East Side Access

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Overview map of the East Side Access project
Construction progress in Manhattan Station - cavern in February 2013
The Manhattan Station Cavern in January 2014

East Side Access is an infrastructure project that the New York Station Grand Central Terminal to the railway network of the Long Iceland Railroad will connect.

Project goals

Currently, trains on Long Island Rail Road, whose catchment area is the boroughs of Queens and the suburbs on Long Island , only have one stop in Manhattan , Penn Station on the West Side . This means that commuters who work on Manhattan's East Side will have to switch to the subway or other transportation and return to their place of work on the east side of the city. Alternatively, you can change to the subway in Queens. One of the main goals of the project is therefore to reduce the travel time for commuters from the east of the city.

Another goal is to relieve the existing railway tunnels under the East River and Penn Station, which are used by Amtrak , New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road.

The indirect project goals are to make local public transport in New York City and the region more attractive in order to reduce road traffic and the associated air pollution and to increase the region's economic performance.

Project description

The East Side Access Project consists of creating a branch from the Long Island Railroad at the level of the Sunnyside Railyards in Queens and then leading the route underground to the west to an existing tunnel under the East River . Part of the tunnel is used by the New York subway for the F line and reaches Manhattan at 63rd Street. From there, a new tunnel will be dug southwards along Park Avenue under the existing tunnel systems of the Metro-North Railroad to the Grand Central Terminal. A new train station with eight tracks will be built under the Grand Central Terminal and connected to the existing train station complex by escalators.

The New York City Transportation Authority , the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , is the sponsor of the project. Commissioning is scheduled for December 2022. The project will cost an estimated $ 10 billion.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Official website of the East Side Access Project
  2. ↑ MTACC Quarterly Progress Report to Capital Program Oversight Committee (CPOC): East Side Access. (pdf) MTA Capital Construction Company, March 24, 2014, accessed April 25, 2014 .