NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will miss its self-imposed deadline to begin Long Island Rail Road service to its new station beneath Grand Central Terminal by the end of 2022, the agency has conceded.
NY1 reports that opening of the Grand Central Madison station — which will mark completion of the long-delayed and well-over-budget East Side Access project — will not happen until sometime in 2023.
Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development, said in a statement, “One particular zone in the 700,000-square-foot terminal requires additional work that will take more than a few days. … Given the logistics of concluding testing and launching service, we have advised MTA Chair Janno Lieber that the terminal will not open this week.” The MTA will work with the Federal Railroad Administration to begin service as soon as possible in January, according to the statement.
The MTA has targeted 2022 for the start of service since at least 2015; officials continued to say the opening would come this year during a series of November interviews for an upcoming Trains Magazine feature, while not specifying a date. As recently as Dec. 19, the agency announced plans for a shuttle service between Grand Central Madison and the Jamaica station in Queens that could have allowed a limited opening this year, even as it pushed the start of full operations into 2023 [see “LIRR to begin Grand Central Madison operations with shuttle service …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 20, 2022]
When the full service begins, the LIRR will expand weekday service by 274 trains per day, with Manhattan service split 55%-45% between current terminus Penn Station and the new Grand Central facility. It will also bring completion to an $11.2 billion project that was once slated to begin service in 2009.
Does anyone know if the LIRR tracks into GC Madison physically connect to existing metro north GCT trackage? Aside from possible maintenance access , there could be some run-through routes of interest (like LI to yankee stadium or Hudson and Harlem
Line trains to LI (to Jamaica and JFK air train for example, bur lack of convenient rail to JFK and LaGuardia have been historical oversights in themselves) . Even with massive infrastructure investments there seems to be only limited thinking outside the box of 19th century ny commuter architecture.
Charles Landey: Well said as always, re: your comments on something being wrong at BOTH ENDS of our economy. I would add Amtrak as another (obvious) candidate of public-sector passenger authorities that are on the verge of collapse.
Unfortunately, these failing public-sector passenger operators, although on the verge of ‘collapse’, never really do so. They get federal govt. bailouts to keep them limping along rather than addressing the critical issues and problems that have brought them to this point.
It will be interesting to see what happens in 2023 and beyond to the local transit-agencies as the federal pandemic bailout funding goes away, they might be facing their next crisis, with budget shortfalls and still depressed, post-pandemic ridership levels. Time for a new business model?
Construction on the 63rd St. Tunnels actually began in October, 1969. Repeat, 1969. That’s 53 years ago.
There are 4 tunnels, the upper two NYCTA Subway (B-Division IND-BMT) and are in service for the F train; the lower two LIRR. The LIRR tunnels are too small for some of LIRR’s equipment and only certain MU cars can run there.
Back around 1995-6, LIRR had a citizens advisory commission for ESA, and somehow I found myself on it (probably a legacy of my NYC community board service and a few connections to LIRR). Members were invited on a tour of the 63rd St tunnels, lower level, from an open pit on the Queens side. LIRR / MTA officials answered all sorts of questions. That’s where I learned that they were too low ceiling wise for the DE / DM fleet and C3’s that LIRR was ordering – by about 3 inches. They knew before the new fleet was built that a few inches, lower, though a challenge, would allow DM access, but chose not to spec that. So I asked – how would we diesel country (then rust bucket country) passengers get to GCT-LIRR, and was told that we would have an easy across the platform at the planned Sunnyside station. So direct access is limited to M7’s, the mythical M9 and M9A fleets (I don’t know why M3’s can’t go there). And nearly 30 years later, no more electrification (or doubletracking) out by us, and transfer to and from GCT is, apparently, something we are to hope we can do.
According to NYC local TV news, the delay is due to a malfunctioning ventilation fan system. I couldn’t tell from local reports if this was an FDNY issue, or something else. If FDNY, then nothing will happen until they’re satisfied.
That was the originally announced delay – then there was the ‘area’ problem that MTA won’t explain to us. Maybe now they can finish PTC there before opening, oh, and maybe they can do some disaster planning and testing, and some heavy train on tracks testing.
Incompetence and, just as importantly, corruption, are universal across all sectors and aspects of life. As America becomes more secularized it’s only going to get worse.
I should think that New Yorkers are owed a more detailed explanation why this delay, after all this time and all these billions. If there’s a good reason for this delay’ let’s hear it.
There’s something wrong at BOTH ENDS of our economy. In the private sector, private companies like UPRR and Southwest Airlines operate in total incompetence on the verge of collapse until they do collapse. In the public sector, public passenger authorities like MBTA and LIRR operate in total incompetence on the verge of collapse until they do collapse.