Take a Ride On New York City’s Future Train Line
By Stefanos Chen, Eden Weingart and Winnie Hu Photographs and Video by Yuvraj Khanna
July 28, 2025
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The Interborough Express, a passenger rail line that would connect New York City’s most populous boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, without entering Manhattan, could finally become a reality. This tree-lined path, seen from Borough Park in Brooklyn, would be its future home.
The 14-mile route of the so-called IBX is expected to make 19 stops along an active freight line — through lush greenery, dark tunnels and gritty industrial areas — to connect neglected swaths of the city with few transit options. The fare would cost the same as a subway ride, and the entire trip would take less than 40 minutes. Construction could be completed by early next decade.
The line would be the biggest rail expansion in New York City since the crosstown G subway line (formerly the GG) was built in the 1930s. And it could trigger a building boom in one of the last underdeveloped stretches in a city bursting with 8.5 million people.
To preview the line and its transformative potential, two New York Times reporters and a videographer boarded a freight train that uses the commercial corridor, a 19th-century route that still carries lumber, beer and other cargo. The team affixed cameras to the front of the locomotive.
Roughly one million people and 250,000 jobs can be found within a half-mile of the route. About 160,000 weekday riders are expected to use the service, according to Jamie Torres-Springer, the head of construction and development at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is leading the project.
Our trip began near Metropolitan Avenue in Maspeth, Queens, the fourth stop on the line, and the home of the freight company New York & Atlantic Railway. We rode until the last stop.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Transit advocates have long supported building the IBX. Unlike other rail projects that require extensive tunneling, this one relies on existing infrastructure. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy to construct.
The project is expected to cost $5.5 billion, half of which has already been funded. The M.T.A. must expand or rebuild about 40 bridges along the route, and move complicated utilities.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to announce the selection of Jacobs/HDR JV as the engineering consultant that will begin the route’s design, pending approval from the M.T.A. board. A design and environmental review could take two years before construction could begin.
One hurdle the engineers will face: Near the planned Metropolitan Avenue stop, a tunnel beneath All Faiths Cemetery will have to be expanded, after a proposal to route train traffic onto the street was rejected.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Ms. Hochul, who has been a major supporter of the route since she pushed to advance it in 2022, approved $2.75 billion for the project in April. In a statement, she called the IBX a “no-brainer” with the potential to shorten some commutes by 35 percent.
When riders eventually board the trains, they will encounter a rarely seen slice of the city.
This is the East New York Freight Tunnel, built in the 1910s, an important segment between the Brooklyn waterfront and the Hell Gate Bridge in Queens, where trains cross into the Bronx.
Besides freight train operators — and graffiti artists — few people have passed through the dark tunnel in several decades.
The tunnel runs beneath Broadway Junction, a crossroads of subway, railroad and bus connections near the planned Atlantic Avenue stop, which would expand transit options for thousands of riders.
Until 1924, the tunnel was part of a short-lived passenger train service that ran on steam engines, said Jodi Shapiro, the curator of the New York Transit Museum. (The new trains will be electric.)
New York Transit Museum Lonto / Watson Collection
Trips between Brooklyn and Queens, despite their proximity, often require a long detour through Manhattan. The IBX would shorten many commutes by connecting to 17 subway lines, 51 bus routes and the Long Island Rail Road.
Connecting these neighborhoods could inspire a range of new businesses on the route, said Howard Slatkin, the executive director of the Citizens Housing & Planning Council. “It’s the trips that people don’t yet know they want to make.”
The route could also spur badly needed new housing. More than 70,000 new homes could be built within a half-mile of stops along the line over the next decade, if some land-use changes are approved, according to the New York Building Congress, a construction trade group.
A developer, Totem, is planning a four-tower complex that could include 1,000 below-market-rate apartments, green space, a mix of retail and industry, and perhaps a new public college. The project is seeking city approval.
Rendering provided by Totem/WXY
Here in East New York, a majority Black and Latino neighborhood with a higher-than-average poverty rate, a dearth of transit options has isolated residents. The median household income in the area in 2023 was about $51,000, 36 percent lower than the citywide median.
But the prospect of a land rush near the train line has some residents worried about being priced out of the area. “What’s going to be incredibly important is what kind of housing this unlocks,” said Barika Williams, the executive director of the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development.
New transit could help unite neighborhoods that have historically been divided by the train tracks, said Winston Von Engel, an urban planning expert. “It can create more nodes in Brooklyn and in Queens where you can see communities coming together,” he said.
The route may even help bridge the friendly rivalry between the residents of Brooklyn and Queens, neighboring boroughs with distinct cultures and identities.
One of the biggest winners could be the M.T.A.’s own work force. The transit authority is among the largest employers in East New York, where many residents rely on buses or cars.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
The IBX would use the city’s only fleet of light-rail trains, skinnier and lighter than some subway cars, partly because of the sometimes narrow terrain.
Rendering provided by Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Fewer than half of city households own a car. For now, in this stretch between the Remsen and Utica Avenue stops, the best alternatives are catching a bus or a “dollar van,” a popular option in Caribbean American and Chinese American communities.
At Flatbush Avenue, the train could improve the commutes of the thousands of students who attend Brooklyn College nearby, and even increase enrollment there, said John Mollenkopf, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Businesses could also benefit. In 2009, Triangle Junction, a shopping center anchored by a Target, was built above the tracks, and a nearby IBX station would make it easier to access.
For now, long stretches of the track are strewed with trash. Mattresses. Car bumpers. A kitchen sink. Proponents of the project hope the new train traffic will enliven the blocks around the line.
Versions of the IBX have been floated since the 1990s, but disagreements over whether the route could support both freight and riders delayed it, said Tom Wright, the president of the Regional Plan Association, which first proposed the idea.
One of the most complicated sections of the route is here, near New Utrecht Avenue, where the M.T.A. must reconstruct two bridges.
Engineers will also have to move portions of the Buckeye Pipeline, an interstate line buried near the tracks that fuels planes at New York airports.
Beyond economic gains, the project could yield cultural benefits for communities that have been cut off from one another by a lack of transit options.
Imagine residents of Sunset Park, New York’s largest community of Fuzhounese speakers, traveling faster to Flushing, the city’s biggest Chinatown. Or taqueros on Fourth Avenue honing their skills on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights.
Still, it is unclear whether the Trump administration will help fund the second half of the $5.5 billion effort, as the federal government has done for other major infrastructure projects. A spokesman for Governor Hochul said she was committed to finishing the project.
The Brooklyn Army Terminal, a sprawling warehouse hub in Sunset Park, is the last stop — for now. Mr. Wright, of the Regional Plan Association, said the group had once considered expanding the route further. “Who knows,” he said, “maybe someday it will cross into Staten Island.”
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