Thursday, February 16, 2012

7-train tunneling complete

From the NY Post:

As these pictures show, the MTA has finished all of the tunneling for the 7-train extension to 11th Avenue and completed carving out the mezzanine — a complex job that paves the way for train operation by 2013.

The future 34th Street station’s mezzanine is all but finished and features a soaring, curved roof with a 1,200-foot-long cavern — about the size of the Empire State Building if it were laid on its side.

The station will certainly need the space.

City Hall estimates that 35,000 passengers a day will use the station by 2030, when the area is expected to be a bustling neighborhood with skyscrapers and stores lured in by the new subway.

The city is so confident the one-stop addition to the 7 will revive the desolate area that it has agreed to fork over the $2.1 billion to pay for it.

Trains are expected to be in operation by December 2013.

Construction snafus could move the grand opening to early 2014.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile,
the #7's vastly inadequate Main Street station is dangerously overcrowded and bloated with humanity during the big morning rush hour push.

Teaming masses of Chinese surge forward to make it a "who-gets-in-the-car-first contest?"

Then they're off...jostling and shoving...running for seats.

Soon, breakfast time arrives as they open up containers of soup like fare balanced gingerly upon their knees.

Slurp, slurp...dribble, dribble...debris fall onto the floor.

The "picturesque" 3rd world travels in style.

I hope that hot liquid doesn't spill all over my neighbor's lap sitting right next to that diner.

How come the MTA doesn't spend some of its billions improving one of the major transportation hubs in NYC...Flushing?

"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown".

Anonymous said...

"City Hall estimates that 35,000 passengers a day will use the station by 2030"
- - - - - - - - - - -- -
From Wikipedia, the subways carry 1.5 Billion passengers annually, and over 5.15 million weekdays. so in 18 years, only 35,000 passengers are going to use that station? Isn't this a waste of much-neded funds?

Anonymous said...

Since they moved the Dutch Kills millstones to the center of Queens Plaza in harm's way to sell real estate I guess the next step is to move Cleopatra's Needle to the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel to do the same.

No sorry, will not happen. Queens is a unique world unto itself.

thank God.

Anonymous said...

The MTA looked to some sort of cooperation with the real estate developers around 41st Street and 10th Ave and didn't get any. So the MTA dropped a good location for a station. Now they are building a station to an obsolete facility which will be torn down, or have a mere handful of events annually if it isn't.

Anonymous said...

The city dropped that station, not the MTA. They are paying for the project.

Anonymous said...

Anon No. 2:

Multiply 35,000 by 313. That's how much you get on weekdays on a year. Plus, how many stations in the subway system have more than 35,000 riders a day?

Anonymous said...

Look - the extension is worth it and the boring completed. However I would be adamant that we not extend the line to serve anything remotely across the river into New Jersey or Meadow lands.

Look at the Port Authority jointly serves NJ and errrr NY. The result? Liberty Airport surpasses JFK - a soviet era like airport - the most hated in the USA. SO don't allow the 7 to extend or attach to anything going to NJ!!!1

Anonymous said...

Oh will B.S. stop shoveling all that BS on the millstones already.

He's becoming a millstone around our necks!

Anonymous said...

Why not safeguard the millstones in the lobby of Quinn's funeral parlor the home of GAHS.

LOL!

Anonymous said...

City? MTA? A distinction without a difference. The 41st Street and 10th Ave station should have been built.

Regarding the usage of the station at 34th St and 11th Ave, judging from the usage of the city bus at 34th St at 10th and 11th Aves, it's looks more like 3,500 daily passengers rather than 35,000 to use the Javits terminal.

Anonymous said...

There's a big difference. The project was built as a city initiative, not that of the MTA, a state agency. The city decided they didn't have the cash to pay for the other station and the MTA didn't either (the station should have been built, no question).

There's a big difference between riding a bus down a very crowded street (when was the last time you rode the M42?) and taking a subway train that bypasses it all. Check out how many people ride both the 7 between Grand Central AND the 42nd Street Shuttle during the day. The one new station that opens will have closer to 35,000 daily riders than 3,500.

Anonymous said...

I said the M42, but you can say the same thing about the M34.

Anonymous said...

We're talking about West 34th Street and 11th Ave, not "the crossroads of the work".

I like the M42 and M34, I have no issue with the routes. However, anyone can observe that the M34 arrives and departs from 9th Ave empty except on those rare days when there is a big event at the Javits.

Anonymous said...

More people will make use of subway service than buses. If you build it, they will come.

Anonymous said...

The history of this city has shown that development follows transit construction, rather than the other way aroun. Roosevelt Avenue was a trail through a cornfield (literally) in Jackson Heights before the subway was built in that direction.

What the city (who paid for this project) is no doubt banking on is that extending the 7 to 34th and 11th will lead to a further development of that area. Whether that's good or bad is something else.

Anonymous said...

To the person that said development follows transit: That might be the case in most places but I have a hard time believing there wouldn't be buyers lining up for the million dollar condos that will ultimately spring up on the West Side, subway or no subway. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of buyers and renters on West 42nd. Projects like these are nice but what the city really should have been doing was expanding mass transit in Brooklyn and Queens in the underserved areas to spur development there. Reasonably priced housing in the outer boros with access to mass transit would do far more to take some pressure o housing prices citywide than a few expensive condo towers in Manhattan. And it more transit options in the outlying areas would reduce the number of cars coming into Manhattan.