MTR 310, Rep. Nadler: Save City Land for Rail Yards

Issue 310

March 26, 2001

Rep. Nadler: Save City Land for Rail Yards

At a NYMTC freight group meeting last week, Congressman Jerry Nadler exhorted the agency to vigorously pursue more land for development as terminal and yard space, lest New York's investment in rail improvements go to waste. The state has spent more than $300 million on the Oak Point Link and clearances for double-stack freight train. In addition, New York City has invested funds in producing freight tunnel and cross-Harbor goods movement studies and has proposed complementary investments in rail, float and other facilities, including a $1.5 billion tunnel under New York Harbor.

Painting a bleak picture of an ever more truck-dependent future for the City, Nadler urged a return of 53 acres of the Harlem River Rail Yard from the firm that obtained a 99-year lease of it in the waning days of the Cuomo administration and preservation the Phelps Dodge site in Maspeth for intermodal yard operations.

Nadler noted that Manhattan will be truck-dependent for the foreseeable future. The borough's last option for a rail yard was foreclosed when the City permitted Donald Trump to build his "Riverside South" development project on the West Side Rail Yard at 60^th Street.

He challenged NYMTC to quickly identify and preserve other sites totaling 200 to 275 or more acres, all of which are threatened, in the other boroughs.

One option NYC and NYMTC could explore at the outset of the land preservation campaign is adoption of a short moratorium on development of very large sites suitable for rail yard development while the inventory of possible sites is being completed.