Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City

by Philip Mark Plotch

Overview

Last Subway is the fascinating and dramatic story behind New York City's struggle to build a new subway line under Second Avenue and improve transit services all across the city. With his extraordinary access to powerful players and internal documents, Philip Mark Plotch reveals why the city's subway system, once the best in the world, is now too often unreliable, overcrowded, and uncomfortable. He explains how a series of uninformed and self-serving elected officials have fostered false expectations about the city's ability to adequately maintain and significantly expand its transit system.

Since the 1920s, New Yorkers have been promised a Second Avenue subway. When the first of four planned phases opened on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 2017, subway service improved for tens of thousands of people. Riders have been delighted with the clean, quiet, and spacious new stations. Yet these types of accomplishments will not be repeated unless New Yorkers learn from their century-long struggle.

Last Subway offers valuable lessons in how governments can overcome political gridlock and enormous obstacles to build grand projects. However, it is also a cautionary tale for cities. Plotch reveals how false promises, redirected funds and political ambitions have derailed subway improvements. Given the ridiculously high cost of building new subways in New York and their lengthy construction period, the Second Avenue subway (if it is ever completed) will be the last subway built in New York for generations to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801453663
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2020
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	414,374
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Philip Mark Plotch is an associate professor of political science and director of the Master of Public Administration program at Saint Peter's University. He has served as Director of World Trade Center Redevelopment and Special Projects at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and manager of planning and policy at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Plotch is the award-winning author of Politics Across the Hudson. Follow him on X @profplotch.

Table of Contents

Introducrion: Long Wait for a Train
1. From a Compact City into a Metropolis
2. An Empty Promise
3. The Billionaire's Ambitions
4. Construction Begins and Construction Ends
5. Saving the Subway
6. Planning from the Bottom Up
7. A Twenty-First-Century Subway
8. Building a Subway and Unleashing the Plagues
9. Andrew Cuomo's Finish Line
Conclusion: Delays Ahead

What People are Saying About This

Jameson Doig

Last Subway is an important addition to our understanding of how complex engineering and political decisions are made in large metropolitan areas. Engaging and filled with intriguing insights, it is essential reading to those interested in improving the quality of life in our cities.

Richard Ravitch

Far too little has been written about public transportation in the United States. Last Subway is a thoughtful and successful effort to describe the history of the subway system which over a billion people a year ride.

US Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney

Politics at its best is about making the impossible happen, and for too long I was told that completing the Second Avenue subway was impossible. After a nearly century-long battle, the first phase of the Second Avenue line is finally complete. Philip Mark Plotch beautifully details the complex history of the Second Avenue subway and takes you behind the scenes of the project's many twists and turns.

Gene Russianoff

For nearly three quarters of a century, the Second Avenue subway was notorious as the most famous thing New York never built. Now Phil Plotch takes you into decades of political struggle for a glimpse on how megaprojects can beat back the million-to-one odds against them.

US Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney

Politics at its best is about making the impossible happen, and for too long I was told that completing the Second Avenue subway was impossible. After a nearly century-long battle, the first phase of the Second Avenue line is finally complete. Philip Mark Plotch beautifully details the complex history of the Second Avenue subway and takes you behind the scenes of the project's many twists and turns.

US CongresswomanCarolyn B. Maloney

"Politics at its best is about making the impossible happen, and for too long I was told that completing the Second Avenue subway was impossible. After a nearly century-long battle, the first phase of the Second Avenuelineis finally complete. PhilipMarkPlotch beautifully details the complex history of the Second Avenue subway and takes you behind the scenes of the project's many twists and turns."

Jose Martinez

The intersection of politics and real estate with mass transit is at the heart of Last Subway. Philip Plotch details the complexity of realizing a subway dream that was deferred by close to a century, and he highlights how politics derailed, again and again, the building of the Second Avenue subway. A must-read for all straphangers!

Editorial Reviews

In this highly recommended work, Plotch ably leads the reader through the tortured and convoluted history of the effort to build a Second Avenue subway. In Last Subway, Plotch unravels the twisted strands of state and local politics, municipal financing, and special interest groups to tell a compelling story.

Journal of Urban Affairs

Once again, author Philip Plotch has crafted a compelling story from raw material of infrastructure politics. This time, the setting is decades of events leading to the opening of Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan. Plotch cooked up a rich stew of infrastructure issues: technical complexity, large investments, discord among interest groups, prideful bureaucrats, scheming politicians, and more.

Public Works Management and Policy

Last Subway is two books in one. On one level, it tells the story of a specific project: the decades-long effort to build a subway under Second Avenue in New York City. At a second level, it illustrates the challenges facing planners everywhere as they seek to build major public works in a country increasingly sceptical of the costs – financial and otherwise – of such megaprojects. The book succeeds impressively at both tasks, making it instructive reading for those who would understand why America struggles to build big things.

Transport Reviews

The archival research underpinning all chapters is meticulous and wide ranging.

Technology and Culture

He has written this fascinating book called Last Subway I really like the way your book opens the window on the MTA in a way that loops in the casual reader in addition to the transit expert.

The Bond Buyer Podcast

What makes Last Subway such an impressive book is the storytelling through different key figures in New York City over the last century. Plotch does an excellent job of personalizing transportation history through the description of significant planners and politicians.

Carolina Planning Journal

I recommend this book to a vast audience: not only transit gurus but also academics, young planners, and policymakers. They will all at least begin to understand how politicians and their personalities influence the administrative structure and the ebbs and flows of large project implementation

Journal of the American Planning Association

"In this highly recommended work, Plotch ably leads the reader through the tortured and convoluted history of the effort to build a Second Avenue subway... In Last Subway, Plotch unravels the twisted strands of state and local politics, municipal financing, and special interest groups to tell a compelling story."

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS

"Last Subway is two books in one. On one level, it tells the story of a specific project: the decades-long effort to build a subway under Second Avenue in New York City. At a second level, it illustrates the challenges facing planners everywhere as they seek to build major public works in a country increasingly sceptical of the costs – financial and otherwise – of such megaprojects. The book succeeds impressively at both tasks, making it instructive reading for those who would understand why America struggles to build big things."

Transport Reviews - Zachary M. Schrag

"He has written this fascinating book called Last Subway I really like the way your book opens the window on the MTA in a way that loops in the casual reader in addition to the transit expert."

The Bond Buyer - Paul Burton