Community Corner
Second Ave Subway Extension To Get $3.4B Grant From Feds
The massive $3.4 billion grant is set to fund the extension of the Q train line to 125th St., officials said Tuesday.
HARLEM, NY - $3.4 billion in federal dollars from the Biden administration are poised to be funneled to the second phase of the Second Avenue Subway Extension project, which would expand the Q train line from 96th to 125th streets, Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Adriano Espaillat announced Tuesday.
The grant, allocated from the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grants program, would be the largest grant in the history of the program, Schumer said, surpassing both the $6.8 billion grant for the Phase One Hudson Tunnel Project (two new tunnels connecting New Jersey to New York Penn Station) and the $2.63 billion Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) East Side Access to Grand Central Terminal to the MTA.
The full funding grant agreement is now under congressional review.
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“Phase II of the Second Avenue Subway is going to bring us one big step closer to achieving transportation equity in New York; ensuring East Harlem has greater access to jobs, health care and other essential services, while reducing congestion and improving air quality,” Schumer and Espaillat said in a joint statement. “100,000 new riders will benefit from the nearly 2 miles of new track, 6 new stations, and one completely refurbished station as a result of this investment.”
The FTA grant will fund about half of the cost of the second phase of the Second Avenue Subway extension, which is projected to cost about $7.7 billion. The property acquisition process for the project has already started, and construction will begin by the end of this year, amNewYork reported.
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Work on the line is estimated to wrap within seven to eight years.
More than 300,000 riders will benefit from the line daily upon completion and will foster economic growth in the East Harlem area, the pair said; tens of thousands of “good-paying union jobs” will also stem from the project.
Phase one of the extension project, which cost $4.6 billion, finished in 2017 with the Q train extension to 96th Street on the Upper East Side.
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