NEW YORK — Looking to take the Long Island Rail Road to New York City’s new commuter rail station for the holiday season? Well, that doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
Despite a long-standing promise to open in December, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said Grand Central Madison won’t debut on time after all. That’s because testing of the safety system hasn’t yet been completed, according to Jamie Torres-Springer, MTA’s president of construction and development.
“As outlined at the MTA board meeting last week, the opening of Grand Central Madison and Long Island Rail Road GCM service is contingent upon the completion of system testing, consistent with our commitment to safety. A “The particular area in the 700,000-square-foot terminal requires additional work that will take more than a few days. Given the logistics of completing tests and launch service, we have informed MTA President Janno Lieber that the terminal will not be opening this week.” Torres-Springer said in a statement.
So when will the expensive new expansion open? Torres-Springer said the transit authority is targeting a January debut.
This means that for those who have been waiting (and waiting and waiting…) for the new station on the east side of Midtown Manhattan, the wait will be a little longer.
The Federal Railroad Administration announced in November that it has approved the project that will connect Long Island Rail Road to a new station near Grand Central Terminal, providing direct LIRR service to a new concourse under the established transit hub.
The MTA said the $11 billion project will increase service on the LIRR by 41 percent, adding about 274 trains each weekday. The morning peak could go from 113 trains to 158 and the afternoon peak from 98 trains to 158. A new train timetable should be released soon.
In April, our sister chain Nbc New York had an exclusive look inside the project terminal which will allow LIRR riders to make shorter journeys. Located hundreds of feet below Grand Central, the new terminal aims to bring 60 percent more traffic to Manhattan from Long Island during rush hour, with the added benefit of reducing congestion at Penn Station during rush hour.
“The physical facility is nearly complete,” said MTA President Janno Lieber News 4 at the moment, adding that the end is in sight.
Crews had already polished columns, tested fire alarms and powered the control room in one of the largest infrastructure projects in history. Big spending pays off, according to Lieber.
“The value of that lost time is many, many millions,” he said at the time.
The construction is one of the largest transportation infrastructure projects completed in the United States in recent years, according to the MTA. It is the largest new railroad terminal built in the United States since the 1950s and the LIRR’s first expansion in over 100 years.
The project includes works at multiple locations in Manhattan and Queens and includes more than eight miles of tunnels. It will carry all 11 branches of the LIRR through a new East River tunnel with a final destination under the current Grand Central. This new route will save valuable time for travelers heading to the East Side.
“This is the first time in 30 years that we’ve audited the schedules [del LIRR]LIRR President Cathy Rinaldi said.
The project is one component of the larger LIRR system expansion to help reduce commuter congestion, rail congestion and automobile traffic, and to provide connections to regional transportation such as Metro Northern Railway and the dungeons of New York Transit. East Side Access will also reduce train and passenger congestion at New York Penn Station and nearby subway stations.
The project will double the number of LIRR trains in Manhattan to up to 24 trains per hour, reducing travel time by 40 minutes, according to Cuomo. He said travelers will now have two stations to enter.
The new project will also allow people to get to JFK from Grand Central in 40 minutes.
The Manhattan Concourse includes a 350,000 square foot LIRR passenger concourse just below street level in the Grand Central area that will offer new entrances along Avenue Madison, 25 retail stores, Wi-Fi and cellular service, new art installations and digital signage with real-time train information. Entry is expected at 347 Avenue Madison that is being built 45th street as part of the renovation of the old MTA headquarters, it serves 10,000 people a day.
At the end, East side access, which has been in the works for years and is expected to serve about 162,000 customers a day, according to the MTA.
“When I arrived at the MTA in 2018, one of my first actions was to do a major overhaul of East side access”said Janno Lieber, president of MTA Construction and Development. “We focused on this project, expressing confidence in its fundamentals but reviewing the way we were doing it. In the past, when faced with challenges, the response was to postpone the project completion date. We wrapped it up and committed that this project would be completed in 2022 as promised”.
