Making the Case for the East Harlem Phase 2 Subway Extension

Benjamin Kabak 

Construction continues on Second Avenue subway tunnels, Summer 2012. Photo by The New York Times Magazine. 

Amidst the dirt and debris of Second Avenue, the explosions and disruptions to business and everyday life, the Upper East Side is undergoing a seismic change. With endless subway construction stretching back into the past and onward into a future that seems so far away, it’s hard to appreciate what a new subway line—or even just four stops of a new route—will mean for the city, but from Fifth Avenue to East End, change is going to come. 

The story so far is one of missed opportunities and endless waits. Few New Yorkers around today remember the IRT Second Avenue line, an elevated train route that met its demise in 1940. Amidst promises of a Second Avenue subway, the city tore down the structure only to be stymied in its planning. World wars, economic slowdowns, city-wide declines and Depressions, and a general lack of enthusiasm for transit projects pushed the Second Avenue subway further into the future. When enough federal funding finally materialized to get even a part of the project off the ground, the city received only a part of the full line it deserves. 

Currently, the MTA is working on Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway, and Phase 2 north to 125th St. should be next. The current phase is the world’s most expensive subway project, a four-stop extension of the Q train north out of 57th St. and Broadway to an unused portion of 63rd St. and Lexington and then up Second Avenue. for three stations to 96th St. At the cost of a cool $4.5 billion and a timeline, charitably, of about nine years from groundbreaking to revenue date, the Upper East Side will finally have its second subway line after an eight-decade wait. 

In an ideal world, as Phase 1 progresses, the MTA would be laying the groundwork for subsequent phases. It would be, in fact, another missed opportunity to stop here. Phase 2 of this four-phase project – the northern extension from 96th to 125th and Lexington – is next, and with much of the tunneling completed, the work should be easier to see through to a functioning subway line. Originally, the four sections were expected to cost around $4 billion each, but the entire line built at once wouldn’t have cost much less. Under today’s political and economic scene, four installments of $4 billion spread out over years or decades is likely easier to find than one lump sum of $16 billion. 

So as Phase 1 inches its way toward the finish line, now just four years away, what comes next? It’s a question most Second Avenue residents and business owners would rather not ponder. Those north of the current construction zone have seen their neighbors to the south suffer and likely aren’t looking forward to a similar fate. To ease congestion on the streets and overcrowding underground, though, the city needs to keep moving forward with the subway. So what comes next? 

A few months ago, MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu spoke to a group of transit activists and reporters prior to a tour of the 7 Line Extension, another MTA megaproject currently changing the face of the Far West Side. During his remarks, Horodniceanu mentioned the future of the Second Avenue Subway. For many years, MTA officials refused to speak much about Phases 2-4 of the project. They were focused on securing full funding guarantees for the remainder of Phase 1 and ensuring that this segment would survive to see the light of day after too many false starts. After three failed attempts at building the line, after all, and with billions of dollars in federal money on the line, the MTA couldn’t afford to let this opportunity pass. 

In late 2012, we can comfortably say that Phase 1 will open. The MTA has received too many federal dollars that are contingent upon finishing this project to turn back now. The future though is hazy as the MTA seems focused on maintaining and upgrading signal and track infrastructure in the next five-year plan and the federal government’s spending outlook may depend heavily upon the looming election and subsequent midterms. Yet, as Horodniceanu explained, the irony is that with some extra money now, the MTA could have built SAS up to 115th St.

Since preexisting tunnels connect from 99th St. to 105th and from 110th to119th, the MTA, said Horodniceanu “could now build stations at 105th St. and 115th St.” The cost would be a cool $750 million - $1 billion per station, but the only obstacle is the money. The environmental impact statements are completed, and the tunnels themselves are in place. In fact, some of the preexisting tunnel north of the future 96th St. station built in the 1970s will be used as tail tracks for the Second Avenue Subway line that will open in 2016.

Courtesy of Second Avenue Sagas

Unfortunately, the MTA isn’t going to build those stations any time soon. In fact, future phases of the subway line may never materialize. Earlier this year, Horodniceanu estimated that the remaining three phases may push the project’s total cost to $23-$24 billion. Seven years ago, the four phases combined were expected to cost a total of $16 billion. By the time the authority puts their shovels or tunnel boring machines into the ground, I’m sure that estimated total will increase to even higher levels. The costs of infrastructure projects in American aren’t decreasing any time soon. 

Essentially, the original decision to split the Second Avenue Subway project into four phases seemingly doomed it from the start. The origins of that decision these days have always been a bit murky. Some have said it came about due to pressure from Sheldon Silver and the realities of funding. The MTA didn’t think it could secure the dollars needed at the start to complete the subway line and tried to break the project into more palatable pieces. 

A New York Times story from 1999 tells a slightly different story: “Transit officials said they had limited the plan for new construction to upper Manhattan because of the engineering difficulties and expense of extending a new line under the more congested parts of midtown.” In this telling, it almost seems as those Phases 3 and 4 were simply for show. Phases 1 and 2 were easier and cheaper, but the charade of Phases 3 and 4 could keep hope alive. The truth is probably somewhere in between. 

Today, New York City must live with the impact of this decision. The Upper East Side will soon have Phase 1, and Phase 2 should see the light of day. It requires some blasting around station caverns and some tunneling near the ends. It provides a bellmouth – extra trackage and tunnels that make future expansion easier – pointed toward the Bronx and another aiming at the West Side and the 125th St. Fairway. It would connect with Metro-North and Lexington Avenue Line. It’s likely to be expensive but certainly necessary. It could also be years as no one at the MTA now is talking about it as a reality despite the foundation already in place. 

The future then is anyone’s guess. Upper East Siders should clamor for Phase 2. Now is the time to act, and using preexisting tunnels, it is seemingly the easiest to build. Phases 3 and 4 through Midtown and Lower Manhattan present their own challenges, but the MTA made this multi-phase bed 13 years ago. Today, as construction slogs forward and costs climb, New York must live with it even as part of the Second Avenue subway line finally moves from city lore to reality. 

Guest columnist Benjamin Kabak is the creator and writer of the blog Second Avenue Sagas: www.secondavenuesagas.com. 

To read the complete fall 2012 issue of CIVITAS News, visit http://civitasnyc.org/civitas-newsletters/