Major construction on the $11 billion East Side Access project is complete, with a grand opening planned for next year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday.
The project connects the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal through a new 350,000-square-foot concourse.
It’s an ambitious transit project that began nearly 15 years ago, designed to help thousands of commuters heading into Manhattan from Queens and Long Island.
Cuomo toured the new platforms and tunnels, which are located four stories beneath Grand Central Terminal.
“It harkens back to Grand Central Station, but it is actually more spacious, there is more light, there is more openness," Cuomo said during the tour.
The project includes four passenger platforms, accommodating eight trains at a time for a total of 24 trains per hour. The new concourses stretch eight blocks underground, north from 42nd St.
Construction included eight new miles of tunnels and 40 miles of new track, which will also serve as a way to get out of Manhattan, in case of an emergency.
“This provides that backup capacity that Long Island’s three million people deserve at this stage in history," Janno Lieber, president of MTA construction & development. "And that’s what this East Side Access project does in addition to the expanded capacity.”
First conceived more than 50 years ago, and now running far over budget, the project is finally coming to completion.
We asked if people will be working in offices in Manhattan the way they did before the pandemic, since the project was planned long before people started working remotely.
“I think in large part we don’t know, Cuomo said. "And on large part it depends on what we do. Businesses like to sit around the table and bounce ideas off each other. Just make it possible and make it attractive. That’s what this is all about.”
The project also includes a billion dollars-worth of improvements to the railroad junction in Queens, which is among the busiest in the country.
“When you put the East Side Access together with what we’re doing on the Long Island Rail Road second track and third track, and new stations, it is redesigning the entire Long Island Rail Road experience,” Cuomo said. “Which is very important, because Long Island is part of this economy and making that commute work is vitally important.”
Cuomo also says riders will be able to travel from Grand Central to JFK Airport in about 40 minutes.