Seeking savings from old 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 repurposed 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.
“I went down and looked at it [the tunnel] a couple of times,” said Lieber. “We’ve started to look at options to do less excavation,” which is the most expensive part of building a new subway line.
Repurposing the tunnel will save the MTA an estimated $500 million on the project, which will bring new stations to 106th, 116th and 125th Sts.
Those savings, coupled with another idea to reduce excavation at the 125th St. station, could knock $1 billion off the estimated $6 billion project.
“Generally my entire approach is how do we get more out of our existing infrastructure,” said Lieber. “Let’s look into ways to squeeze more out of what we’ve got.”
Lieber has also overseen other Metropolitan Transportation Authority “squeezes” like the modified L train reconstruction plan and the Penn Station Access project, which will bring four new Metro-North stops to the Bronx by sending trains over the Amtrak-owned Hell Gate Bridge near Randalls Island.
Still, the fate of the Second Ave. Subway’s next three stations hinges on billions of dollars in federal funding — the MTA is seeking lawmakers in Washington to sign off on one-third of the project’s costs.
“The future of this project lays in Washington,” said Tim Gianfrancesco, who’s overseeing the work for the MTA.
“We’re carrying a goal of a federal funding agreement as early as 2020.”
The MTA has completed its environmental assessment for the project and has submitted documents to the Federal Transit Administration for review.