East Side Access Project

When the MTA Board gathered for its most recent meeting in July, the authority’s leaders addressed concerns over the East Side Access Project’s rate of progress. With federal officials predicting a 16-month delay, the MTA admitted that it had exhausted its schedule contingency for a variety of reasons. This week, we learn that the authority has officially delayed the project completion date to April 2018, sixteen months later than scheduled. “This is a project facing significant challenges,” MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder said during subcommittee meetings yesterday.

Ultimately, shaky project management as well as conflicts with Amtrak over the Harold Interlocking has led to these delays, and the news is only going to get worse for LIRR riders. Beginning in October and continuing through 2015, Amtrak is set to replace the track in all four of its East River tunnels after inspections following a May derailment found significant track damage. The work will take place in 55-hour spurts over nearly every weekend until 2015. Tracks will be out of service from 10 p.m. on Fridays through 5 a.m. on Mondays and during some weekday overnight periods. The LIRR says the work will have “little or no impact” on its service, but the work will leave less operating flexibility during the weekends. This tunnel work will delay work on the Harold Interlocking which, in turn, will delay the East Side Access project.

Meanwhile, official recognition of this delay leaves me worried over the fate of the Second Avenue Subway as well. At the same time they predicted this postponement, the Feds also said that SAS was likely headed toward a similar fate. Such a substantial delay along the Upper East Side would be disastrous for the neighborhood and for the MTA politically. Meanwhile, as foreign transit agencies build at a quick rate and for less money, the MTA is stuck with a deep cavern north of Grand Central for upwards of $8 billion and 12 years of construction. That’s a problem.

As the East Side Access project inches toward completion, one of the tunnel boring machines digging out the tubes in Manhattan has spun its last cutter head, and it won’t be coming up for air. The Spanish contract that owns Seli, the TBM that has been cutting through Manhattan schist since 2007, has decided to abandon the TBM 14 stories beneath Park Avenue. It would, simply put, cost more than the TBM is worth to pull it back out into Sunnyside, dismantle it and sell it for scrap, and so the nether reaches of Manhattan will be its final resting place.

Its exact resting place appears to be at around Park Ave. between 37th and 38th Streets, and the MTA and its contractors will use the laid-to-rest TBM for tunnel support. Later this week, it will be encased in concrete, and the 22.5-foot-long drill will be marked with a plaque only. As The Times notes, the decision evokes images of Planet of the Apes, and while other countries have buried TBMs, this is a first for New York. There is, of course, no room to do the same along Second Ave. or the 7 Line extension. “People will find it, and they will find it exciting to see it, if they ever unearth it,” Michael Horodniceanu, head of MTA Capital Construction, said. “Who knows? Maybe they will want to continue the railroad south, at which point they would have to take it out.”

In its original incarnation, the East Side Access project was to be completed by the second quarter of 2012. As we well know, that timeline has been pushed back by over four years to September 2016, but according to an MTA report, the agency is concerned that they may need to further delay the projected substantial completion date for the Long Island Rail Road connection into Grand Central.

In a document presented last week at the MTA Board committee meetings, MTA Capital Construction officials said “our confidence level in meeting the September 2016 revenue service date is low without significant mitigation.” Because of “on-going contractor delays in Manhattan and Queens” as well as some back-and-forth with Amtrak over the Harold Interlocking work, the MTA has nearly exhausted its schedule contingency, and thus, without mitigation work, the project is in danger of missing the September 2016 date.

According to the brief report, available here as a PPT document, Capital Construction is going to work with the LIRR to reassess construction sequencing and timing for the final sections. The Capital Program Oversight Committee will hear the suggestions and potential cost impacts in September.

With the MTA’s capital budget funded only through the end of the year, New York’s Senators down in D.C. are growing worried that key infrastructure (and job-creation) projects are going to run out of dollars when the calendar flips to 2012. To that end, Sen. Chuck Schumer has called upon the U.S. Department of Transportation to shift $2.2 billion in what would have been ARC Tunnel money over to the East Side Access project as a low-interest loan. This would guarantee completion of the project and avoid a slowdown should the state fail to act on the MTA capital budget this fall.

“While we have collectively committed billions of dollars to this project, it’s vital that the MTA has the resources it needs to finish this critical mass transit project that has the potential to alleviate congestion for tens of thousands of commuters who use the Long Island Rail Road every day,” he said in a letter to FRA officials. “Though the USDOT has never approved a financing package of this size under the RRIF program … the USDOT was willing to approve a loan of similar size for New Jersey to fund the ARC tunnel.”

DOT did not comment to Transportation Nation, but the MTA confirmed it had applied for a grant for the project. An authority spokesman said the MTA is “in discussions with the U.S. DOT as part of the application process but we don’t have an estimate on when we’ll hear back.” It would be money well spent.

The MTA’s East Side Access project is expected to be ready by mid-2016, and in the meantime, the authority has to make sure it has space to house the management offices. So, reports The Observer, the MTA has renewed its lease for three floors — one of which is devoted entirely to the East Side Access project — at 469 Seventh Ave. The MTA is taking out 68,000 square feet of space at the building, and landlord Eric Meyer had been asking for $35 per square feet for a total of $2.38 million. Meanwhile, 370 Jay St. in Brooklyn is still awaiting its $150 million renovation.