New York City is confronting simultaneous crises of affordability, weak private-sector job creation, and stubbornly high poverty rates. Recently, a group of researchers at NYU’s Marron Institute asked: Could the solution to all these problems lie in subway expansion?
During his mayoral campaign, Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised to make city buses fare-free, forgoing $1 billion in revenue. In their recent report, A Better Billion, the Marron researchers propose that New York should instead put that money toward an ambitious build-out of its subway. The plan, executed across four decade-long phases, would not only deliver 41 new miles of subway and 64 new stations but also make possible the construction of 167,000 new housing units.
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The first phase would realize a century-old idea: to extend the 5 train from Brooklyn’s Utica Avenue to Kings Plaza through an elevated expansion. It also would incorporate Governor Kathy Hochul’s intention to extend the Second Avenue subway across 125th Street to Broadway. Finally, it would carry out the QueensWay project, a proposal that would reopen a disused segment of Long Island Rail Road track, extending the M train to Rockaway Park Beach.
Ensuing decades would see the construction of ten new stations adjacent to the Long Island Expressway, rerouting the W train out to Eastern Queens and unlocking a potential 32,053 new housing units. They would also include the completion of the third and fourth phases of the Second Avenue Subway, all the way down to the Financial District. MTA plans should also be modified, the report’s authors argue, to connect the Second Avenue line to Broad Street station, permitting trains then to run through the tunnel used by the R and extend into Brooklyn.
In the plan’s final decade, the Bronx would see the construction of light rail east-west across Fordham Road. That would relieve the Bx12, the second busiest bus line in the city, of congestion—significantly increasing connectivity in New York’s northernmost borough. The N train would also be connected to LaGuardia Airport.
The Marron researchers estimate the plan will cost $48 billion. Much of that sum—$34 billion—would come directly from the city, with the remaining $14 billion coming from federal grants. Accessibility upgrades across the system would take up $150 million of the $1 billion in annual spending. The figures constitute a realistic assessment of the costs of constructing new subways in New York.
Extending subway lines would also effectively expand the city’s housing supply. Faster commutes mean more homes fall within a given commute time. This not only increases the range of options for those wanting to work in New York but also creates incentives for denser development farther out.
Unlike Mamdani’s free buses plan, the Better Billion expansion would pay off, generating significant new wealth. Government would capture some of these gains, as new stations would push up land values, which would show up in property-tax assessments. But individuals and businesses would see the largest benefits: expanded access to employers, entertainment, and customers, as well as less time stuck in traffic.
The report doesn’t address every question. It says nothing, for instance, about added operating expenses—by far the costliest part of running the MTA. Ideally, ever-growing costs should not be exclusively pushed on to taxpayers.
Other approaches are available. The MTA could recapture some of its operating costs through a commercial subsidiary that would operate retail or even acquire and develop land before subway expansion occurs. Another possibility is stepping up fare enforcement. The MTA could also demand that all future employee contract negotiations be tied to productivity improvements, automating more operations, and reducing superfluous jobs.
Still, the plan’s $1 billion figure reveals the opportunity cost of eliminating bus fares: an entire parallel subway system could be built with those same resources. Subway expansion is imperative if New York City is to continue to grow. The Better Billion proposal would be an excellent place to start.