MTA approves $2B Second Avenue Subway contract

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials voted Monday to spend nearly $2 billion to extend the Second Avenue Subway to East Harlem.

The MTA Board held a special meeting Monday to approve the $1.972 billion contract with Connect Plus Partners, a joint venture between Halmar International and FCC Construction, to design and build the new tunnel, which will extend from 96th to 125th streets. MTA officials called it the largest tunneling contract in the transit agency's history.

Attending the meeting, Gov. Kathy Hochul said extending the Q subway line to East Harlem is "long overdue." Multiple proposals, dating back to the 1920s, to bring subway service to the community had been scrapped over the years.

"We’re creating a connection where there has not been one ever," Hochul said. "This project, hopefully, will restore people’s faith in our capacity and our desire to get those projects done."

Early work on the tunnel is expected to begin later this year, with heavy tunnel boring commencing early next year and finishing in 2027.

After nearly a century of planning, the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway was completed in 2017 at a cost of around $4.3 billion. The second phase of the project is expected to cost around $7 billion.

MTA officials said Monday they are employing several strategies to keep costs down, and to keep the project on schedule, including financial incentives for contractors to meet deadlines, and penalties if they don’t.

"We have taken steps to make sure that we do deliver this project on schedule," Lieber told reporters following the meeting. He said the new strategies mean “this project can move much more quickly and deliver for a ton of people who are way, way overdue to get mass transit access.”

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.