Second Avenue Subway Phase II Planning / Construction

[Paul1705]

And is it the case that mostly what's missing from the 1970s tunnel sections is the gaps where the stations were supposed to go? (And what did get built were just the concrete tube/box)? At the dawn of the internet (1994) most graphics for SAS showed "here are the sections that have actually been built."

Yes, there is a gap from about 105th to 110th street where the 106th Street station is supposed to fit. (I think the 1970s tunnel from 99th to 105th is now used for tail tracks on the line that opened in 2017.)

There is a completed tunnel from about 110 to 120th; in the 1970s there was supposed to be a station called Triboro Plaza around 121st to 123rd Streets (next to the Taino Towers apartments). That station has been cancelled and replaced by the one proposed at 125th and Lexington.

[Jeff Smith]

Speaking of earlier work: NYDailyNews.com

Apparently, the stretch including the planned 116th St. Station was supposed to be demolished, at great cost. Brief, fair-use:

MTA figures out how to save $500M on Second Ave. Subway by using 1970s tunnel

A blast from the past may save the MTA $500 million on the next phase of the Second Ave. subway.

A tunnel built in the 1970s by urban planners who tried and failed to construct a Second Ave. line will now be re-purposed by the MTA for the exact same project some 40 years later.

The tunnel stretches from 110th St. to 120th St. in East Harlem — and Janno Lieber, head of MTA construction, said he and his colleagues recently discovered they could build a planned 116th St. station in the underground space, which was not intended to house a stop when it was first dug up decades ago.
...

[Backshophoss]

Nice to be able to use this section,and NOT tear up the neighborhood to rebuild the tunnels!

[jlr3266]

I remember many a day flushing the dirty water caused by work to the utilities. And asking my dad why 2nd Ave was so old fashioned that it had wood plank paving! LOL

[Jeff Smith]

For the life of me, I still don't know why this wasn't ready for build as soon as Phase I was open:

https://patch.com/new-york/midtown-nyc/ ... unge-cuomo

...
Cuomo said Tuesday that he will travel to Washington D.C. to discuss his infrastructure ideas with President Donald Trump this week. Other projects identified by Cuomo for an early start are the expansion of the Second Avenue Subway to East Harlem and the LaGuardia Airport AirTrain.

[Head-end View]

At the speed these projects are ever done, we're lucky we even got Phase-1 completed. We'll be really lucky if Phases 2 & 3 ever get done in our lifetime.

[Jeff Smith]

Going back a couple of months:

MassTransitMag.com: MTA releases schedule of $8.8 billion on committed work to begin construction in 2020 from prior capital plans

2020 Fourth Quarter: $1.323 million

Metro-North Penn Station Access
ADA accessibility at 68 St-Hunter College 6, Bay Ridge-95 St R and Court Square G
New substation at Canal St / 8 Av
Second Avenue Subway Phase II (initial commitment)
45 new electric buses and electrification of six bus depots
Sandy resiliency at West Side Yard and East River Tunnel

2021: $2.293 million

Second Avenue Subway Phase II: Civil Work for new stations at 106th, 116th and 125th Streets
Purchase 25 standard buses
Planning for Metro-North Harlem Line Third Track
LIRR Jamaica Capacity Improvements design support
Sandy Mitigation: Long Island City Yard Perimeter Protection

[GojiMet86]

Can't believe the chair of the TMA called this 3 stop, 1.75 mile $6.9 Billion project a "bargain"...

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny ... story.html

Gov. Hochul sees light at end of NYC’s long-abandoned Second Ave. subway tunnel during tour with MTA chief
By Clayton Guse
November 23, 2021 7:42 PM

New York is about to build the world’s most expensive subway line — a project that’s been in the works for a century. Gov. Hochul on Tuesday toured a long-abandoned tunnel beneath Second Ave. in East Harlem that Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials plan to repurpose for the second phase of the Second Ave. subway.

The tunnel will help extend the Q line from its current northern terminus at Second Ave. and E. 96th St. to E. 125th St. and Lexington Ave. with two new stations in between.

The old tunnel runs between E. 110th St. and E. 120th St., and was dug in the early 1970s. Work stopped in 1974 amid the city’s financial crisis.

Extending the Second Ave. Subway 1.6 miles to Harlem will cost an estimated $6.3 billion, say MTA officials.

That’s $3.9 billion per mile, far and away the highest cost of any subway extension project in the history of the world, according to a study by researchers at New York University’s Marron Institute.

The price does not include the cost to use debt to finance the project, which brings the total bill to $6.9 billion.

The MTA has for more than two years awaited movement by the Federal Transit Administration to approve $3.4 billion to get the project going. Hochul on Tuesday said the money would come soon thanks to the infrastructure bill signed by President Biden earlier this month.

“We think we can get started one year from now,” Hochul said. Acting MTA chairman Janno Lieber said the sky-high price tag was a “bargain.”

“It will serve, when it opens, as many people as the entire Philadelphia subway system,” said Lieber.

“Everybody likes to talk about cost, but you’ve got to look at how many people it serves,” he said. “By the standards of riders, this is an incredibly efficient project, especially compared to everything else that comes before the federal government for funding.”

MTA filings to the feds estimate the construction of the extension will take seven years to finish. If that holds true, trains won’t run beneath Second Ave. in East Harlem until at least the end of 2029...............

[BenH]

Images and video from yesterday's media event.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtaphotos ... 0170798994

https://youtu.be/lZuE5eShni0

[Head-end View]

GojiMet86, he probably meant a bargain because we are getting substantial Federal funding for it and that some sections of tunnel are already in place.

[lpetrich]

BenH's links with titles:

Second Avenue Subway - Phase 2 - YouTube

They said that funding approvals were almost done, and should be done by later this month or early next year. Construction should start late next year.

The line will go northward to 125th St. then westward, underneath the Lexington Avenue Line, with a shared station at that street. At that event, they said that they will be using tunnel boring machines.

They talked about extending the line the length of Manhattan, and even into Brooklyn.

Governor Hochul and MTA Leadership Tour Second Avenue Subway Tunnel | Flickr

They made their announcements in some existing tunnels that had been built in the 1970's. That album has several pictures of one of the tunnels -- it looks like the tunnel structure is largely done.

The politicians were wearing MTA-logo hard hats and orange-and-yellow construction-worker vests. Toward the end, we see them returning to the surface and meeting a politician who stayed on the surface and did not join the others in the tunnel, US Rep. Jerry Nadler. However, US Rep. Carolyn Maloney went into the tunnel with Gov. Kathy Hochul and the others.

[photobug56]

The graft, do nothing jobs for friends of friends, the waste should all begin soon. Maybe we'll set yet another new record for the cost of a subway station. It does amaze me how much this will cost especially considering that some of the tunnel segments already exist and don't need to be dug, though I get how that makes use of a TBM more complicated. At least Design / Build should help a bit.

I get why going farther north is necessary - you can't just serve the UES. but branching south is also badly needed.

[lpetrich]

I decided to fact-check their assertion about how any riders that their system has. They said that the Lexington Line has as many riders as some other cities' systems combined.

IRT Lexington Avenue Line - Wikipedia -- 1,289,338 (published May 26, 2020)

List of United States rapid transit systems by ridership - Wikipedia -- The Lex has more riders than every system individually in the US outside of NYC, and as much as Chicago's, Boston's, and Philadelphia's combined.

I checked on Q (New York City Subway service) - Wikipedia but I couldn't find any ridership numbers there.

[lpetrich]

ICYMI: Governor Hochul and MTA Announce Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 Moves Forward | MTA - "Grant Request for Phase 2 of Subway Extension to 125th Street Moves to Engineering Stage" and "The Federal Transit Administration has advanced SAS2 into the Engineering phase of the grant process, bringing the project one step closer to reality and allowing preliminary work to move forward."

"The new line extension will build on the success of Phase 1 and bring the total Second Avenue Subway ridership to 300,000, which is equivalent to the entire Philadelphia rail system."

[Jeff Smith]

https://nypost.com/2023/02/16/mta-shave ... extension/