The MTA is already entering crunch time to meet its deadline for the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, slated to open this December. But it's also looking ahead to phase two, which as of last November, wasn't going to begin in earnest until 2019—12 years after the MTA first broke ground on the $4.5 billion project.
The second phase will bring the line up to East Harlem, with new stations at 106th, 116th, and 125th Street joining phase one's additions at 72nd, 86th, and 96th Street.
Yesterday, the MTA announced that it is soliciting Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for the first three contracts for second phase work, which include design, environmental, and community outreach services. The MTA expects to award those contracts by this summer.
But as of last fall, funding for the second phase of the line was looking uncertain. When the MTA released the details of its five-year capital plan, it omitted funding for both digging the tunnel and building the new stations, though it left some funds to prepare for digging the tunnel—which includes moving utility lines and creating access points for a boring machine and work crews.
According to MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg, "the funds for the RFPs announced [yesterday] will come from money the MTA already has in hand, so spending it will not require Capital Program Review Board approval."
"Our goal is to fast-track Phase 2 to every extent possible, and if these efforts to speed up the project timetable are successful, the MTA will amend our Capital Program and seek additional funds to begin heavy construction sooner," MTA Chairman and CEO Thomas F. Prendergast said yesterday.
No word yet on whether this will move the start date for tunnel boring up from 2019, but if the MTA sticks to the timeline it has laid out here, we should be getting more details about the much-prolonged line as soon as this summer.
