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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
^What was crazy is that I saw a lot of people this past weekend and when I told them that I toured this project almost none of them had even heard of the East Side Access. Construction has been completely invisible to average people. I imagine that many people, including lifelong New Yorkers, have never ridden a LIRR train, and still won't after this big outlay.
This project has failed to attract broad attention because it's underground and because it was built to serve Long Island - which has three million residents, but that's just a fraction of a metro with 15+ million. How does a city councilman or U.S. Rep score a win with something that is underground and mostly benefits one fraction of the NYC metro area? That same dilemma faces the Utica subway, or any future Atlantic Terminal service.
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The ESA is a project from a time where LIRR was crush loaded into Penn and the hot office market had moved to the east side of Midtown. Peak commuter demand has now been decimated by COVID (perhaps never to fully return) and the high end office market is more diffuse and subdued. Politicians like opening stations though so you can still get those funded as well as some extensions (SAS). Utica would be a relatively easy sell and directly benefit a ton of people.