Andrew Cuomo is holding a press conference at his Midtown office. The press conference comes two weeks after the governor ventured down into the Canarsie tunnel with a group of hand-picked experts to see for himself if the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn needed to be completely shut down for 15 months. The group was expected to reach their conclusions in a matter of a few weeks.
“One conclusion that could be reached is, everything being done is right and there are no suggestions,” Cuomo said. “Second option is, we have some minor suggestions to make that could save some time. Third suggestion is, we have improvements that we can make to the system. And the fourth suggestion is, we have a totally different theory of how this can be done. New materials, new engineering techniques, et cetera.”
MTA sources told Gothamist that they have heard rumors that the governor was planning on altering the L train shutdown. “We usually have provisions that allow us to get out of contracts at any given time, but there’s been a fair amount of work done already,” one source said. “If there’s a new plan only the very upper management knows what that is.”
Another source in contact with city decision makers said the governor may switch from the 1.5 year total shutdown timeline to one that would last 3+ years by partially shutting down one track.
A City DOT spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Governor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment. We’ll be covering the press conference so check back for updates this afternoon. Who knows, maybe this is all just baloney!
Q: What is Andrew Cuomo's favorite lunch meat?
— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellGAN) January 2, 2019
