Construction of the Second Avenue Subway
The first phase of the line, consisting of three stations on the Upper East Side, started construction in 2007 and opened in 2017, ninety-seven years after the route was first proposed.
[1][2][3] The study called for, among other things, a massive trunk line under Second Avenue consisting of at least six tracks and numerous branches throughout Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.
[25][29][30][31]In 1991, then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo allocated $22 million to renew planning and design efforts for the Second Avenue line.
[34] The MTA started the Lower Manhattan Access Study (LMA) in November 1997 in order to determine the best new transport connections to the New York City suburbs.
In order to provide access to Lower Manhattan, and to allow for congestion reduction on the Lexington Avenue Line, the "Canal Street Flip" was proposed.
[36]: 26–27 Additionally, over a period between two and three years long, service on the Nassau Street Line would have been required to be shut down during late nights and/or weekend hours.
At 72nd Street, this would have allowed trains from the Broadway Line to reverse without interfering with service on Second Avenue, as well as provided additional operational flexibility that could be used for construction work and non-revenue moves.
After warning that failure to pass the act would doom the project, MTA chairman Peter S. Kalikow stated, "Now it's up to us to complete the job.
[79] However, due to cost increases for construction materials and diesel fuel affecting the prices of contracts not yet signed, the MTA announced in June 2008 that certain features of the Second Avenue Subway would be simplified to save money.
[3] During construction, two buildings had to be evacuated in June 2009, delaying the contractor's plan to use controlled blasting to remove bedrock in the southern section of the launch box.
[84] The tunnel boring machine was originally expected to arrive six to eight months after construction began, but the utility relocation and excavation required to create its "launch box" delayed its deployment until May 2010.
[99]: 31 [37]: D-5 The portion of the west tunnel remaining to be created was then mined using conventional drill-and-blast methods, because the curve S3 construction teams would have to negotiate was too tight for the TBM.
[112] However, in June of that year, it was reported that contractors for the MTA were not expending extra resources to accelerate the last portion of Phase 1 construction,[113] threatening the line's scheduled opening.
Contractors were asked to work double shifts, with all remaining fire and equipment tests to be conducted on a 24-hour-per-day, 7-day-per week schedule so that the December 31 deadline could be met.
On December 10, Governor Cuomo visited two under-construction Second Avenue subway stations, later stating that he was "cautiously optimistic" that the line would open before the New Year.
By May 2014, the agency was still targeting December 2016 as the completion date, and the project was still within its $4.45 billion budget, and still estimated to serve approximately 200,000 daily riders.
[29][30][31] By January 2015, the MTA's forecasted opening date for Phase I had been clarified even further, to around December 30–31, 2016,[110][147][148] with Horodniceanu describing earlier estimates as lacking "the precision required.
[178][182] Less than two weeks later, on August 21, 2012, an uncontrolled blast for the station was done incorrectly,[183] causing a large explosion that sent debris into the air and broke windows of buildings in the area and damaged nearby sidewalks.
[178] On March 19, 2013, in yet another allegation of wrongdoing, a construction worker got stuck in waist-deep muck at the 96th Street station site,[187][188] but while he was extricated after four hours of rescue efforts, he nearly died after the incident.
The Federal Transit Administration only allowed the line to operate under a temporary safety certificate, with the permanent one expected for November of that year.
In their request for funding, they cited that they wanted to avoid an uncertain response from the first administration of Donald Trump and start construction on Phase 2 as soon as possible.
[63] On May 24, 2017, the MTA Board approved an amendment to the 2015–2019 Capital Program, and as part of it, the funding allocated to Phase 2 was increased by $700 million to a total of $1.735 billion.
[219] By August 2017, preliminary work on the line was underway, and the engineering firm AKRF was updating the environmental impact study for Phase 2.
[231] This included hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate that had been purchased by the Durst Organization and Extell Development within the past five years.
[242] A $400 million grant for the Second Avenue Subway was included in the Biden administration's proposed 2022 budget,[243][244] and land acquisition for Phase 2 started in April 2022.
[254][255] The MTA also stated it would reduce the cost of Phase 2 by at least $1 billion through methods such as constructing smaller stations & platforms while also reutilizing tunnels built in the 1970s rather than demolishing them.
[204]: 16 The Hanover Square terminal is only planned to be able to turn back 26 trains per hour instead of 30 as less capacity will be needed on the line south of 63rd Street.
[204]: 26 The Hanover Square station would be deep enough to allow for the potential extension of Second Avenue Subway service to Brooklyn through a new tunnel under the East River.
[201] In October 2023, the MTA published a comparative evaluation of potential expansion and improvement projects to the region's transit system as part of its 2025–2044 Twenty-Year Needs Assessment.
The book for the address stated that a study would be completed in six months to evaluate the feasibility of the project and the potential to have the tunnel boring machines that will construct a portion of Phase 2 continue west on 125th Street for this extension.
