Gabriel Garcia

Major: Political Science

Bio: Gabriel Garcia is a class of 2023 FCLC Political Science major. A native New Yorker, Gabriel has been fascinated with the New York City subway ever since he was a child. For Gabriel, the subway serves as not only a childhood curiosity but also a daily necessity, as he is a commuter student from Coney Island. Gabriel has a passion for public service and a strong inclination towards intellectual exploration, which he has expressed at Fordham through his time in the United Student Government.

Title of Research: A Tale of Two Stations: Comparative Analysis of the Factors Behind the Construction of the Roosevelt Island and 34th Street-Hudson Yards Subway Stations

Mentor: Prof. Christopher Toulouse, Department of Political Science and Political Science

Abstract: My project has one research question: under what conditions does it take for a new subway station to be built in New York City given current institutional constraints? To answer this question, I looked at some of the most recent additions to the New York City subway system, namely the Roosevelt Island and 34th Street Hudson Yards stations, which opened on October 27, 1989 and September 13, 2015 respectively. Essentially, my argument was that for a new station to be constructed, relevant decisionmakers needed to think that the project would utilize the transformative power of providing subway access to a community that was in line with their  political goals. This project has several major outcomes that make significant scholarly contributions. First, my findings show that there is a significant amount of time that passes between the imagining of a New York City public transit project and said project’s completion. Both the Roosevelt Island and 34th Street-Hudson Yard stations’ history of development were plagued with delays. This is of considerable importance for two reasons: first, it reveals institutional efficiencies with how new subway stations are developed. Second, the long time duration of the projects means that support for a subway expansion project needs support from multiple political administrations. Both topics provide opportunities for future scholarship.