Second Avenue Subway

Over the past few years, I’ve frequently received emails from Second Ave. residents complaining of the blasting. From early in the morning to late at night, whistles, blasts and vibrations would rock the neighborhood as MTA contractors went about the slow and torturous process of constructing a subway line. As you can see from the above video, posted by Ben at The Launch Box in March, it’s a loud experience.

Recently, the complaints have seemingly come to a head as the work has continued into the night. According to a brief item in The Post, blasts were going off well the agreed-upon 7 p.m. cut-off time. Residents claim that in recent months, contractors set off 19 blasts after 9 p.m.

Now, the MTA says it will respect the 7 p.m. cutoff time. While original plans called for blasting until midnight, Michael Horodniceanu, the president of MTA Capital Construction, has said the authority will revise blasting guidelines. “People don’t want to have a romantic dinner with the sound of pavement being obliterated in the background,” he said to The Times. “After 7 p.m., we do not blast.”

The MTA has had a tense and often contentious relationship with business and residents along Second Ave., and it’s clearly tough to build a new subway line through a densely-inhabited area. With five more years left on the project, the two sides will have to continue to work together, and limiting the blasting is a long overdue move.

This one’s been making the rounds this week. It’s a video of Gary Russo, a member of Local 40 and current Second Ave. Subway ironworker, who serenades Upper East Siders during his crew’s lunch break. With all of the noise surrounding the construction site, Russo just wants to give back something to the neighborhood, he told The Post. “We’re trying to give back a little bit, you know know? Lunchtime,” the singer said to Gothamist.

Russo, a Queens native, has garnered some praise from his fellow workers and disgruntled Second Ave. neighbors alike for his 30-minute lunchtime performances. “I got this one lady who hates the construction,” Paul Rodriguez, a fellow sandhog, said. “She’s always looking for something to complain about. One day she was walking across the street and she saw Gary singing.”
The woman was star-struck. It was the first time I saw her smile.”

In mid-June, Adi, the Second Ave. TBM, was digging past 76th Street.

As this site nears its fifth birthday — I’ll reach the half-decade mark in late November — my thoughts have often turned toward the Second Ave. Subway. I started this site in 2006 when it became clear that Sen. Chuck Schumer and the then-newly empowered Senate Democrats would offer substantial funding to New York City for the completion of the first phase of the Second Ave. Subway. After 70 years of planning and numerous starts and stops, a salvation for the congesting East Side IRT and access for those who live on the far East Side was on the horizon.

Of course, that was before the market went south, before Lehman Brothers collapsed, before the state only guaranteed funding for two years of the MTA’s key 2010-2014 capital plan that would have all but guaranteed enough money to cover Second Ave. Subway construction. Economically and politically, things are much different than they were five years ago.

Yet, I feel more confident today that Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway will be completed — by 2016 or 2017 — that I have at any time earlier in this website’s life. The simple truth is that the MTA has spent too much money and expended too many resources to pull up stakes now. The western tunnel is complete; the eastern tunnel is two-thirds of the way to its destination at 63rd St. The federal government expects this project to be completed, and numerous other stakeholders do as well. It will get finished even if the fights over funding are far from over.

What is still surprising to me, though, is just how much remains to be completed. The MTA is quite pleased that Adi, the tunnel boring machine, will soon reach its southern destination, and the completion of the two tunnels should be viewed as a major milestone. But this blog will have to double in years before I have a chance to attend the ribbon-cutting along Second Ave. That’s a crazy long construction timeline.

That said, the MTA is moving forward. As The Daily News reported, Capital Construction is gearing up to award a few key contracts. The contracts, according to Pete Donohue, are for “tracks, signals and communications equipment,” and it is in the words of The Daily News, one of the project’s “last major construction contracts” as the Dec. 2016 completion date inches closer. “The Second Ave. subway is no longer just a blueprint – we’ve made enormous progress and we’re committed to getting it done,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.

The finer print is available on the MTA CC procurement page. The authority plans to open C-26009 on July 28. As the Solicitation document notes, that contract is to last 61 months. That timeframe brings us up to the revenue date for the Second Ave. subway.

Yet, stormclouds are brewing on the horizon. As Donohue reports, the MTA still has to cover approximately $940 million in funding for SAS. It is anticipated that the federal government will cover some via infrastructure grants and that Albany will guarantee the rest through legislative action this fall when it finally takes up the MTA’s capital funding gap. But transit advocates are worried about belt-tightening in DC, and even with union, advocate and contractor pressure, Albany sometimes marches to its own drum.

So we wait. Since the 1930s, the Second Avenue Subway has come to symbolize infrastructure ineptitude on the part of New York City, its planners and politicians. Its construction has always preceded economic downturns, but the MTA seems intent on pushing through. The first five years have come by pretty quickly; now we just have to wait out the remaining five.

When it comes to ongoing the Second Ave. Subway work, the MTA is facing a mini crisis. Because Albany funded the current capital plan only through the end of the year and has yet to address 2012-2014, there is a slight chance that the MTA will have to freeze some big-ticket items if the politicians do not come through. Recently, the MTA has taken to urging Upper East Siders to contact their representatives, and it has some civic activists a little skittish.

In the Daily News today, one-time mayoral candidate George Spitz uses the MTA’s politicking to issue a familiar call: light rail for Second Ave., he says. It’s an idea that just won’t die, but it’s time is rapidly expiring. While Spitz wants an avenue-long LRT line along the East Side, that’s not feasible right now. I’ll get to that shortly, but first, Spitz’s argument:

With the decades-in-the-making Second Avenue subway line still a distant dream, it is time to think of new ideas for East Side public transport. Specifically, it is time to examine less costly and otherwise more feasible alternatives, particularly light rail, for relief of serious congestion on Lexington Avenue, especially since the first 1.7 miles of the Second Avenue (from 96th St. to 63rd) line won’t be open until 2016, at a cost of several billions dollars.

The need for a new plan for East Side public transit relief became obvious on June 22, when MTA Senior Vice President for Capital Construction William Goodrich came to a meeting of Community Board 8 on the upper East Side and pleaded with board members to press local state senators and Assembly members for more money from Albany.”Without additional funding, we won’t really have the ability to procure the remaining three contracts,” Goodrich told those present….

That’s why light rail is a perfect solution. With estimated construction time of only two years and stops every two blocks – as opposed to every ten or even twenty – light rail provides faster and more convenient relief for congested Lexington Avenue subway ridership. New York’s first grooved-rail tracks were laid in 1852; however, trolleys were soon supplanted by subways. But maybe it’s time for that trend to finally reverse…

Of the $1.3 billion the George W. Bush administration granted for Phase 1 of the Second Avenue line, I estimate that less than half could be used for light rail instead. There would be no need for higher state taxes or increases in subway, bus and toll bridge fares. Moreover, the left-over money could be used to create much-needed transit improvements in the outer boroughs, which need the help no less than Manhattan.

Spitz’s take is filled with some strange claims. In a section I omitted, he bemoans the fact that there are “only” three stops — at 72nd, 86th and 96th Sts. — planned for Phase 1 and blames Lexington Ave. IRT congestion on the SAS stop spacing. That simply doesn’t make any sense because, due to the popularity and population of those neighborhoods, even just those three stops will alleviate much of the IRT congestion.

The second problem is one of politics. Spitz notes that in the early 1980s, President Reagan allowed New York to reallocate Westway funds to subway improvements, and he proposes doing the same thing here. This idea ignores the fact that Washington has not taken kindly to localities’ decisions to reappropriate earmarked federal funds. We need look no further than the Hudson River to see what happened when Gov. Chris Christie tried to claim even $271 million worth of ARC Tunnel money. Here, we’re talking about billions.

Third, Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway is too far along to torpedo. The tunnels from 63rd St. and 3rd Ave. to 96th St. and Second Ave. are completed, and while it will still take another five years to finish the tunnels and build out the stations, it would be foolhardy to leave these completed tunnels — and awarded contracts — to rot.

That said, Spitz’s proposal could work with a few amendments. The MTA should finish Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway, and it should take advantage of the completed sections of tunnel north of 96th St. to build out Phase 2 as well. The Q — or some other BMT Broadway train — would then run north from 57th and Broadway to 63rd and Lexington and then underneath Second Ave. After that, the city could consider building light rail down Second Ave. to Hanover Square for a fraction of the cost of subway construction. An LRT route would have to operate as part of the MTA with a similar fare structure and transfers to crosstown buses and connecting subway routes, and the city would have to appease businesses and drivers who make a stink over lane appropriate. With the right approach, it should work.

Ultimately, the time for a full-length light rail line along Second Ave. has passed. The SAS is too far along with too much invested into it for the MTA to pull out. Spitz might be right to worry about Goodrich’s statements, but with construction lobbyists, the MTA and various other interests pushing for capital funding, Albany will have no choice but to come through. Light rail will have to wait.

Construction progress for the IND Crosstown line (looking east toward the Court Street Station, now home of the Transit Museum) on Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY. October 20, 1930. (Photo courtesy of the Transit Museum)

In honor of its 35th Anniversary year, the Transit Museum — New York’s must underrated playground for subway enthusiasts — published a photoset to flickr today of scenes from the past three and a half decades. As a tantalizing glimpse at what lies in its archives, it fronted the set with the above shot from 1930 of the construction of the IND Crosstown line at Court and Schermerhorn Streets in Brooklyn. Looks like a mess, eh?

This historic shot got me thinking about the complaints surrounding construction along Second Ave. Once upon a time in New York City, subway construction was the norm. For 35 years in the early decades of the 20th Century, New Yorkers expected torn up streets cutting through neighborhoods in various states of development, and the resulting benefits included a vast new subway system. Yet, now, the last time cut and cover construction was employed in New York City, residents protested when parts of Central Park were dug up to make way for the 63rd St. tunnel.

Today, the Second Ave. Subway has turned a once-vibrant commercial and residential strip into a dust bowl of noise and construction fences. The MTA is trying to work with community groups to minimize the impact, but the authority has, to put it charitably, been less than successful in doing so. Now imagine if the scene from Court and Schermerhorn were transplanted to Second Ave. at 85th St. in 2011. That’s an unpleasant image, to say the least.

Many advocates for subway expansion have pointed to the costs of a deep-bore tunnel as an impediment to those projects, but the truth is more complex than that. Deep-bore tunneling isn’t significantly more expensive than cut-and-cover to justify what would arguably be a neighborhood-destroying project. It’s politically infeasible to propose cut-and-cover right now, and these scenes from the past remind us why.

The muck conveyance system at 72nd Street is designed to reduce dust in the air due to subway construction. (Photo courtesy of The Launch Box)

It’s getting dusty up in here, Second Ave. residents and business owners have said to the MTA. With non-stop subway construction moving ever southward along the busy commercial strip, those who have lived through four years of noise and still have a few more to go say the air is dustier than ever, and now East Side politicians want some answers from the MTA.

“The Second Avenue Subway will one day benefit all New Yorkers, but right now the construction of the new line is putting a heavy burden on merchants and residents near Second Avenue,” Representative Carolyn Maloney said over the weekend. “The MTA must redouble its efforts to minimize dust and foul odors emanating from the construction site – and take steps to assure the public that the air is safe to breathe. Chairman Walder takes quality-of-life concerns seriously and I know that those who live and work near Second Avenue would be grateful for his attention to these important concerns.”

The story broke late last week in a brief item in The Post. Locals were complaining that the air near key construction sites had become dangerously dusty. “I’ve been in some bad military situations, and it’s not as bad as that,” Ralph Leviton, an Upper East Sider, said.

The MTA admitted that project managers were testing the air and noted that mitigation efforts — including the construction of some dust-reducing conveyors were underway. Still, dust levels were above normal. “Over the past four weeks there have been instances where the reading has exceeded the established threshold for 15 minutes or less on a given day,” an authority spokesman said to DNA Info. “Going forward we are assigning additional supervision to ensure that the dust is thoroughly hosed down and we will continue to closely monitor the site.”

This weekend, area politicians asked the MTA to respond to these complaints and better test and clean up the air. In a letter to Jay Walder, Rep. Maloney pushed for more attention to the issue: “I urge you to conduct — or, if you are already conducting, redouble — air-quality testing in and around the construction zone along Second Avenue and East 69th and 70th Streets to make sure that the construction is not exposing area residents to environmental hazards. In addition, I hope you will explore the feasibility of periodically spraying the construction area to suppress the dust or taking other measures to minimize the impact of construction dust and odors on the neighborhood.”

Other local voices joined in with her calls. “The dust storms created by the subway construction make Second Avenue seem like the badlands of Texas,” Assembly Member Micah Kellner said. “This isn’t a matter to be taken lightly; asthma and allergies are at their peak during the summer months. This dust is only adding to those health concerns. We need to hold the MTA accountable so that East Siders have breathable air.”

It is apparently tough work building a subway through a densely-populated residential neighborhood, and the MTA is learning the hard way about the side effects of subway construction. When — or if — this project reaches Phase II or beyond, the authority should at least have a set of best practices off of which it can work to minimize neighborhood impact. After all, no one likes dust or debris, but everyone wants a new subway line.

The new Second Ave. Subway will come equipped with a bike lane, according to a report in the satirical final edition of The New York Times. The online parody, produced by a group of comedians, offers up a rather comical take on the state of transportation dialogue in New York City right now.

“Jerome Bosch” writes:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pro-bicycle agenda reached a new high water mark today with the announcement that a cyclists-only lane is being added to the long-under-construction Second Avenue Subway. The memo, authored by Deputy Mayor for Communications Howard Wolfson, makes the case that creating the city’s first subterranean bike-lane will reduce bicycle accidents by up to 15 percent, while costing a mere $1.4 billion dollars and delaying the opening of the Second Avenue line by only ten to twenty years.

The Second Avenue Subway bike lane is the latest pro-biking measure proposed by transportation commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan. Since becoming Mayor, Bloomberg has closed much of Broadway to automobiles and has overseen the addition of 225 miles of bike lanes, many of them physically separated from the main flow of traffic. This has led to some backlash, most prominently regarding a dedicated bike lane on Prospect Park West which critics say prevents only a small number of deaths, compared to how much harder it is for Senator Charles Schumer’s wife to receive deliveries at her Prospect Park West apartment from FreshDirect, Crate and Barrel, Sherry-Lehman and Interflora.

Sounds about right to me.

At 63rd Street, contractors have built a blue construction wall as they ready the station for Second Avenue Subway Service. (Photo via Ben Heckscher at The Launch Box)

Many straphangers who frequent the F train into and out of Queens have no idea that the part of the 63rd St. station they see is only half of it. Behind the ugly, bright orange wall is an unused and unfinished platform that sometimes serves as a lay-up for out-of-service trains. The tracks connect to the 57th St. station along the BMT Broadway line and will one day serve as a stop on the Second Ave. Subway.

Some preparatory work on the station has already begun, and contractors are starting to tear down the false wall between the Queens Boulevard tracks and the eventual Second Ave. Subway side. Ben Heckscher from The Launch Box took some photos of station recently. Already, contractors are working on street-level infrastructure while beginning the arduous process of remodeling a 20-year-old station that looks architecturally dated already. This part of the Second Ave. Subway project is supposed to wrap in late 2014. For a glimpse of the unused platform as it exists today, browse on over to this NYCSubway.org page.