Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/transportation/20070117/16/2078
Lessons From The Number 7 Train Extension
by Bruce Schaller
17 Jan 2007

With the sale of $2 billion in bonds in December, the financing for construction of the West Side extension to the No. 7 subway line is in place, and construction will begin later this year. The project will extend the No. 7 line from Times Square to a new subway station near the Javits Center at Eleventh Avenue and West 34th Street. An intermediate station, at Tenth Avenue and West 41st Street, has been discussed but is not currently funded.
The Number 7 extension was once merely one item on a laundry list of possible transit improvements. Now it has leapt past such long-discussed mega projects as the Second Avenue Subway in the journey from planners' dream to reality. What happened to bring this about? What are the lessons for getting other big transportation projects done?
One key to the No. 7 extension’s fast progress involved the financing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, champions of the project, recognized early on that the 7 extension would go nowhere if it had to compete for funding with the Second Avenue subway, connection of the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal, airport rail access projects, a new tunnel from New Jersey, replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge and other mega projects. Thus, they developed a novel funding method. The bonds issued last month, and another set of bonds to be issued in several years, will be paid off using payments made to City Hall in lieu of taxes by new residential, retail and office development on the West Side, payments for development rights in the eastern part of Hudson rail yards themselves, and from other taxes collected from the area. Having its own funding source was immensely important to bringing the 7 extension along.