Posted on Thursday February 4th by The Infrastructurist | 2,529
What do you see if you go 100 feet directly below New York’s Grand Central Station? WNYC has put together an impressive gallery of pics offering a sneak peek inside the construction of the MTA’s new commuter rail terminal, which is scheduled for completion in 2016. When it’s finished, the system will connect four out of eight Long Island Railroad tunnels, sending them to a central hub in the West Wing of Grand Central Terminal.
Image Courtesy WNYC
February 4th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
It looks like a great first person shooter game.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Definitely would be Dallas.
I saw many of the pics over the past day or so on other sites. I am very happy that these things are much more available to us these days. And yes, 2016 is a long way away, but this is going to do a whole lot more than just allow LIRR into GCT. This will also allow some MNRR into Penn Station via the Hell Gate Bridge. That will then open up peak hour slots in the Park Avenue Tunnel on the MNRR lines heading north.
This will really increase service throughout the MTA regions.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
“When it’s finished, the system will connect four out of eight Long Island Railroad tunnels…”
Can someone explain to me what this sentence means? I thought there was one 2-track tunnel coming into Grand Central from Queens.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
The whisper completion date is 2019, not 2016, but we can dream. The principal downside is that a passenger disembarking at GCT is 170 feet below the surface, probably trying hard not to think about that, and having a long way up to get out, which adds to the all in time to the trip, whereas your Metro North trains are just a few feet under the surface.
I also have no idea what that four out of eight sentence means. It could be a garbled reference to lines. The Jamaica and Port Wash lines will have trains into GCT, but some LIRR lines won’t I guess, requiring a Jamaica transfer.
I just wonder who the heck is going to wind up stuck on the remaining LIRR trains to Penn. Virtually no one works near Penn, and GCT should be the destination of choice for most Long Island commuters. even with the awfully long trip out of the cavern to the surface.
February 4th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Virtually no one works near Penn
Then what are they doing in all those office buildings near Penn Station, like, oh, the Empire State Building?
February 4th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
170 feet is not some dark and unspeakable depth full of molemen and hellspawn.
The deepest station in the Moscow Metro is 270 feet underground and the deepest one with an escalator in DC is 230 feet. You can’t tell.
February 4th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
цarьchitect, I’ve been in the deep DC stations. There are signs telling people not to sit down, but since the elevator ride takes over 2 minutes, people do (and read their papers).
You can tell that it’s taking quite a while to get up….but it’s also really cool.
February 4th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
escalator ride time*travelers per day*365 is 100,000s of hours that could otherwise be productive, instead you’ll be waiting on the escalator thinking how it would be faster to be in a car on a rush hour 20 mph clogged highway.
Rail transit is supposed to be faster than the clogged roads, instead politicians do deep tunnels and make rail transit slower than clogged road just convincing people to use the roads. If it takes 8 minutes to go from street to train platform times 2, why use the train unless you going 10s and 10s of minutes long ride on the train? The bus/taxi/car will be faster.
Every rail project in NYC in the last 30 years has been a failure. 63rd Tunnel, ARC, SAS, EAS. I would rather walk to the overcrowded Lexington Avenue subway than go down 15 flights of stairs on escalators on the future SAS, any New Yorker can go use the 63rd street tunnel line to see how much of their life they will waste standing on escalators. Any LIRR to Fulton Street Transportation Center project (which will never happen at this point, since the WTC site will be built over, and going back is not an option), I bet will again use deep tunnel boring with a 10 minute escalator ride.
They can do eminent domain for Atlantic Yards and PRIVATE Columbia’s expansion, but they can’t do eminent domain or close a street for through traffic for a year for cut and cover that will save 100 million hours over the transportation infrastructure’s lifespan (3[minutes saved on escalator]*50000[passengers per day]*365*100[lifetime years of station]*(1/60)). Amazing.
Deep tunnel rail systems are the no outlet suburban cul-de-sacs of the public transit world.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:33 am
Not sure about other cities, but the protocol on Washington Metro escalators is to walk on the left and stand your fat lazy ass to the right. Hike up the Rosslyn Metro escalator and you have just taken your trip to the gym for the day. I guess the real whiners take the elevator…
February 5th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
There are other deep stations in NYC and surrounding areas. Examples would include the subway stations in Brooklyn Heights, and Exchange Place on the PATH line. In fact a couple stations in Brooklyn Heights are accessible only by elevator. Imagine how much fun rush hour is in those suckers, especially as the elevators always seem to have operating issues. Those stations, I think, are closer to the surface than this new station will be, and are a royal pain to get out of. It just inescapably adds time to one’s commute.
There are certainly jobs around the Penn Station area, but nothing approaching what’s in the area of Grand Central. Not even close. Penn Station area has some large buildings, some big retail and the garment district. GCT area is row upon row of 50 storey office towers in all directions. No comparison. I’m hardly making a unique observation, what I’m describing is a principal justification for the project in the first place.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
There are more jobs near GCT than near Penn Station, but it’s not as clear-cut as you think. Wikipedia’s article on ESA says 36% of Midtown jobs used by LIRR commuters are located within walking distance of Penn and 70% are within walking distance of GCT. It means many but not all trains should go to GCT.
The deep-level construction adds a few minutes, yes. It’s a problem at the 168th, 181st, and 191st Street stations on the 1, too, and even at the much shallower stations of the 7. And yes, it would have been far easier for commuters and for operational simplicity to send ESA to the existing subsurface GCT, which has 63 tracks more than a station with its traffic level needs.
I refuse to be as worked out about ESA as about ARC, because a) the cost overruns are much less severe, b) it’s a done deal, and c) there’s little potential for through-routing at GCT if the shallow option is exercised. On my fantasy regional rail map, I even leave ESA as a deep-level project venting LIRR trains; there’s large enough a demand mismatch between the LIRR and the NJT trains it should be paired with that it makes sense to have a large number of LIRR trains terminate in Manhattan.
February 8th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
36% of Midtown jobs used by LIRR commuters are located within walking distance of Penn and 70% are within walking distance of GCT. It means many but not all trains should go to GCT.
Maybe not. How many commuters are going to jobs that aren’t within walking distance of either?
ESA to the existing subsurface GCT, which has 63 tracks more than a station with its traffic level needs.
Grand Central has more than enough platforms for any scenario, it was designed so people could board their sleeping car hours before departure or arrive in the dead of night and leave their sleeping car at 7:00. Even in a scenario where airplanes are banned the sleeping car trains would be arriving or departing late at night or early in the morning.
They’ve been talking about this for 40 years. I’m sure in 40 years lots of people have looked at bringing LIRR trains into the existing platforms. None of the alternatives I’ve stumbled across over the years use the existing platforms. Unfortunately the 63rd St. tunnels are too deep for trains to make it to the existing platforms or too far south whichever way you want to look at it. The time to propose your plan to use the existing platforms was sometime in the 70s before they started the tunnel.