In a June 6 radio interview, Mayor Bloomberg said the #7 train extension to the Far West Side was his administration’s top transportation priority. "If you had one project to do it’s clearly opening up the whole west side of Manhattan and getting the convention center to be included in a mass transit area, mass transit served area, because that would really do something for jobs throughout all five boroughs," the mayor said.

The remarks were in response to questioning about competing projects. The WABC interviewer asked about recent press on the cross-harbor freight tunnel plan, and the Second Avenue subway. "Some people push [the freight tunnel], some people push the Second Avenue subway…All of these are worthy projects, we just don’t have the money to do them all," the mayor answered.

Further on his top pick, Bloomberg said: "The extension of the number 7 line – if you take a look at a map, the whole west side of Manhattan is poorly served...by mass transit, and if you don’t have mass transit you’re not going to have economic development there. We need economic development to create jobs, particularly a dramatically expanded convention center."

The mayor’s remark that "we don’t have money to do them all" is significant because the Bloomberg administration’s position on the #7 plan until now is that it will develop an innovative financing plan to keep the project’s costs from impacting other parts of the MTA capital program. However, the city’s pronouncements on project financing have gotten murkier rather than clearer as time has gone on. The mayor’s comments appear to indicate that he doesn’t believe his own administration’s spin on how the project will be paid for. The #7 project is likely now to compete for federal mass transit aid, city capital funding and a spot in the MTA capital program. The latter will be reauthorized by the state and city in 2005. The mayor holds a seat on the MTA capital program review board.

In his election campaign, the mayor promised to construct a "surface subway" of rapid bus routes along First and Second Avenues in Manhattan to take pressure off the horribly crowded Lexington Avenue subway. The effort’s status was given as: "The MTA is preparing a proposal to create dual [East Side] bus lanes which will be submitted in early 2003. The City will then review the proposal to see whether it should be implemented," in the mayor’s accounting of campaign promises last winter. But there is no indication that any start to this work has been made. 

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