Advocates of 42nd Street Light Rail Detail Benefits of Pedestrian Mall

An organization pushing an elaborate proposal to transform the entire length of 42nd Street into a pedestrian mall with a high-tech light rail said the plan is gaining momentum.

The organization, Vision42, yesterday released a report that details the economic benefits of the project, as well as analyses of the traffic and construction concerns.

The redevelopment would translate into about $1 billion in fiscal benefits annually for the city based on gains in property value, tax revenues, and earnings for retailers and hotels, according to a consulting group hired byVision42, Urbanomics.

An architect, Roxanne Warren, and a civil engineer, George Haikalis, concocted the ambitious idea while struggling through crosstown traffic on a city bus in 1999. The initiative, which was born as a mere pipe dream, has attracted enough support to add validity to the proposal, Ms. Warren, the chairman of Vision42, said.

Advocates of the project include two former commissioners of the New York City Department of Transportation, Lee Sander and Lou Riccio, and three prominent city real estate developers, Douglas Durst, Jeff Gural, and Howard Milstein.

Ms. Warren has thus far funded Vision42 through foundation grants from the New York Community Trust and private donations from real estate developers. By promoting the economic benefits of the light rail, she said she hopes that the city and the MTA will foot the bill of between $360 million and $510 million to complete the project. "It costs one tenth as much to build one mile of light rail than subway." Ms. Warren said.

First, though, Vision42 will need to garner support from elected officials in the city, which up to this point has been largely unsuccessful. In 2004, the city council speaker, Christine Quinn, cosigned a letter to Mayor Bloomberg asking him to review the project, but the mayor has yet to contact the group, Ms. Warren said.

Obstacles also may lie in the proposed extension of the no. 7 subway train between the Hudson Yards and Times Square that would cost the city $2.1 billion. The extension would make crosstown travel more accessible to New Yorkers, which could lead city officials to view the construction of light rail as a needless expense.

However, Vision42 vehemently argues that the light rail would complement the 7 train. "Subways are for long-distance travel, while the light rail is for low flow pedestrian travel," Ms Warren said.

Safety issues were raised about light rails over the summer, when a bus driver rammed into a train on the Hudson-Bergen light rail in New Jersey, injuring 13 people.