New York's famed subway planned to resume partial service [Thursday morning], far uptown of flooded stations and tunnels in Lower Manhattan. But full restoration of the Big Apple's transit system may take weeks, some experts said Wednesday.
Gridlock seized Manhattan's streets on Wednesday as cars, cabs and buses clogged with commuters filled the city. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced two commuter rail lines halted by Hurricane Sandy's onslaught would return to service along with the limited subway service, welcome news for the city's 7 million or more daily riders.
He also said fares will be waived on the city's subways and buses and suburban trains through Friday.
"The challenge now is not to build back, but to build back better," Cuomo said. Pumping water out of seven flooded subway tunnels, and the Hugh L. Carey tunnel joining Brooklyn to Manhattan, now filled with 47 million gallons of seawater, was a top priority, Cuomo said.
"Clearly if you have equipment underwater, the first priority is to get the water out," said Kathryn Waters of the American Public Transit Association in Washington, D.C.
Out of some 656 miles of subway track, New York has more than 8 miles of tunnels flooded with water. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers teams Wednesday joined city efforts to pump them out, said Joseph Lhota, head of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). "I believe we are doing everything we can to get the water out over the weekend," Lhota told CNN. He promised service restorations would increase each day this week.
Experts were skeptical that subway cleanup would be concluded quickly. "It's going to take more than four days," said urban flooding expert Jeroen Aerts of Vrije University in Amsterdam. "Not only do we have stations flooded, but we have tunnels and electrical equipment inundated, safety systems that will need to...