Grand Central’s $11BN Underground Expansion

[Music] you might not know if you walked by but one of the largest transportation projects in the u.s has been happening right here [Music] 14 stories below manhattan for the last 15 years construction crews have been blasting boring and building an entirely new terminal beneath the iconic grand central all without shutting down service the east side access project is the largest new train terminal to be built in the u.s since the 1950s with 8 miles of tunneling and 40 miles of new tracks constructed in the middle of the city that never sleeps the mega project's challenges and price tag have been immense this is how new york city built some of the most expensive railway tracks on earth when grand central first opened in 1871 it served just three rail lines a number of renovations later it's now home to 44 platforms with 67 tracks and an 88 000 square foot concourse that hosts the occasional movie set the idea for the east side access project connecting the long island railroad to grand central first came about in the 1960s in 1969 construction began on a four-track double decker tunnel connecting queens in manhattan the top level was eventually used for a subway line but the bottom level has sat dormant for three decades just waiting for the east side access project's completion after a lifetime of delays and now billions over budget major construction work on the project is finally complete and the grand opening is planned for 2022 162 000 people are expected to use the new terminal every day reducing commutes by up to 40 minutes that's on top of or technically below the 750 000 who normally visit grand central each day in pre-pandemic times i was here when we had there was nothing created under underground there was no space available there was just virgin rock and now there's a city underground michael pujack has worked on this project for 19 years of his life and he's seen firsthand how complicated it is to build under some of new york's most expensive real estate one strategy they used build straight under the middle of park avenue to avoid the foundations of existing buildings uh all the work in in the underground that we built and these network of tunnels are about 150 feet below park avenue so we're deep we're down below uh the existing foundations along the alignment and we're also down below any of the active new york city transit structures that we have so we built that entire um site and excavated both the mining of the tunnels as well as the drill blast operation all from accessing through queens through the existing 63rd street tunnels roughly 3 000 blasts were done beneath the terminal to make space for the new caverns at first the crew worked around the train schedules at night scheduling blasts anywhere from one to three o'clock in the morning eventually they were allowed to blast during the day while trains continued to run above now because grand central terminal is so busy the crew couldn't bring their materials in through the street so they traveled into the site via rail lines from the bronx and queens [Music] because the geology of the tunneling points were so different two different types of tunnel boring techniques were used to create the double decker twin tunnels in manhattan you had the challenges of the hard rock you had the challenges of some sheer zones that you had to mine through as well as the blasting coordination on the queen side of the of the house you had ground treatment that had to be done and you were mining underneath an active railroad since there was no exit point for the tbm they actually pulled the machine back out the way it came and backfilled part of the tunnel with concrete in the end 1.5 million yards of rock was cleared out of the tunnels back to queens that's enough to cover the entirety of central park and then some perhaps the most complicated part of the project was expanding harold interlocking the busiest railroad junction in the country more than 700 trains pass through here every day and a series of switches enables them to move from one track to another to give the long island railroad trains access to the new terminal an entirely new interlocking needs to be built to add a third track into the mix again all without disrupting service when it opens to the public in 2022 grand central's newest terminal will feature eight new tracks four passenger platforms mezzanines a 350 000 square foot passenger concourse and 25 000 square feet of new retail space we're going to step away from this program where we're going to have enhanced a landmark like grand central with a whole city below ground that had never existed that's pretty rewarding the east side access project has been a long time in the making and as we're building anything in new york it's often just as much for political feats as it is a logistical one and we're going to finish this if i have to go down there with a shovel myself we are going to get this done so help me god throughout the decades people have questioned why the project's taken so much time and money a recent vox analysis found that the us has some of the highest costs in the world when it comes to rapid rail transit but in new york those costs are even higher at one point one of the east side access tunnels cost one million dollars per foot by the end the budget had ballooned from early estimates of 2.2 billion dollars in the late 90s to 11 billion new york's metropolitan transportation authority has said its high construction costs can be explained in part because of aging utilities expensive land strict regulations and a high density rail work in new york city is far from over the 11.6 billion hudson tunnel project on the other side of manhattan has been trying to get off the ground or rather through the ground for years and the subway system is in need of repair across the network we're not sure this new terminal will be as iconic as the one upstairs but building a massive new bit of infrastructure like this under one of the world's busiest cities is no small accomplishment and if you ever find yourself strolling down park avenue through the rows of luxury buildings just know that the most expensive property might actually be below your fee this video was made possible by bluebeam learn more at the link below and as always if you enjoyed this video and would like to get more from the definitive video channel for construction subscribe to the b1m [Music] [Music]

Channel: The B1M

Views: 1,194,967

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, new york, new york city, nyc, grand central, mta, subway, park avenue, east side access, amtrak, harold interlocking, railways, train station, infrastructure, manhattan, grand central station, Cuomo, Little Island, World Trade Center, Joe Biden, US infrastructure

Id: 7KvklU1Ny7g

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/DJanomaly]

Wow. Talk about a monumental undertaking. I live on the west coast so I had no idea this was even going on (we have a number of rail lines currently under construction here in southern california though).