page_title: Second Avenue Subway
section_title: Phase 1 construction
hierarchical_section_title: Second Avenue Subway / History / Phase 1 construction
caption_attribution_description: First riders aboard the Second Avenue Subway on January 1, 2017. Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin
context_page_description: The Second Avenue Subway is a New York City Subway line that runs under Second Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. The first phase of this new line, with three new stations on Manhattan's Upper East Side, opened on January 1, 2017. The full Second Avenue Line, if and when it is funded, will be built in three more phases to eventually connect Harlem–125th Street in Harlem to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan. The proposed full line would be 8.5 miles and 16 stations long, serve a projected 560,000 daily riders, and cost more than $17 billion.
  The line was originally proposed in 1920 as part of a massive expansion of what would become the Independent Subway System. In anticipation of the Second Avenue Subway being built to replace them, parallel elevated lines along Second Avenue and Third Avenue were demolished in 1942 and 1955, respectively, despite several factors causing plans for the Second Avenue Subway to be cancelled. Construction on the line finally began in 1972 as part of the Program for Action, but was halted in 1975 because of the city's fiscal crisis, leaving only a few short segments of tunnels completed.
context_section_description: New York voters passed a transportation bond issue on November 8, 2005, allowing for dedicated funding allocated for that phase. Its passage had been seen as critical to its construction, but the bond was passed only by a narrow margin, with 55% of voters approving and 45% disapproving. At the time, the MTA said that the project would be done in 2012 in case the city's 2012 Summer Olympics bid succeeded, which it had not. On December 18, 2006, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced that they would allow the MTA to commit up to $693 million in funds to begin construction of the Second Avenue Subway and that the federal share of such costs would be reimbursed with FTA transit funds, subject to appropriations and final labor certification. The USDOT also later gave $1.3 billion in federal funding for the project's first phase, to be funded over a seven-year period. Preliminary engineering and a final tunnel design was completed by a joint venture between AECOM and Arup.
  On March 20, 2007, upon completion of preliminary engineering, the MTA awarded a contract for constructing the tunnels, a launch box for the tunnel boring machine (TBM), and access shafts to S3, a joint venture of Schiavone Construction, Skanska USA Civil, and J.F. Shea Construction. A ceremonial groundbreaking took place on April 12, 2007, at the 99th Street tunnel segment built in the 1970s. Actual construction work began on April 23, 2007, with the relocation of utility pipes, wires, and other infrastructure, which took 14 months.
  At the time, it was announced that passengers would be able to ride trains on the new line by the end of 2013.  Due to cost increases, several features of the subway were cut back soon after construction started. Notably, the 72nd Street Station was truncated from a three-track, two-platform design to a two-track, single island platform design, paired with a simplification of the connection to the Broadway Line spur. This design change was done before the actual construction started. The MTA also pushed back its completion date to 2014. In its 2008 capital improvement budget proposal, the MTA further postponed completion of Phase 1 to 2015, and in 2009, the MTA rescheduled it again to 2016.
  In 2009, contracts were awarded for the 96th Street station box, as well as for excavation around the 86th Street stations. The TBM began boring the western tunnel southward from 96th Street in 2010. Subsequent contracts for tunnels to the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station, and for the excavation of the 72nd Street station, were awarded in 2010. The following year, contracts were awarded for excavation of the cavern at the 86th Street station, as well as construction for the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station. The TBM, digging at a rate of approximately 50 feet (15 m) per day, finished its run at the planned endpoint under 65th Street on February 5, 2011, and subsequently started digging the eastern tunnel. On March 28, 2011, S3, having completed its task of completing the 7,200-foot (2,200 m) west tunnel to 65th Street, began drilling the east tunnel to the bellmouth at the existing Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station. The portion of the west tunnel remaining to be created was then mined using conventional drill-and-blast methods. On September 22, 2011, the TBM completed its run to the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station's bellmouth.
  The MTA opened a Second Avenue Subway Community Information Center for Phase 1 on July 25, 2013. It was located at 1628 Second Avenue between 84th and 85th Streets, near the line's 86th Street station. In the three years that followed, the center was visited over 20,000 times.
  The final contract for the entire Phase 1 area was awarded on June 1, 2013.  Blasting for the station caverns was finished in November 2013, and the muck houses were taken down at around the same time.  In the winter of 2013, many of the tracks and signal panels began to arrive at the construction site, to be installed on the line over the next few years.
  On February 24, 2016, the MTA allocated $66 million 
caption: Opening day at 86th Street
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