Many local elected officials sent a letter yesterday to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Daniel Doctoroff declaring that plans to extend the 7 subway line from Times Square to Javits Convention Center and the MTA's West Side railyards without creating a station at Tenth Avenue and 41st Street is "a profound mistake, inconsistent with public promises and an invitation to fiscal irresponsibility."

Not building that station, they argued, "would represent a failure to provide for the area's growing residential population" and "would also put at risk several million square feet of potential commercial and residential development, which would generate substantial direct and indirect economic benefits for the City."

The elected officials who signed the letter were Senator Charles E. Schumer, City Controller William C. Thompson Jr., City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, Congressmen Jerrold Nadler and Anthony Weiner, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, State Senator Tom Duane, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

The letter was also signed by Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, Kathleen Treat of the Hells Kitchen Neighborhood Association and Christine Berthet of the Clinton/Hells Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition.

The plans for the extension have called for it to be financed by the City with bonds backed by anticipated payments in lieu of taxes from the development of the West Side with a total of $3.1 billion to be issued with $2.1 billion being for the extension and the remainder for infrastructure improvements on the far West Side such as the "profiling of 33rd Street, the reconstruction of the 11th Avenue viaduct, the construction of a mid-block boulevard running from 33rd to 38th Streets and the construction of parks and open space," the letter maintained.

"If it is possible to take funds initially targeted for other infrastructure projects and redirect them towards a second 7-line stop, that option must be explored immediately," the letter stated.

"It is our understanding that, due to high-than anticipated costs, the option of this second station was eliminated from the plans in order to reduce the overall contract from nearly $1.5 billion to $1.14 billion," the letter continued.

"Parcels of land in the northern part of the Hudson Yards district - between 38th - 43rd Streets - lack the transportation infrastructure and amenities of the 34th Street corridor and will be more difficult to develop without this subway station," the letter continued.

An article by Charles V. Bagli in today's edition of The New York Times quoted John Gallagher, a spokesman for the Bloomberg administration as stating that "It's time for Senator Schumer and his colleagues in Albany and Washington to step up to the plate with adequate capital funding for the M.T.A., so that they have the resources to provide the rest."

The city enacted a sweeping rezoning of what it calls the Hudson Yards in the area around the Javits Convention Center and north the M.T.A.'s rail yards on which it had hoped to erect a football stadium. The stadium plan was ultimately abandoned and the M.T.A. expects to select a developer for its rail yards in March while plans are still advancing to create a new train terminal in the James Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue.

An important component of the city's efforts to massively redevelop the far West Side was an expansion of the Javits Convention Center, which is not large enough to handle many major conventions. The cost of that expansion plan, however, has risen sharply and The Times article said that Patrick J. Foye, co-chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, "acknowledged that the convention center expansion that he inherited from a previous administration was 'dead' and "$1 billion more expensive than had been previously stated."