Wheels grea$ed for L-traina fast fix

The MTA is determined to repair the L train tunnel in less than the 18 months it has claimed and will offer incentives to contractors to make good time and punish them for missing target dates, officials said on Wednesday.

MTA boss Tom Prendergast said the agency will give bonus cash to contractors for shaving months off the extensive repairs needed for the heavily damaged Canarsie Tunnel, which connects Williamsburg and Manhattan.

“We are going to do everything we can to incentivize contractors in this process to get it done faster, in balance with also penalties if they take longer than 18 months,” he said at a monthly board meeting.

“There will be pressure to do it in less than 18 months. We want to minimize this impact.”

The shutdown of the link between Bedford Avenue in Wil- liamsburg and First Avenue in Manhattan is slated to begin in January 2019. The L train, which moves 225,000 straphangers through the tunnel each weekday, will not run in Manhattan at all during the repairs.

The 92-year-old tunnel is in dire need of repair because Superstorm Sandy flooded it with millions of tons of brackish water in 2012. The salt from the water has caused the cable housings to crumble.

MTA officials fear that a train might derail or the line will be plagued with unplanned closures if it doesn’t fix the problem soon.

Contractors will likely show up with fresh eyes and see steps they can take to cut the timeline down to less than a year and a half, said Prendergast.

“We’ve found we’ve been fairly successful. When we bring people to the table who know a lot of our system and they do a lot of work here, they think up better ways to do it, in manners and methods and means,” he said.

Prendergast said the penalties for going past the 18 months will be written into whatever agreements the MTA signs with contractors.

He and other MTA officials did not elaborate on what the exact bonus rewards and specific punishments would be.

Straphangers are skeptical that the MTA will reopen the tunnel in less than 18 months.

“It will take a really long time,” said Alex Fitzgerald, 25, from Greenpoint. “Look at their history. They have been working on the Second Avenue Subway since the 1920s, and that’s not even an exaggeration.”

We are going to do everything we can to incentivize contractors ... [and levy] penalties if they take longer than 18 months. — MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast