{"id":73816,"date":"2025-12-17T21:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/73816\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T21:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:48:11","slug":"new-york-citys-potential-first-new-train-line-in-years-will-slash-travel-time-between-boroughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/73816\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City’s Potential First New Train Line In Years Will Slash Travel Time Between Boroughs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over 4\u00a0million people ride New York City’s subway every day, according to the Metropolitan\u00a0Transportation Authority (MTA)<\/a>.\u00a0The city\u00a0operates the\u00a0largest mass transit system in the country<\/a>,\u00a0though that scale doesn’t always translate to efficiency or accessibility. The vast\u00a0system can seem chaotic to first-time visitors<\/a>, and several areas \u2014 including Staten Island and eastern Queens \u2014 remain comparatively underserved by rail transit<\/a>. Fortunately for many, a new light rail line could bring train service to subway-deprived\u00a0areas of the Big Apple, cutting travel times between outer boroughs.<\/p>\n

First proposed in January 2022, the Interborough Express\u00a0is a planned rapid transit line designed to connect Brooklyn and Queens, with convenient connections to existing subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.\u00a0The project would repurpose an existing freight corridor running between Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and\u00a0Jackson Heights,\u00a0Queens, one of New York’s most diverse neighborhoods<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a line currently used to transport goods including flour and beer, earning it the nickname the “pizza-and-beer railroad<\/a>.”\u00a0Because\u00a0existing infrastructure is already in place, the MTA<\/a> notes that the line\u00a0could be built more easily than a brand-new subway route.<\/p>\n

The Interborough Express would span 14 miles and serve 19 stations.\u00a0The MTA estimates that an end-to-end ride \u2014 between the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Roosevelt Avenue stations, per the proposed map<\/a> \u2014 would take about 40 minutes, offering a faster alternative to current cross-borough trips that typically involve multiple transfers through Manhattan<\/a>.\u00a0If completed, it would mark New York City’s first entirely new train line since the Second Avenue Subway’s Q line extension<\/a> opened in 2017.<\/p>\n

Read more: The 14 Most Mouth-Watering New York Eateries You Didn’t Know Are Owned By Celebrities, According To Reviews<\/a><\/p>\n

Ride the Interborough Express from Brooklyn to Queens\"An<\/p>\n

An MTA train pulls into a station in Queens – roamer.rat\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The Interborough Express is a win-win for New Yorkers, said Kate Slevin,\u00a0executive vice president at the Regional Plan Association,\u00a0an organization promoting economic growth and quality of life in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan area.\u00a0“It’s an exceptionally good project in terms of how many people it will serve and how effective it will be at reducing commute times and giving people a faster ride,” she told\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as the MTA pointed out on its\u00a0website<\/a>, the project’s impact is not only ridership numbers. While the Interborough Express could serve roughly 260,000 people in Brooklyn and Queens \u2014 and nearly 900,000 residents living along the corridor \u2014 transit officials say the proposal is notable for who it would reach. The planned light rail line would pass through\u00a0several historically underserved communities, where roughly one-third of residents live below the federal poverty line.\u00a0In a city where one-quarter of the population lives in poverty<\/a>, that number carries particular weight.<\/p>\n

As of December 2025,\u00a0the MTA’s most recent update indicates that the Interborough Express is undergoing an environmental review<\/a>,\u00a0a required assessment of the project’s potential impacts that must be completed before construction or funding decisions are finalized. For more guidance on how to commute around the Big Apple, read over the best transportation tips to blend in like a local on your next trip to New York City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ready to discover more hidden gems and expert travel tips? Subscribe to our free newsletter<\/a> and add us as a preferred search source<\/a> for access to the world’s best-kept travel secrets.<\/p>\n

Read the original article on Islands<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 4\u00a0million people ride New York City’s subway every day, according to the Metropolitan\u00a0Transportation Authority (MTA).\u00a0The city\u00a0operates the\u00a0largest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37324,4804,37322,37323,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-73816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-eastern-queens","9":"tag-interborough-express","10":"tag-light-rail-line","11":"tag-mass-transit-system","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}