Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending the long-promised Second Avenue Subway on a crosstown detour — calling into question when the rest of the line will be completed.
Hochul announced a new plan to extend the Second Avenue subway along 125th Street, with new Q train stations at Lenox Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue and Broadway.
But prioritizing that instead of the long-planned continuation of the line south from 72nd had commuters fuming after the change was unveiled during Tuesday’s State of the State speech in Albany.
“Let’s just keep it real,” Lola Young, 38, told The Post. “125th has a lot of trains that already run there. We don’t need another one. We actually do need a train line over here so we can stop walking all the way over.”
Hochul signaled her support to put a continuation of the north-south Q-line on the back burner after a $16 million state-funded feasibility study found it would be faster and more cost effective in the long-run to keep the massive tunnel-boring machine drilling straight across Harlem after the initial East Harlem extension is complete around 2031.
“Our efforts to extend the Second Avenue Subway will save hundreds of millions of dollars in future costs and reduce time – big wins for the 240,000 daily riders projected to benefit,” Hochul said.
The crosstown leg would create an east–west subway connection in Upper Manhattan, tying the Q to the 1, 2, 3, A, B, C and D lines. The MTA estimated in 2023 it would cost $7.5 billion.
Hochul’s switcheroo also conveniently avoids the more complex and expensive downtown work, which the MTA estimated would cost $13.5 billion split across two phases of construction.
Even though a final decision won’t be made until the MTA decides funding priorities for its next MTA Capital plan in 2029, the governor’s pivot indefinitely shelves the century-old dream of running the Second Avenue line all the way downtown.
The plan would have added 3 miles from 72nd Street to Houston Street, with stops at 55th, 42nd, 34th, 23rd,14th and Houston Streets.
Upstate resident Ana Perdomo, 57, said the expansion — if it ever comes — would shorten her commute as she takes a train into Grand Central and then walks to 23rd street and Second for work five days a week.
“How are they going to not do it now?” Perdomo said. “It’s not good.
“Maybe they think it’s too expensive, but I think they make enough money,” Perdomo added. “They raised the fare. Where is the money going? They should have money.”
That plan had been in the works in various iterations since the 1920s, with the MTA spending $1.05 billion on environmental studies and design for a new track running up the far east side of Manhattan in the early 2000s. At the time the study found the new track would “facilitate the revitalization of Lower Manhattan.”
The MTA also spent $700 million in the 1990s to study the north-south Second Avenue subway leg.
