Having lived between York and the River (ok, the FDR) in the 70s for a number of years, I am definitely in favor of the Second Avenue line.

However, two reasons far-easters may not want the Second Avenue line is: 1) that the M15 Limited is a relatively fast bus down 2nd and up 1st, and 2) the M31 is a neat little bus that runs down York from 92nd, and across 57th to West End. 57th SUCKS during the evening rush hour especially, but otherwise those options are not horrible.

My hunch is that the Upper East Siders complaining about possible 2nd Ave subway construction disrupting their qualities of life are people who hardly ever take the subway (or other public transportation) in the first place. If so, they can shut their faces. Hopefully they don't have the same kind of influence UES Park Ave residents have; no buses or commercial traffic are allowed on Park Ave. Any new subway line would be good for the city.

I think time has come for those human transport tubes ("HTT") as seen in Futurama.

San Francisco's light rail "works really well"? Only in that it does move some people around. It does so neither quickly nor efficiently. New Yorkers are blessed with *rapid* transit. Light rail is mass transit that is anything but rapid.

I don't know why we need a new line with the advent of the Segway. Segway's are so cheap and everyone rides one now. When I get into the subway, now, it's empty.

The problem with light rail on existing streets is that either the traffic lights of cross-streets have to be synchronized with the timing of the trains or the trains have to wait at stoplights. In the urban grid, light rail is not rapid tranist, like the subway, but just a less flexible bus line.

The complainers probably never take the subway. Anyone who's been on the Lex line during rush hour knows how badly the UES needs the SAS.

I have to ask: who ARE these people? I mean, okay, in a city of 7+ million people, it's a given that you can find a few hundred who'll make a fuss to oppose ANY public project, no matter how desperately and obviously necessary it is, but still... I've lived here for 6 years, my SO has lived here her entire life (and worked on the UES for 3 years), and we've never met ANYONE from the UES who didn't bitch constantly about overcrowding on the 4/5/6. Are these people getting bussed into MTA meeting from Connecticut or something?

How many times when I lived on the UES did I have to wait for 3-4 trains to come through the 77th street stop before the crowd thinned enough that I could actually get on? Forget it, I'd say, I'll walk to midtown. If waiting 15 minutes for 4 trains to come through, then squeezing onto one with the aid of Vaseline and vulgarities about the next person's mother, only to smell hot steamy breath and B.O. for the whole of the ride EVERY MORNING is a good "quality of life", then you can have it!

Unfortunately, I don't think a light rail would work too well what with traffic issues. But the people who are bitching are probably the same people who bitch about the walk to the 6 so they should shut up and be happy that someone listened to them in the first place.

Everyone in NY loves to complain. Give us a subway, but without any digging. This makes a lot of sense.

What about a San Francisco/Hudson County style lightrail? It works really well in San Francisco, and in Jersey City, Hoboken and Bayonnne it's really beginning to come of age. People are using it, and it's much cheaper to lay track on an existing roadway than to dig an eight-mile hole in the ground.

God, yes. I write this sitting in my first avenue hole in the wall, gearing up to walk all the way to Park to get the 6 to go to class. If there was a 2nd avenue line, I wouldn't get totally soaked! I'm sure they can find a way to do it without demolishing too many buildings. Have any of you west siders seen the 6 at rush hour? *shudders*

Hmm. Then they shouldn't complain about the crappiness of the 6.