Apologies for going light on the content today, but I’ve had a very busy Monday. Submitted for your enjoyment is this short video I shot with my camera inside the East Side Access project on Friday. It’s not my finest attempt at videography: I scan too fast at one point and accidentally hit the shutter early. Check it out anyway for a sense of the project.

For more on my trip to the TBM launch box, check out Friday’s post on that very same topic.

Tess, one of two TBMs set to dig beneath the Sunnyside Yard, awaits its activation. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

MTA officials and local politicians met underneath the Sunnyside Yard in Queens this afternoon to commemorate the launch of tunnel boring machines Tess and Molina. The two machines, named by sixth graders from I.S. 204 in Long Island City, will dig out four tunnels in Queens that connect the tracks of the LIRR Main Line with the tunnel underneath the East River and into Grand Central. Digging will be completed in October 2012, and MTA officials maintain that East Side Access is one pace to wrap up in 2016.

“One hundred years ago, the tunnels under Penn Station gave Long Islanders easy access to Manhattan, essentially giving birth to Long Island as we know it today and leading to enormous growth in the region,” MTA Chairman Jay Walder said thi smorning. “Today, East Side Access will build on this growth and transform this region in a similar way. Commuters throughout Long Island and Queens will have more service to Manhattan and shorter travel times to the East Side—making these communities even more attractive places to live, increasing housing values, and unlocking the next wave of economic development potential on Long Island.”

During the press event this afternoon, Michael Horodniceanu, head of MTA Capital Construction, and Walder spoke of the tunnel boring machines. The blue one that’s featured in my photos was named Tess by Sangida Bagum. It’s an acronym for Tunnel Excavation Sunny Side. Molina, the one digging below Tess, is a play on the word mole and was named by Mohammad Malik, Michael Morales, and Angel Peralta. Molina will actually begin tunneling first.

From a technical perspective, these TBMs are somewhat different from that working its way underneath Second Ave. These are, as Horodniceanu said, slurry TBMs. Because the ground is so soft and the water table is only 14 feet below the TBMs, these machines must remove soil and install interlocking concrete rings to create the tunnel as it proceeds. As Horodniceanu explained, the machines turn the soil into a slurry — a paste “thinner than pudding but thicker than shampoo.” Each machine has a 22-foot diameter cutterhead and, with 300 feet of trailing equipment, weigh 642 tons.

“We are building the largest transportation construction project in the country,” Horodniceanu said. “It’s an unbelievably complex undertaking which involves working in and around the busiest rail yard in the United States. I’m extremely proud of the level of teamwork all the staff and contractors are engaging in to make this project a reality.”

You can view all of my pictures from the event right here, and a slideshow follows after the jump. I should have some videos to post over the weekend.

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While the ARC Tunnel has dominated the headlines lately and the Second Ave. Subway is the sexy New York City Transit project, the East Side Access project will deliver benefits for the city’s commuters, and it too continues apace. Reader Marc G. had a chance to take a trip through the tunnel in progress earlier this year, and he offered up these photos for our weekend enjoyment. The images are arrayed below in gallery form. Click on them to enlarge.

The East Side Access project, not often in the news, made a headline for all the wrong reasons this morning. As William K. Rashbaum of The Times reports, New York Dirt Contracting, one of the project’s subcontractors that has earned over $2 million hauling away dirt, has been barred from doing business by the city’s Business Integrity Commission in because of the company’s close ties to organized crime.

In the short run, this development, says the MTA, won’t impact the timeline for the East Side Access tunnel. Another company will take its place in June. But for the MTA, this embarrassing development, in the words of Rashbaum, “underscores what some critics say is the authority’s persistent failure, despite its budget problems, to aggressively vet subcontractors in an industry where corruption, fraud and abuse are widespread.”

Referencing a February MTA inspector general report, Rushbaum writes:

In recent years, a steady stream of troubled companies have done work for the authority, which oversees the city subways; the commuter rail lines to Long Island, the counties north of the city and Connecticut; and many of the city’s bridges and tunnels.

The authority’s inspector general, Barry L. Kluger, has been lobbying to standardize the vetting process for contractors and subcontractors since 2008, when a moving company rejected by one of the authority’s constituent agencies because its owner had been convicted of racketeering was hired by another.

That case, Mr. Kluger said in a report last year, “brought to light certain systemic inconsistencies among M.T.A. agencies involving the depth of their due diligence reviews.” And, noting that well over 50 percent of the construction work for the authority was done by subcontractors, he said in an interview on Wednesday, “More attention must be given to the vetting of subcontractors in terms of both integrity and their performance on prior jobs.”

For its part, the MTA defended its business practices. It asks companies to respond to a questionnaire and cross-checks responses accordingly. However, as The Times notes, these companies are not asked to respond under oath, and in this instance, MTA Capital Construction had to make company determinations based on what amounts to an honor system. In this instance, the process failed.

Although this development concerns a subcontractor, I’ve often wondered about the MTA’s relationships with its contractors and the legislative mandate that the authority accept the lowest bids on all projects open to competitive bidding. Over the last few years, we’ve seen numerous instances of construction projects. We’ve seen the Second Ave. Subway fall four years behind its initial schedule. We’ve seen engineering errors at South Ferry delay the opening and later lead to leaky walls. We’ve seen costs raise across nearly every Capital Construction project, and we’ve seen other big-ticket items — the camera surveillance system and a plan to wire six stations for cell service — falter.

From a cost perspective, the MTA runs into more problems choosing the lowest bids than it would if it were able to select the most reliable company. We would probably see fewer missed deadlines, better quality of work and more efficient spending. Currently, MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder is overhauling how the MTA does business, but in this instance, he would need legislative approval to do so. It probably won’t be forthcoming, but the MTA should explore how better to work with its contractors and how better to vet its subcontractors. If anything, the public would have more faith in the work.

Fifteen stories below street level, this space will hold one day hold four platforms and eight tracks 15 for the LIRR at Grand Central Terminal. (All photos courtesy of the MTA.)

As part of its increased presence on social media sites, the MTA has been sharing more information and more pictures of their ongoing projects with the public. Last night, via their MTA Insider Twitter account, the authority released some shots of the work in progress at the Grand Central end of the East Side Access project. For transit construction enthusiasts, these photos offer a glimpse of some good old fashioned digging. I’ve posted a few below, and the entire album is available on the MTA’s Facebook page. The Journal-News has profiled the ongoing work as well.

Once the location of Metro-North’s Madison Ave. train yard, this space will become a passenger concourse for the LIRR.

These workers, according to Metro, spend their days deep within the rocks below the city. The Manhattan schist proves a sturdy rock, and the Sandhogs say they are often joined in their work by hordes of rats.

Another view of the platform cavern.

This tunnel will, by 2016, be lined with tracks that will bring LIRR trains into Grand Central Terminal.

A new entrance to the catacombs of Grand Central Terminal will open in Sept. 2011. (Rendering courtesy Metro-North)

In a sense, the East Side Access Project is New York City’s forgotten big construction effort. While the Second Ave. Subway construction is disrupting street traffic and residential life along the Upper East Side, the East Side Access work continues daily far below the surface of the city. Slowly, the benefits of this project will soon be coming online, and Metro-North announced yesterday the construction of a new entrance to Grand Central Terminal as part of the East Side Access work.

This new entrance, set to open in September 2011, will extend the Grand Central entrance options north to 47th St. The street-level access point will be on the side street between Lexington and Park Avenues in the building at 245 Park. The new entrance will feature an escalator from the street to the 47th St. cross passageway and a staircase from the street to the platform shaed by Tracks 11 and 13. Right now, the east end of the 47th St. cross passageway has no outlet.

“This new entrance will be a tremendous benefit to both current Metro-North customers and future LIRR customers by providing a fifth northern means of ingress and egress to the trains,” Metro-North President Howard Permut said in a statement.

“This entrance is an example of how construction can be staged so that customers can enjoy incremental benefits as each element of a project is completed,” MTA Capital Construction President Dr. Michael Horodniceanu said.

Currently, the 47th Street cross passage runs directly below street level from Lexington Avenue to Madison Avenue and has staircases that lead to every train platform on the upper level of Grand Central. From that passageway, commuters can use two walkways to reach the 45 St. cross passageway and connect to all lower level platforms. With these options, those who work north of Grand Central save, according to Metro-North, up to 15 minutes of walking time.

As crews work to build this new entry way, Tracks 11 and 13 at Grand Central will be out of service. The MTA must extend Track 13 south due to the loss of space to escalators and stairs on the northern end of the platform, and to keep a platform 10 cars long, a southern extension is necessary. Metro-North began this work yesterday, and it is due to cost $14 million over the next 20 months. When the East Side Access work is completed in 2016, the LIRR concourse will connect to the 47th St. passageway as well.