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By: Hellen Zaboulani
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is finally moving forward with the long-awaited expansion of the Second Avenue subway Q line to Harlem. The move follows last week’s launch of congestion pricing, which is slated to fund the project.
As reported by Crain’s NY, the latest phase of the Second Avenue project is slated to cost roughly $7.7 billion in total. Funding for the project includes a federal $3.4 billion grant that the MTA must match with $4.3 billion in local funds to access. This grant may have been lost if the congestion pricing plan was not implemented, serving to match the FTA funding.
The MTA has issued a request for proposals, for work in the next phase, with proposals due in March. The agency offered to award a $100 million, four-year contract to design, engineer and build new tunnels and the shell of the new 125th Street station, which will be one of three planned new stops for the subway extension. The work stipulated in the contract includes the rehabilitation of an existing, unused Second Avenue subway tunnel built in the 1970s which spans from roughly 115th Street up to 120th Street, Crain’s reported.
Further, the contract would require the use of massive boring machines to dig out two new tunnels — for uptown and downtown service — between 120th Street and Second Avenue to west of Malcolm X Boulevard and 125th Street. The contract also includes building a cavern to house the new 125th Street station.
Per Crain’s, the MTA has already pre-qualified two contractor teams who will compete for the new contract. One team is a joint venture by Nanuet, New York-based construction firm Halmar International and the Miami-headquarter Civil & Building North America.
The second contender is a joint-venture led by Midtown-based Skanska USA, along with the Chicago-based Walsh Construction Co. and the Evansville, Indiana-headquartered Traylor Bros., Inc.
MTA officials say they expect to select the awardee by the third quarter of 2025. The timeline for its completion is set for the early 2030s, with visible above-ground work slated to begin in March. The MTA’s expansion plans have already experienced severe delays and cost setbacks, some of which were related to funding being stalled with the halt on the congestion pricing plan. The agency says they hope to avoid further holdups and cost overruns by doing some things differently. This includes purchasing street-level properties and undertaking utility relocation work earlier in the process, retrofitting previously built tunnels, limiting the number of contracts awarded and shrinking the station sizes. The officials hope these efforts can potentially cut roughly $1 billion off the second phase.
Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway is one of the MTA’s largest capital projects, extending the Q subway line from 96th Street up to 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem. The goal with this initiative is to reduce congestion on the 4, 5, and 6 lines by drawing an expected 100,000 daily riders, transporting East Harlem and Bronx riders with faster commutes, fewer delays, more reliability, and easier connectivity to subway and regional transit, per the MTA. The first leg of the Second Avenue line was opened in January 2017, with three stations at 72nd, 86th and 96th streets and a connection to the F line’s Lexington Avenue- 63rd street to 96th Street.
