New Yorkers Get Up to Speed on IBX, Which Will Save Brooklyn/Queen Commuters 26 Minutes Each Way

By Yehudit Garmaise

Boro Park residents who travel to and from Queens will be happy to know that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is chugging along with its plans to build a lightening-quick light rail that connects the two boroughs: without having to first travel to Manhattan.

The Interborough Express (IBX), can save commuters a precious 26 minutes each way, said Mike Shiffer, Senior Vice President for Regional Planning for MTA Construction and Development, who spoke on Wednesday night at an online MTA Town Hall Meeting.

The new light rail’s route will start at the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) in Bay Ridge and head out to Jackson Heights: taking only 39 minutes from start-to-finish. The new light train rail will run along tracks that will be built on streets and also “fit within the existing right-of-way” on tracks that were previously dedicated for freight trains.

With a "high capacity of up to 360 passengers per car,” who emphasized that the MTA would like residents to provide their input on station locations.

While the IBX’s 19 station locations are still in their planning stages, “a new light rail,” will provide three stops in Boro Park: at New Utrecht Avenue, McDonald Avenue, and East 16th Street.

“The IBX would provide a transformative, new transit connection between Brooklyn and Queens,” Shiffer said, “Almost a million people live within a half mile of the line, and many more people will benefit from the line by transferring from subways, buses, and the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). “In addition, within a half-mile of this corridor, there are more than a quarter million jobs, and that is still growing.” 

Using existing infrastructure, the MTA has set its sights on what Shiffer called, “a lightly used freight line” that since 1876 has reached from Bay Ridge to Jackson Heights. Until 1924, however, commuters did ride on passenger trains on what has exclusively served as a corridor for freight trains for 102 years.

To conduct the freight services that run three freight trains per day through Brooklyn, LIRR owns the 11-mile southern portion of the freight rail, while CSX, a rail services company, owns the three-mile northern portion of the train’s corridor in Queens.

While Shiffer didn’t explain how the freight line will continue to accommodate both freight trains and the light rail, which he said would run every five minutes, BoroPark24 reached out to the MTA to get the answer.

“The freight trains will run on completely different tracks from the IBX, but the same corridor,” Lucas Bejarano, the MTA’s media relations analyst told BoroPark24. “So the freight trains will run alongside the IBX, but the two types of trains will not interfere with each other’s operations.” The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are conducting their own study to assess “potential alternatives” for the three freight trains that run each day on this line.

On the new route that will directly connect Brooklyn and Queens, the MTA plans to “carry up to 115,000 weekday riders, Shiffer said about the project that still is drumming up federal funding to pay for the mega-project that will likely cost $5.5 billion in 2027.

In addition, the MTA plans to increase the convenient mobility of residents of Brooklyn and Queens by building 13 of its 19 IBX subway stations with opportunities for subway transfers, while also connecting up to 17 existing subway lines with the IBX. LIRR commuters can change to the IBX lines at Atlantic Avenue.

IBX fares will likely be equal to a standard subway fare, which is now $2.90 each way and can be used with OMNY,” Shiffer said.

For more information on the latest IBX updates, readers can check out newmta.info/ibx.