white neighborhood, it will hopefully reduce congestion on the 4,5 and 6 lines which service many poorer neighborhoods in the Bronx and harlem.

97th to 104th between 2nd & 3rd is basically all public housing, and there's public housing along the east river that will also have closer, less crowded stations.

A lot of the tunnels for Phase 2 (extending the Q to 125th) were built or partially built in the 1970s, and this phase already has funding commitments.

Next phase of the SAS stretches north up to 125th street. Funding is in place, and tunneling is already happening, and the project should be done by 2019. Is that good enough for you?

Well…the Lexington line is at capacity, while there are a lot of outer borough feeder bus lines that lose money. (Maybe they should lose money since they feed main lines so the MTA might not lose money overall per passenger they service). If the center of the city isn't healthy the outer boroughs aren't going to be healthy either. You need to show the better investments elsewhere, instead of hand-waving about 'rich white neighborhoods.' (if I wanted to be hand-wavy I could say, 'where people pay taxes and don't trash the public investments in their neighborhoods')

> If the center of the city isn't healthy the outer boroughs aren't going to be healthy either.

It might be necessary (I'm not sure), but it's not at all sufficient. It's trickle-down economics. Investing in wealthy neighborhoods makes wealthy neighborhoods better.

> where people pay taxes and don't trash the public investments in their neighborhoods

Can you name specifics? It sounds like a stereotype of poor communities.

that was my point, the parent comment didn't provide any evidence better investments were available.

if they built massively on the far east side and it's a subway void, and the Lex is maxed out, maybe that's where they should invest. they should also have decent transit to/from outer boroughs so people can get to jobs in Manhattan or elsewhere.

if someone thinks 'rich white people' getting public services is automatically suspect, they can hardly complain if someone else thinks investment in services for 'poor non-white people' is suspect.

anyway, guess what, there is some politics and cronyism and corruption in these transportation projects, there is graffiti and vandalism and drugs in public housing projects (even if 90+% of residents aren't involved and terrible management and incentives are why the projects suck), and the day there's a big investment in a subway in the outer boroughs, people will complain about that too, and say it's a line to nowhere, or it's driven by real estate interests and gentrification.

"Better investments were available" is a hard one, given that construction on the 2nd Avenue line has been going on for many decades - it's a fair bit of sunk cost. But yes, it will help the Lexington Avenue line, which does suck at rush hour.

strangely, I think all the tunnel that was previously dug is to the north and south of the route that's being opened now. maybe not as much sunk cost as one might think. although it looks like they will use existing tunnel north of the route as a maintenance area / train yard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway#1960s.E2....

Not to mention deBlasio's streetcar to nowhere.

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