Another Step Towards Building the Interborough Express
By John B. Pegram[1]
On August 1st, Governor Hochul visited the proposed Interborough Express (IBX) right-of-way and announced that the engineering and design phase of the IBX light rail transit line has begun.[2] The MTA Board has approved a two-year contract with a joint venture engineering team to oversee that phase, at a not-to-be-exceeded cost of nearly $166 million.[3]
Announcement Photo[4]
The obviously happy MTA Chairman, Janno Lieber, praised Governor Hochul for her support of transit generally and support for the IBX plan in particular.
Two Interesting Disclosures
The Governor and Chairman Lieber made two particularly interesting disclosures during their remarks. The first disclosure was a new prediction that “a ride from end-to-end will take 32 minutes.”[5] The second disclosure was an increased estimate of expected IBX ridership. Governor Hochul mentioned “about 160,000 riders a day.”[6]
An MTA press release about the announcement further explained the travel time and ridership improvements as follows:
“Middle Village, Queens, the MTA is progressing with the design of a tunnel solution beneath Metropolitan Avenue, rather than on-street operations, making the proposed line less prone to travel delays due to mixed traffic operations. This refinement has reduced projected running times of the new line from 39 minutes to 32 minutes and has increased ridership projections to 160,000 per day, up 50,000 from the MTA's prior estimate. IBX’s projected annual ridership is higher than the current ridership of any other light rail system in the country at 48 million riders — the next largest is Los Angeles at 46 million riders per year.”[7]
Comments on Travel Time & Ridership
First, Kudos to the MTA for listening those who opposed the earlier IBX proposals, which included grade crossings and street running around All Faiths Cemetery at Metropolitan Avenue. I do not believe, however, that the Metropolitan Avenue tunnel is the reason for the recently announced improvements in ridership and travel time predictions. Let’s dig in.
Runtime
The earlier estimates referred to by the Governor and the MTA were in the January 2022 “Interim Report.”[8] At that time, the light rail version of the IBX plan included a number of grade crossings of streets in addition to running in the streets around All-Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village. The calculations of running time in the appendix to that report (excerpts attached), however, did not consider traffic delays, which would be due to the grade crossings and street running. Therefore, because the earlier forecasts did not account for street delays, it is unlikely that the faster end-to-end running time now predicted is primarily due to the elimination of street-running by using a tunnel at Metropolitan Avenue.
It appears likely that there are two reasons for the shorter running time estimate: shorter intermediate station stops (“dwell time”) and higher maximum (“peak”) running speed. As shown in the Interim Report appendices, the earlier estimate was based on a 0.5-minute (30 seconds) dwell time at 22 stations. In my experience, average dwell time on the NYC subways is 20 seconds. A reduction of 10- seconds dwell times at 22 stations would reduce predicted total running time by 3:40.
The original estimates capped the maximum running speed at 35 miles per hour, although theoretical maximum speeds in the appendix tables indicated that higher speeds could be achieved. Therefore, it seems likely that the new running time predictions assume a higher maximum speed.
Query, however, whether the faster runtime can be achieved? Thirty-two minutes end-to-end would require an average speed (including station stops) of 26 miles-per-hour. As pointed out in a recent, Joint Transit Association short video, “This will be the fastest service in New York, being more than 30% faster than the current fastest service, the 7 express train.” Is that practical? We await release of the MTA consultant’s “Updated run time calculations,” mentioned in their Progress Report for October 2024 and, ultimately, operation of the IBX line.
Ridership
IBX Ridership predictions have continued to rise over the years. The latest increase is not surprising. The prior MTA predictions have been criticized as too low. To their credit, the MTA and its consultants have been conservative. Even their lower estimates of ridership fully justify the projected cost of building the IBX line.
I summarized and discussed some of the ridership estimates in an earlier article.[9] The year for which ridership is predicted affects the results. The IBX Interim Report predicted 87.4 thousand weekday riders, apparently in the year 2040. The most recent, official MTA ridership estimates I am aware of are the PEL Report’s[10] estimate of approximately 115 thousand weekday riders in 2045 and the MTA’s 20-Year Needs Assessment estimate that there would be 118.5 thousand weekday riders in 2045. A team led Professor Joseph Chow at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering has predicted 254 thousand weekday riders for the IBX line“after its completion.”
The Engineering and Design Contract
On July 30th, the MTA Board approved award of a $165,980,654 contract for IBX preliminary design and engineering services. A copy of the MTA staff summary[11] is attached and the heading of that summary is shown below.
The contractor will be Jacobs/HDR, which is a joint venture of Jacobs Civil Consultants Inc. and Henningson, Durham & Richardson Architecture and Engineering, P.C. (HDR). The base term of the contract is for 24 months, with an option for a three-month extension.
The MTA Staff Summary states “[T]he selection committee determined Jacobs/HDR to be the highest technically ranked and recommended Jacobs/HDR for negotiations. Jacobs/HDR proposed a qualified team with light rail expertise, a strong plan of approach and a robust management team. The firm and its proposed team have extensive experience performing similar work on projects of comparable magnitude and complexity. Although the other firms demonstrated strength in a number of areas, Jacobs/HDR was determined to be technically superior based on its innovative approach to the project sequencing, logistics and design coordination, and demonstrated understanding of the corridor constraints.”
According to the October 2024 Request for Proposals, the Project was to be separated into two phases:
“The first phase (“Civil Phase”) will prepare the corridor to receive the light rail system and includes demolition of existing structures; utility relocation; street-work; environmental remediation; rehabilitation of existing, and construction of new, above-grade and undergrade bridges; construction of new tunnel structures and retaining walls; and repositioning of freight infrastructure. The second phase (“Light Rail Phase”) will complete the design and installation of the light rail system and incudes construction and installation of passenger trackwork, stations, a light-rail vehicle storage yard, an operations center, traction power, signals and other systems; procurement of light rail rolling stock; testing and commissioning; and all other work required to place the light rail system into revenue service.”[12]
During negotiations, however, the scope of work was revised to include the work of both of the originally proposed phases in the base contract, to secure cost savings from project management efficiencies and reduced coordination costs.
The Staff Summary states that funding for this contract is included in the MTA’s 2020-2024 and 2025-2029 Capital Programs. More specifically, according to the MTA press release:
“The project design phase will be principally funded through $45 million secured by Governor Hochul in New York State’s 2025 budget and the MTA’s 2025-2029 Capital Plan. An additional $15 million was awarded to the MTA by the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT)’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant, which will fund a corridor assessment in support of the design phase. USDOT has also provided $1 million to fund innovative finance expert services for the project. The total estimated cost of the IBX project is $5.5 billion, with 50 percent of the total funding for the project secured by Governor Hochul in the MTA’s 2025-2029 Capital Plan.”[13]
Some details of the project are described in the “APPENDIX A – TECHNICAL SCOPE OF SERVICES” of the MTA’s October 2024 Request for Proposal, a copy of which is attached to this article. I have made a Freedom of Information Law request for the final contract and Jacobs/HDR’s proposals, which may reveal how the phases will be combined and how the predicted savings are to be achieved.
This article expresses the personal views of the author and does not express the views of his employer, or any client or organization. The author has degrees in law and physics, and has taken several engineering courses. After five years of work as an engineer, he has practiced law primarily in the field of patents for over 50 years, dealing with a wide variety of technologies. He is a life-long railfan and user of public transportation in the United States, Europe and Japan.
As usual a PDF copy of this article is attached.
[1] © John Pegram, 2025.
[2] Press Release available at https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-interborough-express-advancing-planning-active-phase.
[3] Id. See Staff Summary for MTA Board meeting (copy attached).
[4] From: https://www.flickr.com/photos/govkathyhochul/54693202686/in/album- 72177720328081117/.
[5] Hochul announcement rough transcript, available at https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/ video-audio-photos-rush-transcript-governor-hochul-announces-interborough-express-advancing. See announcement video, available at
.
[6] Id.
[7] https://www.mta.info/press-release/icymi-governor-hochul-announces-interborough-express-advancing-planning-active-phase.
[8] MTA, Interborough Express – Feasibility Study and Alternatives Analysis – Interim Report (Jan. 2022) (Interim Report), with appendices, is available for download here. (Pertinent pages are attached to this article).
[9] See https://bqrail.substack.com/p/interborough-express-ridership-projections-e91.
[10] MTA, Interborough Express Planning & Environmental Linkages Study (Jan. 2023) (PEL Report), with most appendices, is available from the MTA here
[11] MTA July 2025 Board Book, pages 3-5, available at https://www.mta.info/document/ 179916.
[12] Request for Proposal Consultant Services, Contract No: CS00037C - Interborough Express Light Rail Project General Engineering Consultant Services at page 8. (Copy attached).
[13] See note 7 above.
Thanks for your continued detailed coverage of this project! Your efforts are appreciated.
Following along, it's always interesting to see how these more major milestones are publicized and discussed.
It seems almost comical that they would even say 'we've reduced the end-end time by about 7 minutes and now ridership is expected to double'. I doubt anyone, especially the project team, believes anything akin to that.
However, I am happy if the MTA is willing to make up any excuse so that they can ultimately say 'we all know we massively under predicted ridership count but as we begin to actually put the design together, we're going to inflate the number as much as possible'.
Without doing much work on my own, I have a tendency to side with the transportation engineering professor and the general vibe that the only major and convenient link between the 2 densest and growing parts of the largest metropolitan area in United States will very quickly begin operating at/above whatever capacity it is designed / can handle.