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It’s finally getting on track.
The long-awaited light rail connection between Brooklyn and Queens has now moved into active development, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday — but the project won’t be complete until at least the 2030s.
Hochul, during an event along the abandoned rail line that will become the Interborough Express, or IBX, celebrated the MTA’s board this week advancing the expected $5.5 billion project into its design phase.
“We’re turning these old tracks into something remarkable,” she crowed. “A clean, fast, 14-mile light rail line – a connection between Brooklyn and Queens like never before.”
She also highlighted estimates that an end-to-end trip along the line will only be 32 minutes.
“Riders will save 30 minutes each way. If you’re a round-trip commuter, guess what? That’s an hour back in your life.”
Proposals to build a Brooklyn-Queens rail service have percolated for nearly three decades, but only seriously advanced when Hochul announced in 2022 that an underused freight line would be converted into the Interborough Express.
The planned line would create 19 stations, connect 17 subway lines, 50 bus routes and two Long Island Rail Road hubs along its track from Sunset Park, Brooklyn to Jackson Heights, Queens, officials envision.
The IBX would also be the Big Apple’s first light rail line, as well the first end-to-end rapid transit built entirely in the city since the line that became the G train opened in 1937, officials said.
Drone footage and photos released by MTA officials Friday give a bird’s-eye view of the proposed route, including the LIRR-owned Bay Ridge Branch and the CSX-owned rail line Fremont Secondary.
The route winds through tree-lined, largely forgotten rail beds in both boroughs, with several bridges and tunnels that could present design difficulties, officials said.
But beyond broad strokes and a $2.75 billion commitment so far by Hochul, no serious engineering and design work had been done on the project – until MTA board members Wednesday selected Jacobs and HDR to be design and engineering team, with a $166 million contract.
“Thanks to $166 million dollar state investment, that means a lot of planning is going to occur – looking at the stations, tracks, vehicles signals – so we can get shovels in the ground and make this become a reality,” Hochul said.
The design phase will be the last before construction begins, officials said.
The project is expected to be completed in the 2030s.
Hochul promised that whenever it’s finished that New Yorkers will have fewer travel hassles flitting between Brooklyn and Queens.
“The outer boroughs are now joined so that there’s not a requirement that if you want to go see your mother in Queens from Brooklyn that you won’t have to go into Manhattan first,” she said.
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