ROLLIN’ A 7
Mike gets sneak peek on ride to new station TALK ABOUT the end of the line.
Mayor Bloomberg, who has just days left in office, got on board a No. 7 train for the inaugural run over the line’s extension to the new subway station at 11th Ave. and 34th St.
Service along the newly extended line isn’t scheduled to begin for at least six months. Until then, westbound No. 7 trains will continue to end beneath Times Square.
But the track and other infrastructure for the extension are in place. Friday’s trip gave Bloomberg a chance to celebrate the project — and his role in pushing for it — before he leaves office Dec. 31.
“This was a historic ride,” Bloomberg said after disembarking into the gleaming new station, eerily free of rats, graffiti and litter usually so common in the subways.
The extension “is yet another symbol of how New York City is a place where big projects can get done,” he added.
The city financed the entire $2.4 billion project, a centerpiece of the Bloomberg administration’s plan to bring development to the once-desolate far West Side of Manhattan. Construction began in 2007.
It is being built to coincide with the Hudson Yards project that’s bringing residential, retail and office space along 10th and 11th Aves., an area now dotted by a cluster of car washes, train yards and the uninspiring Javits Center.
City planners project that 13,500 apartments and 24 million square feet of office space eventually will be added to the neighbor- hood, and that 27,000 people will use the new subway station — which will be named 34th St./Hudson Yards — every day.
The station will also sit near the northern terminus of the High Line, a former elevated rail line that has become a park and hugely popular tourist destination.
“Extending the No. 7 subway is the key to opening the west side for development,” said Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA capital construction.
Bloomberg, who has been hitting every borough this week in a legacy tour to showcase his acomplishments, also released a report card on whether he kept his campaign promises.
The report analyzed 611 promises across three campaigns, and found he largely delivered on 87% of them. Some of the promises he kept include increasing the number of charter schools and eliminating the Board of Education.