A downtown real estate company commissioned a study that recommends running Long Island Railroad trains to downtown Manhattan via the Cranberry Street tunnel now used by A and C subways. MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow met with company’s representatives but told the Daily News that the plan loses its luster when put to paper.

The plan would route C and possibly A trains to the F line, displacing riders who now travel to lower Manhattan and likely overburdening 6th Avenue service as well.

In technical terms, the plan — which Straphanger's Campaign’s Gene Russianoff dubbed “grand-theft subway” — would likely attract far too few LIRR riders to justify service disruption for over 110,000 subway riders. In political terms, anyone advancing such a plan would quickly be caught in a huge minefield of city and regional politics.It would be a subway advocate’s field day, resulting in thousands of outraged calls to the Governor’s office,“Save the A” rallies and incredulous editorials. 

The idea would also be saddled with overweighting Long Island Railroad projects in the overall regional transit construction program.The MTA is just now at the beginning of spending over $4 billion to bring the LIRR into Grand Central Terminal.

Over the long run, a better concept may be to convert the LIRR Atlantic Avenue branch to a subway-like rapid line, running from Jamaica to lower Manhattan.That would win favor rather than enmity in Brooklyn, and could link to Second Avenue subway development.

MTR search facility and back issues:

Search our database of all past issues of Mobilizing the Region since Fall, 1994.

Go to index of all Mobilizing the Region back issues