The MTA hopes to put shovels in the ground for the next phase of the Second Avenue Subway by March, even while lawsuits challenging congestion pricing could slow the $7.7 billion project to stretch the Q line north to 125th Street.
Transit agency officials on Monday announced the awarding of the first contract on the three-station East Harlem extension — a $182 million agreement to relocate underground utilities in advance of construction on a new 106th Street stop. Other new stations are planned for 116th and 125th streets.
“We’re talking about sewer, water, electrical, telecoms, all those cables and pipes that run underneath the street,” said Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development. “We have to relocate that so that we’re in a position to then build that 106th Street station.”
The MTA announced in July that it planned to award the first contract by the fall. But the deal with C.A.C. Industries Inc. was not announced until Monday. Records also show that another contract in excess of $100 million — for a consultant to assist MTA Construction & Development in managing a timely, on-budget and safe completion of the project — has had its opening date pushed back from last November to late February.
“We’re in a procurement,” Torres-Springer said. “We’re answering questions.”
MTA officials warned that the awarding of other contracts on Phase II construction, including for tunneling and station construction and systems work, are in danger of being held up until legal challenges to congestion pricing are resolved. That plan’s vehicle tolls are slated to raise billions of dollars for planned major transit system upgrades.
“It’s very important that we get through the unfortunate challenges to congestion pricing, which is going to allow a lot of critical projects to proceed on schedule,” Torres-Springer said. “We’re pretty confident and optimistic that the courts are going to find that the MTA followed an appropriate process and be able to proceed.”
Decades in the Making
The MTA is aiming to complete the second phase by the early 2030s. The Second Avenue Subway was first proposed in 1929 and partially constructed in the 1970s.
Lisa Daglian, head of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said the slew of lawsuits from New Jersey and elsewhere are “holding up progress to protect a handful of drivers.”
“Imagine if New Jersey invested this much time, money and energy in New Jersey Transit so that its residents had myriad options, instead of getting myriad excuses,” she said.
The latest developments on stretching the Q from its 96th Street terminal — an extension which would include an East Harlem tunnel built in the 1970s — came after Governor Kathy Hochul earlier this month touted a planned western extension of the Second Avenue Subway to three more new stations beneath 125th Street.
The proposed expansion would serve an estimated 240,000 commuters daily, connecting the Q to seven existing lines that already have stops along 125th Street at Lenox Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue and Broadway.
“We’ll be launching the feasibility study shortly,” Torres-Springer said. “And what we’re looking at is to create that tunnel for future generations in the same way that that 1970s tunnel is available to us.”
But the potential schedule changes have triggered concern among transit-watchers about the impact to the next phase of the Second Avenue Subway, a decades-in-the-making project whose first three stations opened in January 2017 at 72nd, 86th and 96th streets.
“Delays on the front end are often a signal of delays on the back end,” said Eric Goldwyn, an assistant professor and member of the Transit Costs Project at the NYU Marron Institute’s transportation and land-use program. “More broadly, this speaks to the uncertainty and the risks that the MTA takes with every project — are we actually going to be able to do this thing?”
‘Better, Faster and Cheaper’
The work to reach 125th Street in the second stretch of the line, called Phase II, is expected to cost close to $7.7 billion, according to MTA cost estimates submitted to the Federal Transportation Administration in early 2022.
MTA officials pledged that Phase II work will be “better, faster and cheaper” than the first segment by reducing station size and making use of the existing tunnel, while flagging lessons learned from the first phase of the line.
“There were real-estate acquisitions that held up the job that should have been identified earlier,” Torres-Springer said. “Community issues were not known early enough on, we need to avoid surprises.”
Officials said the transit agency has already acquired key properties in the path of the 125th Street station. For the 116th Street stop, two properties must still be acquired, though the lot on the west side of Second Avenue from East 119th to 120th streets that is needed for the “launch box” for tunnel boring machines is already under MTA control. At the site of the future 106th Street station, four sites are not yet owned by the MTA.
Hochul, federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Chuck Schumer were among the public officials who traveled to 125th Street in November to sign a $3.4 billion federal funding grant agreement to help pay for the next stage.
In East Harlem, residents said they are skeptical about continued progress on a line first proposed in the 1920s and partially constructed in the 1970s — let alone a westbound turn.
“This has been going on since I was 4-years-old — I remember when they had wooden planks on the street because they were supposed to be putting in the subway,” said Derek Johnson, 56.
“I’ll have to see it first before I believe it.”
While waiting in the snow on 125th Street Friday for a crosstown bus, David Moore, 48, said he would welcome having an east-west connection on the Q line.
“That would be good,” he said. “Sure, I believe in miracles.”