Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
Second Avenue Subway isn't "in limbo". It's fully funded and opening in 3-4 years.
The MTAs' current five-year budget fully funds the completion of Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access, and begins the East Bronx Metro North rail line and LIRR Main Line expansion.
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Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway is funded and will be opening in 4-5 years. The point of the article is that Phases 2, 3, 4 are not yet funded. I don't see any solidly established start date for Phase 2 to 125th St, which will use existing tunnels from previous Second Avenue subway attempts, so it should go more quickly whenever they start on it.
A major issue that delayed the start of boring out the tunnels was utility relocation which was much more difficult and took far longer than originally planned. They are also having to shore up building foundations and had to bore through rock rather than use blasting in one place. Utility relocation is a common problem for infrastructure projects these days as they run into utility & communication lines and pipes that are not on the official maps or not where they are supposed to be. Drives the cost up considerabbly if everything else has to be delayed before major digging can start.
The Silver Line in Northern VA was slowed at the start because of utility relocation including communication lines that were not on the maps, because the lines were intentionally not on any public maps.
The article loses major points by not including the East Side Access project. It is a $6+ billion dollar project, roughly equal to the price tag for the complete Silver Line project in Virginia. Maybe they did not want to cover two NYC projects in one article?
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