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After decades of delays, the bulk of construction at the East Side Access project is completed, with the concourses scheduled to be opened up by December 2022, the governor announced, marking the first time LIRR riders will be connected directly to the East Side in Manhattan.
The project includes eight new tracks for the station and includes improvements to help ease the rush at Penn Station, making it easier to get to different parts of Manhattan directly.
According to officials, this marks “the biggest transit project underway in North America,” who noted that the 350,000-square-foot facility is the “first time anyone’s built an eight-track rail in the US since the 1950s.”
It is estimated that the new project could reduce commutes into Manhattan by at least 40 minutes, and included more than eight miles of underground tunneling. Approximately 162,000 travelers are expected to make use of the new tracks daily, officials said.
“East Side Access is an integral component of the broader LIRR system expansion initiative to help reduce passenger crowding, train congestion, and automobile traffic, and to provide connections with additional regional transportation options such as Metro-North Railroad and New York City Transit subways,” officials stated.
“East Side Access will also alleviate train and passenger congestion at New York Penn Station and its neighboring subway stations,” they added. “Passengers traveling from Midtown East will enjoy easier access to JFK International Airport via the AirTrain at LIRR’s Jamaica Station.”
Cuomo called the $11 billion project connecting the LIRR to Grand Central “audacious,” and said it will “change the entire regional transportation system.”
“The idea is, the trains from Long Island would change tracks at the Harold Interlocking, and there's a set of tracks that then go from Queens, through a new tunnel under the river and into Grand Central Terminal,” he said.
He noted that the construction at Harold Interlocking, the tunnels coming from Queens, and the concourses at Grand Central are all complete. All that remains is systems work, including electrical systems.
“It's going to open up next year. It brings back double the number of LIRR trains into Manhattan. It means you can come into the east side of Manhattan as opposed to going to Penn and then having to come all the way back to the east side,” he said. “It reduces the commute time by 40 minutes.
“You now have two stations that you can go into,” Cuomo added. “When you put the east side access together with what we're doing on the Long Island Railroad second track and third track and new stations, it is redesigning the entire Long Island Railroad experience.”
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