At the end of April, NYC Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff addressed a session of the Women’s Transportation Seminar about transportation and plans for the 2012 Olympics. Doctoroff essentially gave fairly well-known 2012 presentation, adding little detail to the plan’s vaguer elements, like the east-west axis of the "Olympic X."

Doctoroff said a 2012 NYC Olympics would be the first true "mass transit Olympics" and that there would be almost no parking available at venues. Athletes would travel only an average of 6 miles to compete and would almost never have to use NYC highways and streets.

The "Olympic X" is the heart of the transportation plan. Ferries would comprise the north-south arm, reaching from Staten Island to the uptown end of Manhattan.

The east-west axis is projected as a rail route from Flushing Meadows to the New Jersey Meadowlands. The 2012 presentation says the route is "along existing commuter rail lines," but it’s simply not the case that NJ Transit trains serve the Meadowlands basketball/hockey arena, which is supposed to be the X’s western terminus. There is now some discussion about a NJ Transit link between the Secaucus Transfer Station and the outlandish "Xanadu" development proposed in the Meadowlands, but the Olympic connection hasn’t yet been mentioned as part of that decision.

The city is moving ahead with its west side #7-train plans, but that has no conceivable through-train capabilities regarding New Jersey. New Jersey Transit needs a second commuter rail tunnel, but it will likely add capacity between Midtown’s west side and Secaucus, leaving Meadowlands access unresolved. It also may be finished well after 2012.

If a Meadowlands NJ Transit link is built, and the Sunnyside Yard station that is supposed to be part of the LIRR East Side Access project is delivered on time (to serve Long Island City’s Olympic village), Olympic through-trains could conceivably be run between the Meadowlands and Long Island City. Since those types of operations are not standard now, they could disrupt regular service, which could see heavier than normal demand during the games (the "X" plan is only to move the athletes).

When questioned about the difficulty of connecting the Meadowlands to Penn Station, Doctoroff gave a broad response about the disconnect between various train systems serving Manhattan, and said the city needed a deadline to get desired transportation projects accomplished.

The 2012 plan also depends on a new stadium west of Penn Station. Its regular tenants would be the NY Jets, and a conference center. It’s difficult to disentangle the Olympic plan, far west side real estate ambitions and the #7 subway extension project. The MTA and the City Planning Commission are holding a "scoping" hearing for the environmental impact statement for the #7 project and the city’s proposals to re-zone the far west side of Midtown on the afternoon and evening of June 5, at the Fashion Institute of Technology (sessions start at 2pm and 6pm). See www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/hyards/hymain.html. 

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