A decades-delayed dedication to increase the subway into East Harlem took a major step ahead Monday when the MTA board permitted a $1.9 billion contract for the following part of development on the Second Avenue Subway.
Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared alongside MTA officers at a gathering of the transit company’s board to tout the “transformational” plan to carry the Q line to one hundred and twenty fifth Road — greater than 80 years after the elevated line that ran above Second Avenue went out of service.
“This is long overdue,” Hochul stated. “I don’t know if there’s too many people in this room [who were] alive when they first started talking about this.”
The primary part of the Second Avenue Subway opened in 2017 with three new Higher East Facet stations. The subsequent part will carry Q-line stations to 106, 116th and one hundred and twenty fifth streets. The development will contain boring a brand new tunnel north from 116th Road and make use of an present underground section at one hundred and tenth Road that has been mothballed for half a century.
Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks throughout an MTA board assembly in Harlem about increasing the Second Avenue Subway line to East one hundred and twenty fifth Road, Aug. 18, 2025. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
The three East Harlem stations are anticipated to serve 110,000 commuters. That’s on prime of the 200,000 already served by Q stations at 63rd, 72nd, 86th and 96th streets, whose riders beforehand relied closely on buses or on the native and categorical subway strains beneath Lexington Avenue, that are the busiest within the metropolis.
At bus stops alongside Second Avenue in East Harlem, riders stated they have been hopeful that the long-promised subway line will finally permit them to shift underground or keep away from lengthy walks to the 4, 5 and 6 line stations just a few blocks away on Lexington Avenue.
“If a station is nearby, I can easily access the subway,” stated Yakeline Espinoza, 21, who was ready for a southbound M15 together with her 10-month-old son at Second Avenue and East 116th Road cease. “It would make a big difference because we want to go places, but we have to walk so far to the other stations or take a bus.”
Jesse Mangual, 28, stated having new stations with elevators alongside Second Avenue could be a boon for older East Harlem residents who depend on the subway.
“It’s good for the older people who can’t walk four blocks over to Lexington Avenue,” he stated. “So it’s good for the neighborhood, it’s a positive.”
Lengthy Time Coming
The Second Avenue Subway was initially proposed in 1929.
“For the people of East Harlem, the time of promises is over,” Hochul stated. “We are moving down the tracks as quickly as we possibly can.”
The MTA awarded the primary of 4 contracts on what is anticipated to be a $7.7 billion northern enlargement of the Q line in January 2024, for the relocation of underground utilities prematurely of development on a brand new 106th Road cease.
A portion of the dear enlargement venture shall be paid for with funds generated by congestion pricing, the Manhattan vehicle-tolling plan that launched in January south of sixtieth Road and which the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to terminate.
“Send our friends in Washington a message — it is working,” Hochul stated of the automobile tolls. “And we know that traffic is down and business is up and people are happy. I’m really happy that we stuck with it.”
Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and chief government, credited Hochul for getting on board with congestion pricing and in addition for championing one other mass transit enlargement venture, the proposed Interborough Categorical line connecting Brooklyn and Queens.
“You have put us in a position where the MTA is about to embark on some of the most ambitious change-making investments in all of our history and in New York’s history,” Lieber stated. “Nothing could be more representative than this [Second Avenue] project.”
The MTA launched renderings exhibiting the deliberate one hundred and twenty fifth Road terminal for the Second Avenue Subway, Aug. 18, 2025. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
The affect on commuters from the stretch of the road that opened in 2017 was felt from the day it opened, officers stated.
“It changed people’s lives who get to use that and don’t have to hoof it all the way to [Lexington Avenue],” Lieber stated. “It also spread out the crowding issue on the Lex line, which is a huge capacity improvement for our system.”
Time and Cash
The most recent contract is being awarded to Join Plus Companions, a three way partnership between contracting corporations Halmar Worldwide and FCC Building. MTA officers stated the contracting construction is designed to economize and to keep away from among the issues that plagued the primary part of the road, the place a number of contractors labored on the identical station.
“They ran into each other again and again and again and it created delay after delay, and cost after cost,” Lieber stated. “That’s been eliminated.”
Early work on constructing the brand new tunnel to one hundred and twenty fifth Road will start later this yr, the MTA stated, with heavy development coming beginning early subsequent yr and 750-ton boring machines anticipated to start pushing north in 2027. Officers stated the MTA will save an estimated $100 million by decreasing prices on tunnel development and using smaller work crews.
“It is complex and it’s going to take some time and some money,” Hochul stated, pledging that huge transportation initiatives will finally be a “hallmark of success” for her administration.
MTA officers stated {that a} “handful of properties” alongside the route should nonetheless be obtained for the subway extension, however famous that the method has been a lot smoother than in the course of the preliminary stretch of the Second Avenue line.
“Property acquisition was frequently a cause of schedule delay,” Lieber stated. “And we are way, way ahead of where that project was in terms of acquisition.”
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