Work to bring Second Avenue Subway to East Harlem begins
Photo credit: Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul on Flickr
New York officials on Monday broke ground on phase two of the Second Avenue Subway, which will bring the Q train to 125th Street. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that excavation has begun at East 119th Street and Second Avenue, where next year a tunnel-boring machine will begin mining the new subway tunnels from 120th Street and Second Avenue to 125th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard. The groundbreaking marks a major milestone for a project first proposed nearly a century ago that has faced multiple failed attempts to bring subway service to East Harlem.
The nearly $7 billion second phase will extend the Second Avenue Subway from 96th Street north to 125th Street and Park Avenue and add three new ADA-accessible stations at 106th, 116th, and 125th Streets.
The 125th Street station will connect the Q train to the Lexington Avenue 4, 5, and 6 lines, as well as Metro-North. The project is set for completion in 2032 and is expected to serve roughly 100,000 daily riders.
Officials have sought to bring subway access to East Harlem since the 1920s, but the Great Depression halted plans. In 1948, voters approved bonds to fund the extension, but the project was left unbuilt after the start of the Korean War.
In 1972, construction on the line finally began, but the city’s fiscal crisis stopped work in 1975. A groundbreaking for phase one, expanding the Q to 96th Street, took place in 2007; the line finally opened in 2017. At $2.5 billion per mile, construction costs for the 1.8-mile segment were among the highest per-mile costs for a rail project in history, according to Bloomberg.
Earlier this year, the project’s future was again threatened when President Donald Trump’s administration withheld funding for the extension despite earlier commitments to cover roughly half of its cost. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority sued the federal government, and the funding was released in April shortly before a court hearing.
The start of phase two builds on a century of stalled efforts in a historically transit-deprived area where about 70 percent of residents rely on public transit.
“The Second Avenue Subway will change everything for East Harlem, saving people precious time and making possible opportunities that have for too long been out of reach for too many,” Hochul said.
“The last groundbreaking for a Second Avenue Subway in East Harlem was 54 years ago, only for the project to be abandoned and this community left behind,” she added. “By breaking ground on the major construction phase of this project, we are one giant step closer to realizing a dream nearly a century in the making.”
Hochul also announced that, following the resumption of federal funding, the MTA has awarded a major contract to build the final tunnel segment of this phase, running from East 105th Street to 110th Street and including the future East 106th Street station, using a “cut-and-cover” approach.
The MTA said it is applying lessons learned from the first phase of the project to deliver more than $1 billion in savings and expects to complete utility relocations ahead of schedule, allowing construction to begin about six months earlier than originally planned.
Tunnel boring machines are expected to be delivered early next year. Weighing more than 1.5 million pounds, the machines feature 23-foot tungsten carbide cutterheads that adjust to different types of materials, switching between drill heads for hard rock and for softer soil or sand. The machines also reinforce the tunnel lining as they move forward.
The second phase is divided into four contracts, compared with 10 in phase one, in an effort to improve project efficiency. Tunnel boring falls under Contract 2, valued at $1.97 billion, which includes excavation for the tunnel boring machines, controlled blasting for future stations, and asbestos and lead abatement in the existing 1970s-era tunnels.
Contract 3 will construct the structural shell of the new East 106th Street station, along with associated tunneling to connect existing segments north and south of the station. Contractors are expected to begin work in the coming months.
“Today’s groundbreaking, along with the award of another construction contract for Phase Two of the Second Avenue Subway, brings us even closer to achieving transportation equity and excellence in New York,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said.
“This project will ensure that East Harlem has greater access to jobs, health care, family, and other essential services while reducing congestion and subway crowding, and improving air quality,” he added.
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