East Side Access

Progress on Manhattan station cavern as of January 2012.

What the East Side Access would look like once completed.

East Side Access is a public works project being undertaken by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City, designed to bring the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) into a new East Side station to be built below and incorporated into Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. It is expected to be operational by 2018.

Description

Extending between Sunnyside, Queens, and Grand Central Terminal, the East Side Access project will route the LIRR from its Main Line through new track connections in Sunnyside Yard and through the lower level of the existing 63rd Street Tunnel under the East River. In Manhattan, a new tunnel will begin at the western end of the 63rd Street Tunnel at Second Avenue, curving south under Park Avenue and entering a new LIRR terminal beneath Grand Central Terminal.

Current plans call for 24-trains-per-hour service to Grand Central Terminal during peak morning hours, with an estimated 162,000 passenger trips to and from Grand Central on an average weekday. Connections to AirTrain JFK at Jamaica Station in Jamaica, Queens, will facilitate travel to John F. Kennedy International Airport from the East Side of Manhattan.

A new LIRR train station in Sunnyside at Queens Boulevard and Skillman Avenue along the Northeast Corridor (which the LIRR uses to get into Penn Station) will provide one-stop access for area residents to Midtown Manhattan. The station may spur economic development and growth in Long Island City.

The East Side Access project's estimated cost has increased from $3 billion in 1998^{[citation needed]} to US$6.3 billion in 2006. Though construction work is ongoing, the completion date for the project has been continually pushed back by the MTA. Once planned to be operational by 2013, the MTA has pushed back the completion date several times, most recently to Spring 2018.

East Side Access is likely to affect commuting patterns in Manhattan and put greatly increased passenger loads on the already overcrowded IRT Lexington Avenue Line, the sole East Side subway line, as well as on surface bus routes on the East Side. The project has, therefore, focused attention on the long-delayed Second Avenue Subway along the far East Side of Manhattan, which is now back under construction and is expected to relieve north/south commuting pressure emanating from Grand Central Terminal.^{[citation needed]} At the same time, East Side Access will reduce the load on morning northbound rush-hour E service between Pennsylvania Station and Midtown East.^{[citation needed]}

History

Origins

Construction of the line to Grand Central was begun in November 1969 (see IND 63rd Street Line) as the lower level of a cut-and-cover project to build the New York City Subway's 63rd Street Line. The MTA's contractor floated premanufactured four-chamber tunnel boxes into place in the East River and sank them to create the East River crossings for the subway and the LIRR. After a long delay caused by New York City's fiscal collapse of the 1970s, the 63rd St subway line and LIRR tunnel were completed as far as 21st Street in Long Island City. Between 1995 and 2001, the 63rd St subway line was connected to the Queens Blvd. corridor, and the LIRR tunnel was extended under 41st Avenue in Queens to the west side of Northern Blvd. The western end of this tunnel sat under Second Avenue at 63rd Street.

Construction

The current East Side Access Project represents the construction effort to complete the line to Grand Central Terminal. After voters in New York approved a bond issue to provide state funds to the project, the federal government committed to provide $2.6 billion to help build the East Side Access project by signing a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) in December 2006. The construction contract for a one-mile tunnel in Manhattan west and southward from the dormant lower level of the 63rd Street rail tunnel to the new station beneath Grand Central terminal was awarded on July 13, 2006, to Dragados/Judlau, a joint American-Spanish venture (the American company is located in College Point, Queens, NY). The total contract award is $430 million, and is utilizing two large tunneling devices owned by the Spanish firm.

Dragados/Judlau created a launch chamber for tunnel boring machines under Second Avenue at 63rd St using a controlled drill-and-blast method, then assembled and launched each 640-ton machine. The first TBM was launched west and southbound from the 63rd Street tunnel in September 2007 and reached Grand Central in July 2008. The second machine began boring a parallel tunnel in December 2007 and had completed its tunnel at 37th Street on September 30, 2008. Geocomp Corporation was hired to monitor the boring, using a battery of instruments to record vibration, ground settlement and any tilting or drift suffered by the TBM. The instruments include inclinometers, extensometers, seismographs, observation wells, dynamic strain gauges, tilt meters and automated motorized total stations (AMTS) with prismatic targets. The next step in construction is to back the TBMs out of the tunnels and cast-in-place concrete sections placed to create the lining. Each tunnel will be 22 feet in diameter and carry trains 140 feet beneath street level. The TBMs bored an average of 50 feet per day. Cross-connections between the tunnels are being created under Park Avenue, between 49th Street and 51st Street, by controlled drill-and-blast; the work began in mid-July 2008 and was expected to require between six and eight months to complete. As of June 2011, eight station tunnels under Grand Central, where trains will berth at platforms, were fully bored, and station excavation was still underway

In Queens, Pile Foundation Construction Company is building an $83 million open-cut and deck project, which is extending the tracks under Northern Boulevard into Sunnyside Yard, and creating an area that serves as both the launch chamber for soft-bore Queens tunnels, connecting the 63rd St line to the main LIRR branches, and an interlocking and emergency exit and venting facility. Perini Corporation was awarded a $161 million contract to reconfigure Harold Interlocking, increasing its capacity to accommodate Grand Central-bound trains and accept new yard lead tracks to allow trains to enter the storage yards. On February 15, 2008, MTA awarded Dragados-Judlau a $499 million contract to excavate the LIRR station and track wye caverns. On September 10, 2009, MTA awarded Yonkers Contracting Company a $40.76 million contract to demolish a building at 44th St and construct a ventilation plant and station entrance. On September 28, 2009, MTA awarded Granite-Traylor-Frontiere Joint Venture a $659.2 million contract to employ two 500 ton slurry TBM machines to create the tunnels which will connect the LIRR main line and Port Washington Branch to the tunnel under 41 Av (the 63rd Street tunnel). Four tunnels, with precast concrete liners, will total 2 miles in length. In March 2011, the MTA announced that these two tunnel boring machines will begin tunneling in April 2011.

ESA Project Information Center

Controversy

Given the massive size of the project, the plan has aroused concerns and opposition. In 2005, businesses and Cardinal Archbishop Edward Egan began to express concerns about the tunneling process. Egan in particular is concerned about the impact on St. Patrick's Cathedral, which faces Fifth Avenue with its back on Madison Avenue north of 50th Street. The project is proposing that an air vent be placed south of 50th Street and east of Madison Avenue, just outside the existing trainshed.

External links

External videos
	"What is East Side Access?", Metropolitan Transportation Authority; January 29, 2010; one minute YouTube video clip
	"The East Side Access Project", MTA Long Island Rail Road (LIRR); February 18, 2010; 6:19 YouTube video clip
	"East Side Access Soft Ground TBM Launch", Metropolitan Transportation Authority; April 7, 2011; 2:22 YouTube video clip
	"East Side Access - 1/24/2012 Update", Metropolitan Transportation Authority; January 24, 2012; 1:51 YouTube video clip

• MTA's Official East Side Access Project Page
• MTACC Procurement
• MTA East Side Access Work Underway
• East Side Access Construction Progress, May 5, 2011, 29 Photos (MTA Flickr)
• East Side Access Update - June 21, 2011, 9 Photos (MTA Flickr)
• East Side Access update Sept. 19, 2011, 10 Photos (MTA Flickr)
• East Side Access Update - January 25, 2012 (MTA Flickr)