For roughly a century, New Yorkers have floated the same fantasy: a train that connects Brooklyn and Queens directly, without dragging you into Manhattan and back out. The Interborough Express, the MTA’s 14-mile light rail along an existing freight line, is the version of that dream that is actually getting built, and as of this month it is grinding through the least glamorous and most consequential phase of all: environmental review and design.
The numbers are real now, not aspirational. The IBX would run 19 stations from Bay Ridge to Jackson Heights, connecting with 17 subway lines, 50 bus routes and two LIRR stations along the way, a single ride that today can mean two trains and the better part of an hour. The price tag is $5.5 billion, and Governor Hochul has secured half of it in the MTA’s 2025-2029 capital plan, which is the difference between a study and a project.
The part neighbors are actually watching is smaller and closer to home. After community input, the MTA is now prioritizing tunneling the line beneath Metropolitan Avenue rather than running it at street level, a real concession in the stretch through Ridgewood and Middle Village where the freight cut and the surface streets collide. How much of the route goes under, over or alongside existing tracks is being settled right now, in design rooms and community board briefings, not at a ribbon cutting…