New York Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that consultant firm WSP USA, Inc. was chosen to perform the environmental review for Interborough Express, the transformative Light Rail Transit project which would connect communities in Brooklyn and Queens to 17 subway lines and the Long Island Rail Road, and significantly reduce travel times within and between the two boroughs.
The Interborough Express would use the existing right-of-way of the Bay Ridge Branch, which is a freight rail line that runs through Brooklyn and Queens, connecting ethnically and socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods such as Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Borough Park, Kensington, Midwood, Flatbush, Flatlands, New Lots, Brownsville, East New York, Bushwick, Ridgewood, Middle Village, Maspeth, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights. The project would include several new connections in neighborhoods that currently lack efficient connections to each other, and in some cases, to Manhattan.
According to the MTA’s Planning & Environmental Linkages Study, up to seven out of ten people served will be from communities of color, approximately one-half will come from households with no cars, and approximately one-third will be living in households at or below 150% of the Federal Poverty Line.
The project could provide potential connections to 17 subway lines ( ) serving areas of Brooklyn and Queens while initial studies indicate up to 115,000 daily weekday riders with annual ridership of approximately four million. Travel times between Brooklyn and Queens could be reduced by up to 30 minutes each way, depending on travel distance.
Proposed service would operate at up to five-minute headways during the peak periods, with off-peak headways of up to 10 minutes at other times of the day. Nineteen stations are planned along the 14-mile corridor between Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park and Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens.
-via Press Release