The ongoing expansion of the Second Avenue subway may take a westward turn.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is throwing her support behind a new plan to extend the Q train along 125th Street to West Harlem — a measure that calls for building an additional three stations to help bring the line across Manhattan to Broadway, Gothamist has learned.
Hochul will make the announcement as part of her State of the State address Tuesday afternoon, marking the start of a new, expanded vision for the still-nascent Second Avenue train line first opened on the East Side in 2017. If completed, new stations would be built at Lenox Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue and Broadway.
The westward expansion would be years away and comes with an estimated price tag of $8.1 billion, which includes the cost to buy a new fleet of trains. Hochul’s support comes before construction has even started on a separate, $7.7 billion extension project on the Second Avenue subway that is expected to take eight years to complete.
Hochul is also expected to announce the long-sought Interborough Express — a planned light rail line between Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Jackson Heights, Queens — is taking the next step forward, with the MTA set to begin the formal engineering process for the project.
“There are too many transit deserts in New York City — communities that have been left out and left behind for far too long,” Hochul said in a statement. “That’s why I’m so committed to the future of the Second Avenue Subway and the Interborough Express, two projects that will transform the way New Yorkers get around our city.”
Hochul is scheduled to deliver her annual address from the ornate Assembly chamber in the state Capitol in Albany.
The Second Avenue subway announcement is expected to headline the portion of her speech dedicated to public transit. The governor, meanwhile, has said she will focus much of her agenda on two major areas: Crime and mental health.
Hochul is also facing questions about her plans to create new…
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