For many years, people have been working on a big railway project deep beneath the streets of New York City and under the East Hudson River. It’s been really hard work and cost a lot of money, but now it’s finally finished!
The new transit center is in a huge underground space that was made by people. Trains go through tunnels that were cut into solid rock. The center is a big deal because it’s in the busiest railway network in the country. On Wednesday, it started carrying passengers from Long Island to a new part of Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
Grand Central Terminal is really far below the ground, about 17 stories deep! When you’re riding towards it on a train, you start going under the East River just as you can see the tall buildings of Manhattan. You go through dark tunnels with some lights flickering by, and then the train slows down and you arrive somewhere really bright.
In late January, people who work for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) held a big ceremony to cut a ribbon and celebrate. They said that this was a historic moment because Grand Central Madison is the first new major downtown rail terminal in the United States in 67 years. That could be exciting or kind of sad, depending on how you look at it. The price tag for the project is also pretty depressing: $11 billion, which is $7 billion more than they planned to spend because of problems with contractors, delays, and labor costs. This doesn’t even include the money they’ll need to pay off their debt.
Before Grand Central Madison was built, the busiest commuter rail system in the United States, the LIRR, had only two places where riders could get off: Penn Station or Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn. Now, there’s a new option on the east side of Manhattan with eight tracks that can carry up to 24 trains every hour. This is the first time the LIRR has expanded since it started running in 1910!
The new terminal is really big, covering 700,000 square feet (65,032 square meters). It was built when New York City’s transportation system was really crowded with passengers. But now, things are different because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not as many people are riding the trains as before because more people are working from home.
The new terminal is really cool! It has colorful pictures made from tiny tiles and lots of stores and restaurants, even though many of them are still empty. This is the biggest new railway station in the United States in almost 70 years and the most important expansion of the Long Island Rail Road in 100 years! The station has four platforms and eight tracks on two levels.
Most of the construction was finished a few months ago, but there are still a few small things they need to do to finish it completely. The station was supposed to open by the end of 2022, but they had a little delay because of some problems with the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
For people who live on Long Island and need to go to Manhattan, the new terminal is really helpful because they can take a train straight to the East Side. Before, they had to go to Penn Station on the West Side and then take a subway or bus to get to the East Side.
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One expert, Alon Levy, who studies transportation at New York University, thinks that while the new station is useful, it would have been better not to build it for $11 billion. He says that the money could have been used for other transportation projects, like making the existing railway lines better.
Officials who worked on the project agreed that it was really expensive because of the high cost of engineering and New York City labor.
According to Mitchell Moss, a professor at New York University, the construction of the new railway station was a great achievement, considering the delays due to bureaucracy and engineering problems. Tom Wright, the president of an organization that works to improve the regional economy, environment, and quality of life, believes that the new station will drive economic growth and benefit the entire transit system.
Although there are still urgent transportation, housing, and resiliency challenges in the region, the interconnected network of transit means that any improvement in one area can benefit the entire system, said Wright.
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- https://www.mcall.com/2023/01/25/after-years-of-delays-and-11-billion-grand-central-annex-opens-in-new-york-city/
- https://fortune.com/2023/01/26/grand-central-long-island-rail-road-terminal-opens-delays-11-billion/
- https://www.archpaper.com/2023/02/lirr-grand-central-madison-opens-years-delays-billions-cost-overruns/