The Second Avenue Subway, a New York City Subway line that runs under Second Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan, had been proposed since 1920. The first phase of the line, consisting of three stations on the Upper East Side, started construction in 2007 and opened in 2017, ninety-seven years after the route was first proposed. Up until the 1960s, many distinct plans for the Second Avenue subway line were never carried out, though small segments were built in the 1970s as part of the Program for Action. The complex reasons for these delays are why the line is sometimes called "the line that time forgot".
Work on the line started in 2007 following the development of a financially secure construction plan. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) awarded a tunneling contract for the first phase of the project to the consortium of Schiavone/Shea/Skanska (S3) on March 20, 2007. This followed preliminary engineering and a final tunnel design completed by a joint venture between AECOM and Arup. Parsons Brinckerhoff served as the Construction Manager of the project. A full funding grant agreement with the Federal Transit Administration for the first phase of the project was received in November 2007. A ceremonial ground-breaking for the Second Avenue Subway was held on April 12, 2007. The first phase of the line, consisting of three newly built stations and of tunnel, cost $4.45 billion. A , $6 billion second phase is in development.
Early attempts
In response to a surge in the New York City Subway's ridership, in 1919, the New York Public Service Commission launched a study to determine what improvements were needed in the city's public transport system. The study called for, among other things, a massive trunk line under Second Avenue consisting of at least six tracks and numerous branches throughout Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. In September 1929, the Board of Transportation of the City of New York (BOT) tentatively approved the expansion, but the soaring costs of the expansion became unmanageable, and the plan was scaled down. A second plan, proposed in 1939, called for a two-track line with extensions into the Bronx and Brooklyn. The line was again delayed by World War II, even as the Second Avenue Elevated was closed without being replaced. The elevated line's closure, as well as a corresponding increase in the East Side's population, increased the need for a Second Avenue subway.
Further plans were proposed in 1944 and in 1947. The BOT then ordered ten new prototype subway cars specifically for the unbuilt subway line.R-11 Datasheet In 1950, a revised plan involved connections from Queens. New York voters approved a bond measure for its construction in 1951, but the Korean War again forced the postponement of plans. The Third Avenue Elevated, the only other elevated line in the area, closed on May 13, 1955, making the Lexington Avenue Line the only subway transportation option on the East Side of Manhattan. As the early 1960s progressed, the East Side experienced an increase in development, and the Lexington Avenue Line became overcrowded.
In 1967, voters approved a bond issue, which provided funding for projects such as the Program for Action. The program proposed a Second Avenue line to be built in two phases: a first phase north of 34th Street and a second phase south of there. The Second Avenue project, for a line from 34th Street to the Bronx, was given top priority. Construction on a tunnel segment between 99th and 105th Streets began in October 1972. A second segment between 110th and 120th Street in East Harlem started construction in March 1973. In October 1973, the line's Chinatown segment began construction at Canal Street under the foot of the Manhattan Bridge between Canal and Division Streets. A fourth segment started construction in July 1974, between Second and Ninth Streets in the East Village. The city soon experienced its most dire fiscal crisis yet, due to the stagnant economy of the early 1970s, combined with the massive outflow of city residents to the suburbs. New York City mayor Abraham Beame issued a stop-work order for the line in September 1975, and the tunnels were sealed. In 1978, State Comptroller Arthur Levitt stated that there were no plans to finish the line.
1995–2017: Planning
With the city's economic and budgetary recovery in the 1990s, there was a revival of efforts to complete construction of the Second Avenue Subway. Rising ridership on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, the only subway trunk line east of Central Park, demonstrated the need for the Second Avenue Line, as capacity and safety concerns rose. The four-track IRT Lexington Avenue Line, the lone rapid transit option on the Upper East Side and East Harlem since the 1955 closure of the Third Avenue elevated, is the most crowded subway line in the country. The line saw an average of 1.3 million daily riders in 2015. This is more than the daily ridership of the entire Washington Metro system, which has the second-highest ridership in the U.S., as well as greater than the combined riderships of the rail transit systems of San Francisco and Boston. Local bus routes are just as crowded during various times of the day, with the M15 local and Select Bus Service routes, which run on Second Avenue, seeing a combined annual ridership of 14.5 million or a daily ridership of about 46,029.
The construction of the Second Avenue line would add two tracks to fill the gap that has existed since the elevated Second and Third Avenue Lines were demolished in the 1950s. It would also be the largest expansion of the New York City Subway since the 1960s. According to the line's final environmental impact statement, the catchment area of the line's first phase would include 200,000 daily riders.*
Planning begins In 1991, then-New York Governor Mario Cuomo allocated $22 million to renew planning and design efforts for the Second Avenue line. Construction would not begin until at least 1997. However, the MTA removed these funds from its capital budget two years later, as it was facing budget cuts. In 1995, the MTA began its Manhattan East Side Alternatives (MESA) study, both a Major Investment Study (MIS) and a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), seeking ways to alleviate overcrowding on the Lexington Avenue Line and improve mobility on Manhattan's East Side. The study analyzed several alternatives, such as improvements to the Lexington Avenue Line to increase capacity, enhanced bus service with dedicated lanes, and light rail or ferry service on the East Side.
The favored alternative, build alternative 1, included a subway running down Second Avenue from 125th Street in Harlem to the existing Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station with provisions for expansion to the Bronx and to Lower Manhattan. Second Avenue was chosen over Third Avenue, because Third Avenue was too close to the Lexington Avenue Line, as well as having significant property impacts, increased construction complexity and cost, and increased travel times resulting from slower operating speeds. Second Avenue was chosen over First Avenue, because it would be too difficult to construct near the Queensboro Bridge, the United Nations and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
The MTA started the Lower Manhattan Access Study (LMA) in November 1997 in order to determine the best new transport connections to the New York City suburbs. The construction of the Second Avenue Subway from 63rd Street to Lower Manhattan was one of the five build alternatives developed by the study.
1999 Draft Environmental Impact Statement
The 1999 Draft Environmental Impact Statement only proposed new subway service from 63rd Street north up Second Avenue to 125th Street via the Broadway Line to Lower Manhattan. All trains would have been routed down the Broadway Line express tracks, which are the only tracks on the Broadway Line which connect to the 63rd Street Line. In order to provide access to Lower Manhattan, and to allow for congestion reduction on the Lexington Avenue Line, the "Canal Street Flip" was proposed. As built, the tracks at Canal Street are set up so that the local tracks continue into the Financial District and then enter Brooklyn through the Montague Street Tunnel, while the express tracks continue to Brooklyn directly, crossing the Manhattan Bridge. The "Canal Street Flip" would have flipped the local and express tracks at Canal Street, having local trains run via the Manhattan Bridge, and in turn having the express trains continue south on the Broadway Line through Lower Manhattan and through the Montague Street Tunnel into Brooklyn. To construct the "Flip" of track would have been reconstructed, the two side platforms would have been widened, columns would have been relocated, and two new switches would have been installed. Once the construction of full-length Second Avenue Subway was approved, this option was discarded.
The service plan with the "Canal Street Flip," according to the December 1998 "Manhattan East Side Transit Alternative Study," would have had R trains run via the Second Avenue line, which was only planned to run from 63rd Street to 125th Street. R trains would become the Broadway express under this plan, using the BMT 63rd Street Line to access the Second Avenue line and continuing to 125th Street. The service would have operated 25 trains per hour (tph) between 125th Street and City Hall, 20 tph between City Hall and Whitehall Street, and 10 tph between Whitehall Street and Bay Ridge–95th Street via the Montague Street Tunnel. A reconstruction of a junction near Canal Street, called the "Canal Flip," would have provided a direct connection between the express tracks of the Broadway Line and Lower Manhattan, allowing the route to operate. To allow R trains to short-turn at City Hall, the station's unused lower level would have been reactivated, requiring upgrades for the platforms and tracks, including their lengthening, in addition to the installation of tail tracks. During construction, the station's upper level would have had to be underpinned. To replace the R on Queens Boulevard, a Broadway Local T route (distinct from the currently proposed Second Avenue Local T route) would have been created, running between Continental Avenue and Bay Parkway via Broadway local and the Manhattan Bridge. The "Canal Street Flip" would have provided a direct connection between the local tracks and the Manhattan Bridge. The N, which ran local on Broadway, would have been rerouted from the Montague Street Tunnel to the Manhattan Bridge.
Initially, a spur to Grand Central Terminal was considered, which would have run via 44th Street as a way to divert riders from the , which run express on the Lexington Avenue Line. Service on this spur could not be as frequent as that on Lexington Avenue as there would not be enough capacity on Second Avenue, and as a result this plan was dropped.