Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

Post by Baldy's Boss »

In 1942,the Second Avenue Elevated line in New York was closed because the new Second Avenue Subway was expected to be built soon.
In 1955,the Third Avenue Elevated line in New York was closed because the new Second Avenue Subway was expected to be built soon.
In the 1970s a few segments of the Second Avenue Subway were actually excavated before work was stopped in a budget crunch.

In two weeks,the first segment of the Second Avenue Subway (albeit a fraction of what was planned in the 1920s) is finally supposed to open.

Dare we hope?
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

Post by supermop »

Baldy's Boss wrote:In 1942,the Second Avenue Elevated line in New York was closed because the new Second Avenue Subway was expected to be built soon.
In 1955,the Third Avenue Elevated line in New York was closed because the new Second Avenue Subway was expected to be built soon.
In the 1970s a few segments of the Second Avenue Subway were actually excavated before work was stopped in a budget crunch.

In two weeks,the first segment of the Second Avenue Subway (albeit a fraction of what was planned in the 1920s) is finally supposed to open.

Dare we hope?
I'll believe it when I ride it. Unfortunately It seems it will still be another 20 or so years until it makes its way down to Chinatown, by which point I doubt I'll be living there...
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

Post by Baldy's Boss »

supermop wrote:
Baldy's Boss wrote:In 1942,the Second Avenue Elevated line in New York was closed because the new Second Avenue Subway was expected to be built soon.
In 1955,the Third Avenue Elevated line in New York was closed because the new Second Avenue Subway was expected to be built soon.
In the 1970s a few segments of the Second Avenue Subway were actually excavated before work was stopped in a budget crunch.

In two weeks,the first segment of the Second Avenue Subway (albeit a fraction of what was planned in the 1920s) is finally supposed to open.

Dare we hope?
I'll believe it when I ride it. Unfortunately It seems it will still be another 20 or so years until it makes its way down to Chinatown, by which point I doubt I'll be living there...
Ten days now until revenue service is supposed to begin on Phase 1.
Phase 2 is now supposed to cost $6,000,000,000+ to get 30 blocks further uptown and they may have to abandon the existing tunnel work.
Then Phase 3 south to Houston.
South of there is Phase 4.
Someone commenting on Second Avenue Sagas suggested it will open in 2200...
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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To be honest, 6 billion for 30 blocks of new subway in Manhattan in the current day sounds pretty reasonably priced. I believe that most existing right of way excavated for it will not be used, as it is cheaper to bore everything at a lower level in bedrock now than move all of the utilities to build under the street and connect to existing provision at the 2nd Avenue/LES and Grand Street stations. (Chrystie St line was built with 4 tracks, to integrate with the 2nd av subway. At Grand street, the outer 'local' tracks that would serve the 2nd avenue line are behind walls on the platform, and not connected to anything. At 2nd avenue, the provision is for the 2nd avenue line to pass above the 6th avenue track, just under the street, and the construction of the mezzanine and platform ceiling shows a conspicuous boxed in area for this. Rumor has it that this part was back-filled in the 70s when it became apparent that the rest of the line would not be built for several more decades. Bringing a new bored tunnel up to the level of these existing platform spaces would be much more expensive and impractical that just continuing the tunnel boring machine all the way downtown in solid Manhattan bedrock.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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supermop wrote:To be honest, 6 billion for 30 blocks of new subway in Manhattan in the current day sounds pretty reasonably priced. I believe that most existing right of way excavated for it will not be used, as it is cheaper to bore everything at a lower level in bedrock now than move all of the utilities to build under the street and connect to existing provision at the 2nd Avenue/LES and Grand Street stations. (Chrystie St line was built with 4 tracks, to integrate with the 2nd av subway. At Grand street, the outer 'local' tracks that would serve the 2nd avenue line are behind walls on the platform, and not connected to anything. At 2nd avenue, the provision is for the 2nd avenue line to pass above the 6th avenue track, just under the street, and the construction of the mezzanine and platform ceiling shows a conspicuous boxed in area for this. Rumor has it that this part was back-filled in the 70s when it became apparent that the rest of the line would not be built for several more decades. Bringing a new bored tunnel up to the level of these existing platform spaces would be much more expensive and impractical that just continuing the tunnel boring machine all the way downtown in solid Manhattan bedrock.
It is not cheaper to bore everything at a lower level. If you TBM everything you can only bid out contracts to the same few highly specialized contractors who take the government to the cleaners on every construction contract. Any money saved by not needing to relocate utilities is easily consumed by complete dependence on escalator and elevator banks, needing elaborate waterproofing and extensive ventilation plant. In short TBMs are used for everything because all other concerns are outweighed by the political cost of inconveniencing anyone at all however mildly.

Cut and cover is simpler and cheaper and as an added bonus the work can be subdivided into smaller contracts that can be accomplished by much more general firms thereby removing the total leverage mega-contractors have over subway projects.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

Post by JamieLei »

Issue however is that the MTA is a public body and therefore accountable to the public. I agree with your sentiments that cut-and-cover is much cheaper, but at the end of the day it's not about what's cheapest; it's about what is most acceptable to the public. It's not just those who live above it; also those who use that ground. Several tram construction projects here (ie: Edinburgh, Birmingham) have been controversial because of the disruption to local businesses.

Crossrail (in London) has similar issues, in that it's being constructed with absolutely minimal disruption possible; 'keyhole surgery in the heart of London'. It's incredible how few ground-level construction sites there are. But obviously this raises the cost substantially, as well as the added problem that there wasn't (until today) a tunnel-boring skill set in the construction workers of Britain.

Sadly in the west we're not in a world where we can simply dig up roads that have very heavy use and tell people, 'just get on with it'. That's China!
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Bad news then because the gov't here is contracting them chinese to build HSL... :?

But on the point of TBM : Yes TBM isn't something cheap. But I suppose people would mind if there were elevated railways on top of the roads instead ? (but elevated ways seems to be cheaper than tunnel, most projects here uses them, well granted it's not that aesthetically pleasing...)
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

Post by JamieLei »

The other problem with elevated metro lines is that the secondary planning benefits are poor for two reasons: they generally encourage or restrict lines to wide road corridors, and they don't help with placemaking.

To explain the first part about road corridors, elevated metros still need quite a large land footprint even though its in the air. The easiest way to do this is by sticking it in the median of a major road, which then means that your railway is restricted to following a major road. This is not always the most practical solution; we're not really creating any new journey opportunities. If we were to stick it in a tunnel, we have a lot more freedom about where to build the line and its associated stations.

Regarding placemaking, elevated lines generally don't help with creating a sense of place. Elevated transport; whether railway or road, tends to be noisy and cast significant shadows on the local area, which really destroys the sense of place. In monetary terms, this reduces property and land values, which for cities with fiscal devolution is a significant factor. Going full circle, the Second Avenue Subway many decades ago did indeed exist as an elevated line; it was torn down precisely because it had such negative placemaking effects.

Cities in less economically developed countries do indeed to go towards elevated lines (and generally above freeways) because they are cheaper to build, many users may not have had access to cars so there isn't as much journey duplication, and the I suspect that placemaking imperative isn't as politically important. Property values tend to be lower, so there isn't the fiscal imperative to construct as nice neighbourhoods around stations with the hope of increased local tax returns.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Well today I saw it with my own eyes! I rode the Q up to 96th from Chinatown, and was very impressed by the quality of the tunnels and track north of 63rd Street, as well as the stations. One of the first things I noticed was the relatively high speed of the train between the new stations. In addition to good new track, the spacing of stations seems optimal for the train to get up to speed, while still ensuring decent coverage of the neighborhood. I also noticed that each of the stations has an X crossover both before and after, providing a lot of flexibility for future work disruptions. There also seems to be at least 1200ft of finished and signalled tail track north of 96th - probably enough to reach the next planned station, and store several trains off peak times.

The stations are well appointed, with great new mosaic art by renowned NYC artists. The Chuck Close portraits at 86th are my favorite. I wasted several fares at each to exit and check out the entrances. The line was full of excited riders of all types for the grand opening today - not at all just railfans. Many who've been patiently dealing with construction for years, came out to celebrate. Everyone was blown away by how nice and clean everything was compared to the subway system as a whole. When pulling into 96th, our conductor overrode the recorded announcement to call out the terminus himself, and people in my car applauded! People were taking pictures with motormen and conductors, and the MTA had many office staff on hand as volunteers explaining the new line, and handing out commemorative map pamphlets. It was an uplifting civic experience to share with my fellow New Yorkers.

As for the suggestion that cut at cover would be cheaper - I mean obviously there is a reason the state did not use it. In a undeveloped green field, of course cut and cover would be cheaper. 100 years ago, when there were almost no utilities under the street, unskilled labor was plentiful and cheap, and traffic was less of an issue, you could tear up 2nd avenue for 4 years and just force people to deal with it. That could never happen today. The disruption is bad enough just digging the start boxes for the TBMs. Today you have to spend years ahead of any dig of that size determing where every single pipe, sewer, conduit, or cable is in the ground, analysing the foundations of every adjacent building, and then move and reconnect everything affectted. Utility relocation can take more time than the actual digging. I'd be willing to bet that by the time you do all that preliminary work for 40 blocks, account for the total destruction of Street traffic on a major artery and compensate shopkeepers for years of lost business, and then hire enough labor to dig it all up, and structurally cap it, you'd be looking at much much more than 6 billion. TBM is pretty straight forward by comparison - you do the engineering, rent the machine, put it in the ground and start it going. Slow as progress might be, once it gets going it's going to happen. The problem with the cut and cover, and mining approaches to the 2nd avenue line in the past, were that each time the city got into financial trouble, it was far too tempting to fire the workers and stop construction. Metros are essentially loss making charities in the Western world - the driving intent is not to maximize profitability, but to provide as many constituents with as much service as readily as possible.

I took a ton of pictures today, I may upload a few later.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

Post by Baldy's Boss »

The tail track north of 96th Street station is a section of the aborted 1970s tunnel,where they held the formal "groundbreaking" for the current project by hammering at the south end of the segment.
But they're saying now they may have to bore at a lower level to extend service north.(106th,116,125th are the planned stations,with provision for crosstown and Bronx connections past there that are not in the current proposals).
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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supermop wrote: As for the suggestion that cut at cover would be cheaper - I mean obviously there is a reason the state did not use it. In a undeveloped green field, of course cut and cover would be cheaper. 100 years ago, when there were almost no utilities under the street, unskilled labor was plentiful and cheap, and traffic was less of an issue, you could tear up 2nd avenue for 4 years and just force people to deal with it. That could never happen today. The disruption is bad enough just digging the start boxes for the TBMs. Today you have to spend years ahead of any dig of that size determing where every single pipe, sewer, conduit, or cable is in the ground, analysing the foundations of every adjacent building, and then move and reconnect everything affectted. Utility relocation can take more time than the actual digging. I'd be willing to bet that by the time you do all that preliminary work for 40 blocks, account for the total destruction of Street traffic on a major artery and compensate shopkeepers for years of lost business, and then hire enough labor to dig it all up, and structurally cap it, you'd be looking at much much more than 6 billion.
Every subway system in the US with any decent coverage has been built with cut and cover. The construction of the DC and San Francisco subways in the late 60s and 70s cut through practically the same underground infrastructure as today. The multi decade construction times of TBM projects are ridiculous. The delays between cut and cover phases in the 60s and 70s were only a few years. The Second Avenue Subway 2nd phase is projected to be completed in 2029...
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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JamieLei wrote:The other problem with elevated metro lines is that the secondary planning benefits are poor for two reasons: they generally encourage or restrict lines to wide road corridors, and they don't help with placemaking. ...
Well, making a public transport route just where most people commute with personal vehicle can be an intended thing - it means the new method shall be more lucrative for people to change to that public transport. And regarding big footprints, I'm quite sure this has to do with the size and the construction method - here lately we're building some elevated light rails next to the highway, and thanks to their construction methods I have to say their footprints are quite small - just some double of what used to be the footprint of a footbridge ! Their pillars are smaller as well. The massive ones are mostly courtesy to flyovers and such (road bridges).
Thorg wrote:Every subway system in the US with any decent coverage has been built with cut and cover. The construction of the DC and San Francisco subways in the late 60s and 70s cut through practically the same underground infrastructure as today. The multi decade construction times of TBM projects are ridiculous. The delays between cut and cover phases in the 60s and 70s were only a few years. The Second Avenue Subway 2nd phase is projected to be completed in 2029...
The 60s and 70s is definitely not the 2010s. There's a reason why those guys across the Atlantic made the deep level tube called "deep", and tiny.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Thorg wrote:Every subway system in the US with any decent coverage has been built with cut and cover. The construction of the DC and San Francisco subways in the late 60s and 70s cut through practically the same underground infrastructure as today. The multi decade construction times of TBM projects are ridiculous. The delays between cut and cover phases in the 60s and 70s were only a few years. The Second Avenue Subway 2nd phase is projected to be completed in 2029...
Multi decade construction times for TBM Projects? I believe your information might be wrong. Construction on Crossrail's Tunnels started in 2009, and finished in 2015, which is 6 years. These are 13 miles of tunnels, each way (total 26 miles). For the Channel Tunnel, construction started in 1988 and it was open in 1994. These are 31 miles each way, plus a service tunnel of the same length, 93 miles of tunnels. So maybe there are a lot more issues in NY, that are causing the delays, instead of just the use of TBMs ;)

Cut and Cover causes massive amounts of disruption and inconvenience, personally, I believe using a TBM is the better idea, as it causes the least amount of disruption.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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On the London Underground the only bit that was built cut and cover was essentially just the circle line between 1863 & 1884, with the rest of the lines being built from 1890 onwards as deep level. These lines were all built by private companies so even all the way back in 1890 cut and cover was considered the worse option financially.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Pilot wrote:
Thorg wrote:Every subway system in the US with any decent coverage has been built with cut and cover. The construction of the DC and San Francisco subways in the late 60s and 70s cut through practically the same underground infrastructure as today. The multi decade construction times of TBM projects are ridiculous. The delays between cut and cover phases in the 60s and 70s were only a few years. The Second Avenue Subway 2nd phase is projected to be completed in 2029...
Multi decade construction times for TBM Projects? I believe your information might be wrong. Construction on Crossrail's Tunnels started in 2009, and finished in 2015, which is 6 years. These are 13 miles of tunnels, each way (total 26 miles). For the Channel Tunnel, construction started in 1988 and it was open in 1994. These are 31 miles each way, plus a service tunnel of the same length, 93 miles of tunnels. So maybe there are a lot more issues in NY, that are causing the delays, instead of just the use of TBMs ;)

Cut and Cover causes massive amounts of disruption and inconvenience, personally, I believe using a TBM is the better idea, as it causes the least amount of disruption.
NY is built on rather more substantial underlying geology than London though which probably has an influence. London Clay is like butter when a TBM goes through it - they limiting factor is how quickly you can put the tunnel rings in behind before it all comes down on your head.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Ameecher wrote:
Pilot wrote:
Thorg wrote:Every subway system in the US with any decent coverage has been built with cut and cover. The construction of the DC and San Francisco subways in the late 60s and 70s cut through practically the same underground infrastructure as today. The multi decade construction times of TBM projects are ridiculous. The delays between cut and cover phases in the 60s and 70s were only a few years. The Second Avenue Subway 2nd phase is projected to be completed in 2029...
Multi decade construction times for TBM Projects? I believe your information might be wrong. Construction on Crossrail's Tunnels started in 2009, and finished in 2015, which is 6 years. These are 13 miles of tunnels, each way (total 26 miles). For the Channel Tunnel, construction started in 1988 and it was open in 1994. These are 31 miles each way, plus a service tunnel of the same length, 93 miles of tunnels. So maybe there are a lot more issues in NY, that are causing the delays, instead of just the use of TBMs ;)

Cut and Cover causes massive amounts of disruption and inconvenience, personally, I believe using a TBM is the better idea, as it causes the least amount of disruption.
NY is built on rather more substantial underlying geology than London though which probably has an influence. London Clay is like butter when a TBM goes through it - they limiting factor is how quickly you can put the tunnel rings in behind before it all comes down on your head.
Manhattan being a solid battleship of granite is all bad though - it makes traditional mining/blasting a pain but the geotechnical engineering is fairly straightforward. The TBM goes slowly, but you know exactly what it's going through, and could leave the tunnel as a rock cavern if you want. In the part of the Upper East side in question, there is actually a noticable hill around 70-86 streets, where the granite is much closer to the surface. Cut and cover through solid work is among the most disruptive options as your neighbors will be listening to dynamite blasting for years in addition to losing their street, and suffering frequent power, water or internet outages (the economic effect of that last one in Manhattan as compared to the 60s is immeasurable)
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Pilot wrote:
Thorg wrote:Every subway system in the US with any decent coverage has been built with cut and cover. The construction of the DC and San Francisco subways in the late 60s and 70s cut through practically the same underground infrastructure as today. The multi decade construction times of TBM projects are ridiculous. The delays between cut and cover phases in the 60s and 70s were only a few years. The Second Avenue Subway 2nd phase is projected to be completed in 2029...
Multi decade construction times for TBM Projects? I believe your information might be wrong. Construction on Crossrail's Tunnels started in 2009, and finished in 2015, which is 6 years. These are 13 miles of tunnels, each way (total 26 miles). For the Channel Tunnel, construction started in 1988 and it was open in 1994. These are 31 miles each way, plus a service tunnel of the same length, 93 miles of tunnels. So maybe there are a lot more issues in NY, that are causing the delays, instead of just the use of TBMs ;)
The TBMs themselves are not the expensive part, I never contested that or their effectiveness at carving paths. It's constructing stations for 70 foot deep TBM tunnels that is difficult. Every station concern is magnified by having a depth of 70 ft. TBMs are perfect for commuter rail tunnels since their station density is quite sparse.

Ease of Access
TBM tunnel depth several minutes via elevator or escalator banks
Just below street cut and cover 10 seconds via staircase or ramp

Ventilation
TBM tunnel depth Ventilation towers that need to push/pull air down to station depth.
Just below street cut and cover Parallel street side ventilation grates.

Waterproofing
TBM tunnel depth Far vaster vulnerable surface area.
Just below street cut and cover Trivial
supermop wrote: Manhattan being a solid battleship of granite is all bad though - it makes traditional mining/blasting a pain but the geotechnical engineering is fairly straightforward. The TBM goes slowly, but you know exactly what it's going through, and could leave the tunnel as a rock cavern if you want. In the part of the Upper East side in question, there is actually a noticable hill around 70-86 streets, where the granite is much closer to the surface. Cut and cover through solid work is among the most disruptive options as your neighbors will be listening to dynamite blasting for years in addition to losing their street, and suffering frequent power, water or internet outages (the economic effect of that last one in Manhattan as compared to the 60s is immeasurable)
It's funny you mention dynamite blasting. Dynamite isn't typically used for urban surface excavations. Have you perhaps been listening to the news report of disruptions caused by SAS dynamite blasting for all of those elaborate station caverns.
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Re: Second Avenue Subway is nearly here?!

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Ameecher wrote:NY is built on rather more substantial underlying geology than London though which probably has an influence. London Clay is like butter when a TBM goes through it - they limiting factor is how quickly you can put the tunnel rings in behind before it all comes down on your head.
Ah, well the I suppose that's why your people prefer just to insert some tubing.

Well eating through solid granite would be difficult, but I suppose maintenance would be much easier ?
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