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NYC's biggest infrastructure plans suffer from paralysis by analysis
By
Stephen Nessen
Published Mar 14, 2025
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By
Stephen Nessen
Published Mar 14, 2025
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This column originally appeared in On The Way, a weekly newsletter covering everything you need to know about NYC-area transportation.
Sign up to get the full version, which includes answers to reader questions, trivia, service changes and more, in your inbox every Thursday.
New York City was once the construction capital of the world. Now it’s better known for what doesn’t get built.
Across the five boroughs, transportation upgrades worth billions of dollars remain in a state of arrested development as government officials commission study after study for infrastructure projects that never move forward. Those reviews add to lengthy, legally mandated environmental review processes that experts bemoan as obstacles to putting shovels in the ground.
Frustration over this reality is at the center of discussions within the Democratic Party about how it can rebrand itself following Republicans’ clean sweep in 2024. In his new book, “Abundance,” influential New York Times columnist Ezra Klein proposes that liberals embrace ambitious projects by cutting red tape for the public good.
“The Empire State Building was built in 17 months. If you tried to build it today, it might take 17 years,” Mitchell Moss, a policy and urban planning professor at NYU, told Gothamist.
Take a new report published by the city transportation department this week on the Cross Bronx Expressway’s future. New York officials in December 2022 used a $2 million grant from the U.S. DOT’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program for a study to “reimagine” the highway, which displaced communities and polluted the borough when it was built in the mid-20th century.
Local elected officials like U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres wanted the study to examine “capping” sections of the highway with parks, plazas and green spaces. But after 26 months, it resulted in a 61-page report stating even more studies would be needed. “Each potential cap would require its own design and environmental review process,” the not-so-insightful report read.
It’s a similar story with the triple-cantilever section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Brooklyn Heights, which is past its useful life and at risk of crumbling. For more than six years, city officials have pitched, studied and rescinded plans to fix the structure without deciding on a permanent solution.
And don’t forget multiple plans to rebuild Penn Station — and expand it a block south — that have been proposed, studied and reviewed by two New York governors for nearly a decade without meaningful progress.
The cycle of pouring taxpayer money into engineering and architecture firms to propose ideas that yield little more than fancy renderings can seem never ending.
In the last week alone, New Yorkers have been treated to two new options for upgrading Penn Station. Last week, yet another design emerged for the vexing 1.5 mile stretch of the BQE.
“The real problem is that it's easy for a member of Congress or a member of the state Legislature to get money for study, but it's very difficult to get it for a project,” Moss said.
Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said politicians are to blame for delays to the city’s infrastructure needs.
“We can do big things. We just only do the big things that the political class favors,” said Gelinas. “Nobody important enough actually cares enough about the Cross Bronx, so we don't do it.”
Gelinas pointed out many people blame onerous review processes that can take several years to complete before construction can begin on major projects. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler said reforms are long overdue to the state and federal environmental regulations.
“ I think people want to do these projects, but they see it as too ethereal. They see it as too far in the future,” Nadler told Gothamist. “And I think if you had the permitting reform… then people wouldn't see it as too far in the future.”
Have a question about subway cars (or literally anything else NYC-transit related)? Use this form to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter!
But note that Curious Commuter questions are exclusive for On The Way newsletter subscribers. Sign up for free here.
Stephen, from Westchester County
Why has Metro-North canceled the quiet car service? It was a wonderful program and would be great to reintroduce since congestion pricing is encouraging more commuters to use the railroad.
Answer
The MTA killed the quiet car service on Metro-North during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to give riders more space for social distancing. MTA officials said they have no plans to restore no-talking carriages because riders remain hesitant to sit next to one another, and want to give as many passengers as possible the option to sit alone without doubling up on benches.
The latest NYC area transit headlines
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The new Penn Station redesign pitch that aligns with Trump’s taste. A nonprofit funded by a wealthy Trump donor would give the city’s busiest rail hub a makeover in keeping with the president’s affinity for “traditional” architecture.
“Classical architecture is not just about unparalleled aesthetic excellence; it is the architecture of American democracy.”
-from an essay posted on the site of the National Civic Art Society, the group proposing the Penn Station redesign
The plan would involve moving Madison Square Garden — and installing a new entrance with Greco-Roman columns.
Suspicious bulge spotted. TSA agents at Newark Airport last week caught a guy trying to go through security with a turtle in his pants.
On Staten Island, a woman driving a Ford Edge fatally hit an 80-year-old man who was walking blocks away from his home last Friday morning.
Congestion pricing has not correlated with an increase in outer-borough traffic, according to a Streetsblog analysis of MTA data.
Congestion pricing has correlated with a drop in 311 complaints about honking south of 60th Street, according to The City.
Moving to Long Island? Newsday has an extremely handy map detailing both average rents and commute times for every Long Island Rail Road stop.
Listen to us talk about all this! Download our app and tune in to “All Things Considered” around 4 p.m. on Thursdays. And catch up on last week’s segment in case you missed it.
Tagged
new york city
Politics
transportation
On The Way
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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