The proposed Interborough Express project aims to convert underutilized freight tracks — seen here in the Maspeth neighborhood of Queens — into a line for modern light rail trains.
Photographer: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
A Train Grows in Brooklyn
New York City’s first new transit line in decades, the $5.5 billion Interborough Express, could transform fast-growing parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
There’s no easy way to make the seven-mile trip from my apartment in Brooklyn to the Middle Village neighborhood in Queens. When I made this journey recently, I took a subway ride into Manhattan on the B train, followed by a transfer to the M, which took me back across the East River and deep into Queens. At the end of the line, 13 stops later, I hopped out at Middle Village station and squeezed on to a packed Q54 bus. With a mob of riders waiting at the curb, it took a full two minutes to board. After we got underway, the last mile of my journey was a 15-minute crawl through stop-and-go traffic.
My destination was a community meeting where planners from New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority were talking about a project, known as the Interborough Express, that would make this trip and many others much easier and faster.