Last Subway - by Philip Mark Plotch (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The story of the Second Avenue subway, as it symbolizes New York's inability to modernize its infrastructure and reveals the ingredients necessary to build a twenty-first-century megaproject"--

Book Synopsis

Last Subway is the fascinating and dramatic story behind New York City's struggle to build a new subway line under Second Avenue and improve transit services all across the city. With his extraordinary access to powerful players and internal documents, Philip Mark Plotch reveals why the city's subway system, once the best in the world, is now too often unreliable, overcrowded, and uncomfortable. He explains how a series of uninformed and self-serving elected officials have fostered false expectations about the city's ability to adequately maintain and significantly expand its transit system.

Since the 1920s, New Yorkers have been promised a Second Avenue subway. When the first of four planned phases opened on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 2017, subway service improved for tens of thousands of people. Riders have been delighted with the clean, quiet, and spacious new stations. Yet these types of accomplishments will not be repeated unless New Yorkers learn from their century-long struggle.

Last Subway offers valuable lessons in how governments can overcome political gridlock and enormous obstacles to build grand projects. However, it is also a cautionary tale for cities. Plotch reveals how false promises, redirected funds and political ambitions have derailed subway improvements. Given the ridiculously high cost of building new subways in New York and their lengthy construction period, the Second Avenue subway (if it is ever completed) will be the last subway built in New York for generations to come.

Review Quotes

Last Subway is two books in one. On one level, it tells the story of a specific project: the decades-long effort to build a subway under Second Avenue in New York City. At a second level, it illustrates the challenges facing planners everywhere as they seek to build major public works in a country increasingly sceptical of the costs - financial and otherwise - of such megaprojects. The book succeeds impressively at both tasks, making it instructive reading for those who would understand why America struggles to build big things.

-- "Transport Reviews"

He has written this fascinating book called Last Subway I really like the way your book opens the window on the MTA in a way that loops in the casual reader in addition to the transit expert.

-- "The Bond Buyer Podcast"

I recommend this book to a vast audience: not only transit gurus but also academics, young planners, and policymakers. They will all at least begin to understand how politicians and their personalities influence the administrative structure and the ebbs and flows of large project implementation

-- "Journal of the American Planning Association"

In this highly recommended work, Plotch ably leads the reader through the tortured and convoluted history of the effort to build a Second Avenue subway. In Last Subway, Plotch unravels the twisted strands of state and local politics, municipal financing, and special interest groups to tell a compelling story.

-- "Journal of Urban Affairs"

Once again, author Philip Plotch has crafted a compelling story from raw material of infrastructure politics. This time, the setting is decades of events leading to the opening of Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan. Plotch cooked up a rich stew of infrastructure issues: technical complexity, large investments, discord among interest groups, prideful bureaucrats, scheming politicians, and more.

-- "Public Works Management and Policy"

The archival research underpinning all chapters is meticulous and wide ranging.

-- "Technology and Culture"

What makes Last Subway such an impressive book is the storytelling through different key figures in New York City over the last century. Plotch does an excellent job of personalizing transportation history through the description of significant planners and politicians.

-- "Carolina Planning Journal"

About the Author

Philip Mark Plotch is an associate professor of political science and director of the Master of Public Administration program at Saint Peter's University. He has served as Director of World Trade Center Redevelopment and Special Projects at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and manager of planning and policy at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Plotch is the award-winning author of Politics Across the Hudson. Follow him on X @profplotch.