There's a delay on the A train because of delays building flood resiliency infrastructure

 

THE CITY

Hurricane Sandy isn’t done messing with subway riders in the Rockaways just yet.

A decade after extensive damage from the October 2012 superstorm knocked out A train service between Howard Beach and the peninsula for more than six months, remaining Sandy-related repairs along the forked line are running with delays and getting pricier, MTA records show.

The cost of federally funded resiliency upgrades to stations, bridges and viaducts along the tracks that links the peninsula with the rest of Queens is now forecast to hit $467 million — up $60 million from an earlier goal, according to MTA documents.

The remaining work is among the lingering remnants of a storm that caused billions in damage to the subway system and specifically wreaked havoc on the coastal section of the A line and the Rockaway shuttle.

“It was a horrible storm and I saw what it did to my community,” said Thomas Atehortua, 23, as he waited Thursday for an A train at Broad Channel. “So I’m not at all surprised that the damage was so impactful and long lasting along this line.”

While the MTA last year wrapped up Sandy-related repairs inside the last of nine under-river subway tunnels damaged by the storm, reopened the flooded South Ferry complex in 2017 and has come up with ways to protect 3,500 street-level subway openings from excess water, the work in the Rockaways is still years away from being completed.

“It is a complicated project,” Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and CEO, told THE CITY after the agency’s October board meeting on Wednesday. “It also needs to be carefully coordinated with the community because it has impacts on A train service in and out of the community, which is obviously important to that waterfront community.”

Lieber said the agency has already poured $150 million into Rockaway Line resiliency efforts, including erecting a protective seawall to guard against storm surge along Broad Channel, protecting critical station infrastructure and restoring full service in May 2013, just months after Sandy swamped tracks and bridges.