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The MTA’s recent order of train cars designed to run into Grand Central Madison represent the end of a decadeslong calamity that came to symbolize New York City’s struggles with building public works.
When the shiny new station opened in early 2023, the agency didn’t have enough LIRR cars to run into the terminal. So transit officials had to bring clunky 1980s-era train sets out of retirement, which were deployed onto other lines so they could move modern cars into Grand Central Madison.
On Wednesday, the agency’s board approved a $2.3 billion purchase of 316 new commuter railroad cars — 160 for the Long Island Rail Road and156 for the Metro-North. Now, the end of the project that’s been a half-century embarrassment for the MTA is finally in sight.
What New Yorkers now know as Grand Central Madison began as a centerpiece of a new vision for the city laid out by the MTA when it was founded in 1968. With the backing of a state transportation bond, the agency’s first Chair William Ronan planned to rapidly build new subway and commuter rail lines. The Second Avenue subway was a big part of the plan, but the central artery was a new East River train tunnel at 63rd Street.
The new tunnel was to make good on the MTA’s charter to consolidate the city’s disparate mass transit systems under a single operator. The 63rd Street tunnel was built with two levels, with subway trains running up top and the LIRR running below.
Officials broke ground on the project in 1969. Ronan planned for the LIRR service to run to a new terminal on Manhattan’s East Side at Third Avenue, and told riders it would open in 1976. But the project immediately faced delays in permitting, construction and financing. As the city’s fiscal crisis deepened, officials all but abandoned the project.
In 1997, the MTA relaunched its effort to bring the LIRR to the East Side, with modifications. Instead of bringing LIRR trains into a new terminal on Third Avenue, they would arrive at Grand Central Terminal.
The effort known as East Side Access was initially projected to cost $2.8 billion and open in 2007. But costs and delays piled on, and the terminal didn’t open until 2023. The final cost was $12.7 billion, which according to federal documents includes interest on debt taken out to build the project.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber managed Grand Central Madison’s completion after he started working for the agency in 2017. He’s blamed problems with the project on poor management by his predecessors, who created a scheduling nightmare.
Since Lieber joined the MTA, he’s pushed reforms to manage large construction work under single megacontracts, which he argues helps keep work on schedule. Still, the MTA — and New York — have some of the world’s highest construction costs, and Lieber hasn’t promised that will change.
Service boosts on the A and L lines. Transit officials want to run an additional round-trip train on each of the Lefferts Boulevard and Far Rockaway branches of the A line midday on weekdays; add four round trip runs on the L line during the morning rush; and increase weekend night service on the L to accommodate the party crowd.
The proposed changes were sent to the MTA board for review this week, and should take effect in November.
Slower electric Citi Bikes. All pedal-assist Citi Bike e-bikes now have maximum speeds of 15 mph following the Adams administration’s demand that they be slowed down.
Where’s the bike parking? New York City lawmakers are criticizing the mayor for failing to make good on a promise to install hundreds of secure bike parking lockers.
Heavy truck crackdown. The city’s transportation department has begun using in-road sensors to automatically issue $650 tickets to overweight vehicles on the Staten Island-bound side of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Hit-and-run driver. A Staten Island man who allegedly fatally struck a cyclist in Astoria while speeding away from the scene of a burglary last fall was indicted this week on charges including murder and manslaughter.
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Question from Jacob in Manhattan
Could more lines be built today using modern cut-and-cover construction techniques? Could we reduce costs if we were willing to tolerate construction methods that will impede surface traffic?
Answer
The “cut-and-cover” method Jacob references is the original way to build subway tunnels. When the city’s first subway lines were constructed, crews tore up streets, dug out tunnels, built subways and then rebuilt the roadway. The method created a majority of the city’s underground tunnels at a rapid clip during the first third of the 20th century.
The more modern and expensive way to dig subway tunnels is with a tunnel boring machine, which churns underground without ruining the street above. The MTA has very few plans to build new subway lines. The only one currently underway is the Second Avenue extension into East Harlem, which is projected to be one of the most expensive subway lines in the history of the world per mile. The MTA will use cut-and-cover for five blocks of the extension — but the remaining work will require a boring machine because the tunnel will be too deep underground.
So yes, cut-and-cover is a cheaper way to build subways — so long as the tunnel in question is shallow enough. But it’s also politically unpopular to turn a neighborhood’s streets into craters for months or years on end.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
