Trump Brags About Subway Shenanigans, Says Planners Didn't Know Where 2nd Ave. Subway Was Going

NEW YORK, NY — In an Oval Office sit-down interview with The New York Times, President Trump waxed poetic about Russian contacts, health care and Bill O'Reilly. But the president also hit on a few subjects closer to home — or, at least, his old home.

"I know the subway system very well," Trump told the Times' Maggie Haberman and Glen Thrush. "I used to take it to Kew-Forest School, in Forest Hills, when I lived in Queens. And I’d take the subway to school. Seems a long time ago. I’d take it from Jamaica, 179th Street. Jamaica, right? To Forest Hills. I understand the subway very well. I used to ride between the cars."

Then, he said his parents "weren’t thrilled when they heard that." He added: "No, they were not happy. I used to love to do that. Those were the old days."

Without mentioning him by name, the NYPD's top transit cop was not impressed with Trump bragging about his Cool Subway Teen days.

Trump hit on his subway habits after ripping on the guard rails along the Van Wyck Expressway.

"Whoever the person is that owns that company is a genius salesman," Trump said as, the Times reports, "his aides — who wanted to talk about their bigger plans — grew restless in their carved armchairs."

Trump continued: "That is the worst garbage. I think it bends by the heat, because not that many cars could possibly hit it. It’s the worst garbage. And I also think it’s dangerous because it’s a spear. And if you hit those things, they come flying apart. And if you’re driving, you’ve got yourself a problem."

Trump also had this to say about the Second Avenue Subway: "You know, we can build new highways, which are much more expensive. And sometimes they’re the highways to hell. You know they’re called, like the Second Avenue subway, the tunnel to nowhere. Which, after spending 12 trillion, 12 billion dollars, they realize it now. But you know when they built the Second Avenue subway, you know they never knew where it was going. Did you know this?"

In fact, officials did know "where it was going." While the Second Avenue Subway planning and construction has a long and tortured history, the subway was always designed to travel on, well, Second Avenue. Plans for the current extension, which runs from 63rd Street to 96th Street, were crafted in the early 2000s.

And that phase ended up costing about $4.5 billion, not $12 billion or trillion.

Read the interview transcript here.

Image via Charley Lhasa, Flickr, used under Creative Commons