A Deep Dive Into New York's East Side Access Project

New York City and scores of other cities are largely known for their iconic skylines but the future of many urban hubs including the Big Apple may be underground as real-estate suitable for infrastructure projects becomes more and more scarce one such project underway in New York the massive east side access project will link the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal providing faster and easier access to the East Side of Manhattan the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says he said access is a concept started in 1960s when a master plan was envisioned to bring the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan but that vision was a long time in coming the project was put on hold in part due to the economic turmoil the 70s it wasn't until the early 2000s that the design of the whole system finally began to take shape to connect LIRR trains to Manhattan the project would take advantage of a tunnel previously finished in 1989 that runs under the East River from Queens and enters Manhattan around 63rd Street the project required construction of about 8 miles worth of tunneling in Queens in Manhattan while being careful not to cause too much disruption to the city above-ground Queens is the home of the herald interlocking that carries 750 plus train movements a day and happen we had to be under traffic under and the Metro North the bulk of this subterranean expansion was possible thanks to massive machinery that can bore through rock and soil marking a radical evolution from the tunneling methods used when the city's first subway lines were built in the early 1900s if you look at our subway system it is very shallow in New York there's all cotton cover it means they came from above they dug a ditch and they they put walls and they put a topping and then they and here you are Donald boring machines it's startling the 50s change dramatically the safety in speed the efficiency of getting panels done and depending on the quality of the rock you can do 50 60 70 100 feet a day and they you know any scenario in the past you could have done that tunnel boring machines or TBMs are gigantic the largest ones are about 850 feet in length the TBM is used for the east side access project were about 20 feet in diameter the head itself weighing about 200 tons given the faster pace made possible by the TBMs the Manhattan tunnels were dug between the fall of 2007 fall of 2010 while in Queens tunnelling took place from January 2011 until July 2012 as the Machine chewed away at the rock one of the main challenges on the Manhattan side of the project was dealing with all the debris we brought all of the muck through the tunnels and brought it all the way into Queens we had to move 1.5 million cubic yards of muck after the TBM carved a path controlled blasts feared more space along the route then the tunnels had to be waterproofed and reinforced with concrete which presented another logistical headache for engineers is what concrete trucks to not come under ground so what we needed to do is to actually have drop points in which trucks that are coming from from concrete plants are coming there and we're pumping the concrete down into the hole and then into the proper location where it is needed well many of the Manhattan tunnels still need to be lined with concrete others are ready for tracks to be laid meanwhile the softer ground and Queens presented a different set of complications when it came to tunneling when you build in in rock like when Minetta wisdom in high conscious that self-supporting you really yes we do provide the supports we do put reinforcement but in the hole is self-supporting when you put dirt and you dig to dirt is not self-supporting to get around this challenge engineer is used a different type of TBM capable of placing specially designed prefabricated pieces of concrete along the tunnel walls as it advanced once completed the new tunnels through Manhattan's Upper East Side will carry LIRR trains to these caverns about 160 feet below street level at their lowest point projected to be finished in 2022 the three level terminal will house four platforms on two levels able to accommodate eight trains at a time 47 escalators and 22 elevators will help carry passengers up to the Grand Central concourses day one will have over 160,000 people that will come for the Long Island Railroad at the lower level today Grand Central is servicing about 750,000 people when we bring another 160 we'll be well over 900 thousand daily passengers in Grand Central because this is in effect the next Grand Central

Channel: The Wall Street Journal

Views: 984,358

Keywords: Michael Horodniceanu, Denise Blostein, EAST SIDE ACCESS, HAROLD INTERLOCKING, GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, LONG ISLAND RAILROAD, MTA CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION, TUNNEL BORING MACHINES, HERRENKNECHT, ROBBINS, Tunnel Construction, Transport, United States, North America, New York City, New York State

Id: epd3j2DWWYU

Length: 5min 37sec (337 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2016