While you were sleeping, the MTA has terror-proofed its subway tunnels and bridges, according to a report in The Post. Transit reporter Tom Namako spills the beans on a $250-million plan to shore up the ten subway tunnels that pass under the East River.
Since 2004, agency contractors have been lining subway tubes — especially the 10 that run under the East River — with high-impact-bearing metal that would prevent collapse or massive flooding in the case of a terrorist attack, multiple sources said. And in the more shallow tunnels that aren’t fully dug into rock, like the F line that connects 63rd Street to Roosevelt Island, workers dropped massive slabs of rock and concrete on the riverbed to prevent disaster, the sources said.
The MTA’s security makeover isn’t limited to tunnels. The agency’s seven bridges are being “hardened” with plates and “collars” on cables that can resist a blast, sources said. The agency originally planned to use a lightweight, blast-resistant material to ring the tunnels — but sources said that various types of materials have been used.
One of more complicated tasks was determining which parts of the aged tunnels were bored deep into rock and which parts come close to the surface. “That presents several issues. With some tunnels, there’s a point where they come out to the surface and there’s different vulnerability there than with tunnels in bedrock,” one source said.
The work, was deemed 93 percent completed in January, has come in at $22 million over budget. “A lot has been done in regards to hardening, and that work continues to move forward,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said to The Post.
Namako’s report follows an earlier revelation that the Port Authority has spent $600 million to to ring PATH tunnels in steel. Reported The Post, “Defense contractors — toiling in the cloak of darkness — are installing reinforced metal plates along the interior walls of the tunnels, and massive flood-prevention gates are being erected at either end of the two main lines that run from the World Trade Center and the West Village to Jersey City, sources said. The flood gates are designed to close off one or more tubes should water come surging in. That would protect other parts of the PATH system and its riders, which number about 250,000 a day.”
The PATH project, funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security and some stimulus dollars, carries a higher price tag than the MTA’s own security initiatives, but it has come in at nearly $300 million under budget. “The safety of our customers is the Port Authority’s highest priority, which is why we have spent over $5 billion since 9/11 upgrading the security systems at our facilities,” PATH COO Ernesto Butcher said. “Hardening our PATH rail tunnels is one example of that effort.”
Leave a Reply