CBS2 Exclusive: Drone Tour Shows Progress In Second Avenue Subway Project
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Progress is well under way on the Second Avenue Subway, and "CBS This Morning" recently brought in the first drone ever allowed inside the subway system to capture the massive scale of the project.
As CBS News' Don Dahler reported Wednesday, 10 stories underground, nearly two miles of track have been laid. Air-tempered train platforms have been built, and three cavernous stations are taking shape.
The work is about 85 percent complete.
"The next 15 percent are probably the toughest one to accomplish, because we're talking about integrating a brand new line with something that goes back 100 years," said Metropolitan Transportation Authority Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu.
Horodniceanu oversees the project for the MTA. Dahler noted to him that for many New Yorkers, the project seems like it has been going on for 100 years. And actually, in terms of how far the plans for a Second Avenue Subway go back, they're not far off.
"I have been told that I am at least 86 years behind," Horodniceanu said with a laugh.
"CBS This Morning" hired a drone company to survey the progress. A pilot flew the drone into the subway and observed the active construction site.
The Second Avenue Subway was first proposed in the 1920s. But over the decades, funding was derailed by the Great Depression and World War II.
Later, the project was further pushed back by the financial crisis of the 1970s, and the costs of simply maintaining the world's largest subway system.
And as the delays piled up, the subway became a punchline.
On "Mad Men," set in the 1960s, a character quipped, "Believe me, when they finish the Second Avenue subway, this apartment will quadruple in value."
The MTA said Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway project, from 96th Street to 63rd Street, is on track. But the original plan had called for a subway 8 1/2 miles long that would be finished by 2020.
Philip Plotch, an assistant professor at St. Peter's University, is writing a book on the Second Avenue Subway. A former MTA planning manager, he doubts more stations will open during his lifetime.
"It's $4 1/2 billion for three stations. The whole thing, when it's done, should be about 15 stations," Plotch said. "They need another 5 or 6 billion dollars for the next phase of this project, and they don't have the money."
Horodinceanu admitted that funds are not available for Phase 2 of the project.
"We do not yet have the funds for it," he said, adding that in terms of a source for the funds, "at this point. we are actually working with the state."
Horodniceanu said he believes the state is still committed to finishing the project.
The perpetually cash-strapped MTA already has a $14 billion hole in its capital program. But Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway project is not to blame.
Unlike other huge public works such as the Big Dig in Boston of the new Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the Second Avenue Subway project is expected to come in under budget.
Right now, the East Side of Manhattan – which at 650,000 people has more residents than the entire city of Nashville – has only the No. 4, 5 and 6 line along Lexington Avenue.
"It carries more people than the people who ride the subways in Boston and Chicago and San Francisco combined," Plothc said. "It's so crowded that when people try to get on the train, they crash into the people who are getting off the train."
Horodniceanu said the MTA is aware that the project now being worked on will serve people for maybe over 100 years.
"I'll be able to leave behind New York a little better place knowing that my grandkids will be able to use this thing," Horodniceanu said. "It's a great feeling."
