Reviving images of urban travel from another era, the City Council approved a plan yesterday to build a trolley line along 42d Street from one side of Manhattan to the other.
Officials said the project would cut traffic, pollution and noise, encourage development on the West Side of Manhattan and add a spectacular tourist attraction to one of New York City's most congested thoroughfares.
The vote by the Council, the final step in the approval process, allows the Government to seek bidders for the $135 million project. Officials said that they have selected four consortiums of companies to bid on the project. The companies would lay the track, provide the cars and operate the system on a franchise basis.
The cost of the project includes $60 million in street refurbishing and replacement of water and sewer lines, which would be paid by the city. The rest of the cost would be borne by the successful bidder, whose expenses would be recouped through fares and possibly advertising revenues.
There would be no operating subsidy from the city. City officials said that if engineering studies that the Council authorized yesterday validated their cost estimates and if the expected bids materialized the rail system would open by the end of 1996.
Despite yesterday's vote, the project is still far from becoming a certainty. Engineering studies could determine that the city's cost estimates are too conservative and that the project would not be economical.
Also, prospective bidders might shy away from the project if they concluded that the city's ridership estimates -- 9 million passengers a year -- were too optimistic. And the Giuliani administration has not set aside money for the project and would need to revise its capital plan to finance the street rehabilitation.
Officials said Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was committed to the project and would seek state and Federal money to help pay the city's share.
Despite the hurdles, the vote was hailed by proponents of the rail system, primarily because it represented the last approval needed by a government body to get the project under way. The vote also authorized spending $750,000 for the engineering study to verify the cost estimates.
"It means that the West End of 42d Street will become accessible and developable," said Frederic S. Papert, president of the 42d Street Development Corporation, a private nonprofit group. "It means that New York will have the tourism attraction that the cable car has in San Francisco. It means that there will be cleaner air in midtown Manhattan. It means new life for 42d Street."
Under the plan, developed by the city's Transportation Department, a fleet of trains would travel between a terminal near the United Nations headquarters on East 42d Street and First Avenue and end at a pier at the Hudson River at West 34th Street.
Four Stops Planned
The route would include four stops along 42d Street -- at Grand Central Terminal, the New York Public Library, Times Square and the Port Authority bus terminal -- and one at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center at 39th Street and 12th Avenue. Each train would accommodate up to 250 passengers -- with two cars per train in rush hours -- compared with the 75-passenger capacity of buses.
Although the rail system has come to be known as the "42d Street trolley," the fleet of 17 rail cars would more resemble sleek, futuristic subway cars with large windows. They are intended to make inaccurate the perennial complaint of crosstown travelers in midtown: that it seems to take longer to travel the 13 blocks from east to west than to travel the length of Manhattan.
Transportation Department officials say that when the project is completed, it would take 20 minutes to travel from one side of Manhattan to the other, with the trip from Grand Central to the bus terminal lasting little more than 8 minutes. Some trains would travel only between Grand Central and the bus terminal, while others would travel from one side of the island to the other.
The department said that the cost of ridership would not exceed a bus or subway ride's cost, now $1.25, and that passengers could transfer between buses to the rail system for one fare. They said they expected the system to be used by more than 9 million passengers a year, about a third of the ridership of the subway system's shuttle train linking Times Square and Grand Central Terminal.
But the construction of the rail system would permanently alter midtown traffic patterns. For example, 42d Street would become a one-way, three-lane street for westbound traffic only, with the eastbound lanes reserved for the rail system.
Transportation officials acknowledged that the adjustment of traffic would create far more severe congestion on the adjacent eastbound streets, primarily 40th Street. Officials said they were looking into increasing towing and ticketing for double-parked cars and adjusting traffic lights for greater speed.
While businesses, particularly those along 42d Street, have applauded the project, the prospect of the construction of a rail system in midtown Manhattan has been criticized by some neighborhood organizations and some public officials who fear the project could result in lengthy disruption and unnecessary costs.
While city officials conceded that there were still many hurdles before construction begins, they said they had been encouraged by the level of interest by prospective bidders.
Transportation Commissioner Elliott G. Sander said more than a dozen consortiums indicated interest in the franchise. The field was narrowed to four that the city considered most qualified to handle the project. "This administration viewed the project upon coming into office and feels very strongly about it," Mr. Sander said.
