Update
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ew Year’s Day, 2017: Nearly 88 years after the first bond issue was floated to finance construction of a subway under Second Avenue on New York City’s East Side, the first MTA New York City Transit Q Trains began rolling between 63rd and 96th Streets on the Second Avenue Subway. Thousands attended the inauguration of revenue service. The nearly-two-mile, $4.4 billion Phase 1 segment adds new stations along Second Avenue at 96th, 86th and 72nd streets and a new connection to the Lexington Avenue Line (4-5-6 Trains) at 63rd Street. The Q Train now operates between Coney Island in Brooklyn and 96th Street. Phase 2, estimated to cost $1.5 billion, will extend the line up to 125th Street. The Second Avenue Subway was conceived in 1919, and the first construction bond issue occurred in 1929. There had been three prior groundbreakings for this massive project. Each one ended rather unceremoniously when the city and the MTA (or one of its predecessor agencies) ran out of funds. In the meantime, MTA New York City Transit’s Lexington Avenue Line (the 4, 5 and 6 trains) gradually became one of the busiest, most overcrowded subway lines in the world. Historians recall that New York City’s Second and Third Avenue elevated
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Railway Age
February 2017
lines were torn down in the 1940s, as they were supposed to be replaced with the Second Avenue Subway. The tunnels for Phase 1 were constructed using a combination of cut-and-cover, tunnel boring and controlled blasting. The tunnel boring machine traveled 50 feet per day on average. The tunnels consist of two 7,800-foot bores, each 22 feet in diameter and an average 80 feet deep. They required excavation of 583,700 cubic yards of rock and 460,300 cubic yards of soil. Most of this material was recycled and used as fill for abandoned mines, artificial reefs, bulkhead reinforcements or road paving. More than 260,000 cubic yards of concrete, 48.9 million pounds of rebar, 40.7 million pounds of structural steel and 1.25 million square feet of waterproofing material were used in construction. Phase 1 includes 22,000 feet of track, all of it low-vibration and low-noise, thanks to a new method of directfixation track construction, where the concrete pads that function as ties are not integral with the concrete-slab foundation. Instead, the ties are individual concrete castings, fastened to the foundation, with an elastomeric pad sandwiched in between. Pandrol clips hold the continuous welded rail to the ties, while an aluminum/composite third-rail provides traction power. For
now, the Second Avenue Subway is equipped with New York City Transit’s traditional fixed-block signaling system, with wayside automatic block signals and trip stops. Communications-based train control (CBTC) is down the line, with several major CBTC deployments under way at NYCT. Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway is expected to cost $1.5 billion. It will continue northward from 96th St. up to 125th St. When completed sometime in the 2020s, the entire line will stretch from 125th St. at its northernmost point all the way down to the financial district at the tip of Manhattan. For now, the Second Avenue Subway is an extension of the current Q Line, which originates in Coney Island, Brooklyn. The Federal Transit Administration signed an FFGA (Full Funding Grant Agreement) with the MTA in 2007 to build the Second Avenue Subway. More than 155,000 people a day are using the Second Avenue Subway. Ridership has grown steadily by approximately 8,000 daily riders per week since Jan. 1.While it is helping ease congestion on the Lexington Avenue Line by absorbing some of the NYCT’s 5.9 million daily riders, it is no doubt attracting new ridership. For now-retired MTA Chairman and CEO Tom Prendergast (below), Railway Age’s 54th Railroader of the Year, the Second Avenue Subway is a milestone achievement in his distinguished career.
Upper left: Joseph M. Calisi. Lower right: William C. Vantuono
Second Avenue Subway open for business