RPA's Jeff Zupan, one of the authors of the MetroLink plan, told the paper "What we are hearing from Conway is what we have been hearing all along: 'We'll get around to Second Avenue next time,' meaning the five-year capital plan five years from now."

Public support for the a Second Avenue Subway and MetroLink, however, is growing (see MTR #205). Local officials and transit riders tired of squeezing onto overcrowded trains are making their voices heard at town hall meetings and in letters to newspapers.

There have been no significant additions to the NYC subway system in 60 years, despite the fact that ridership has increased 20 percent over the last 14 years. Many neighborhoods that have undergone significant development in the latter part of the century are grossly undeserved by transit.

In reality, MetroLink provides an excellent framework for meeting many goals the MTA has already outlined. MetroLink assumes the linkage of the Long Island Railroad and Grand Central Terminal. It provides easy access to Jamaica, Queens via Queens Boulevard or Atlantic Avenue rail, which would in turn make it easier to reach JFK Airport via the Port Authority's proposed JFK-Jamaica rail link. MetroLink also shows how a Second Avenue tunnel running the length of Manhattan (not just on the Upper East Side, as NYC Transit proposes) would not only relieve crowding on the Lexington Line and increase access to poorly served Upper and Lower East Side neighborhoods, but it would also enable development of several new inter-borough transit services that would substantially increase mobility within the city. Metro East's blurring of the subway/commuter rail distinction addresses the MTA's desire to reach the downtown business district with commuter trains.

RPA admitted to Newsday that ambitious projects like MetroLink are "often dismissed with a kind of knowing cynicism that anything built in New York takes forever. But between 1900 and 1940, New York built an average of six miles of subway per year every year for 40 years."