The MTA approved $200 million for initial engineering on the long-awaited – and long-delayed – Second Avenue subway yesterday.
“I’m very pleased. I think it’s a very important thing for the city,” said Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Peter Kalikow. “I think that events since September have shown us that mass transit is what makes the city work.”
The MTA already has appropriated $1 billion in its capital budget for the Second Avenue subway, which could take up to 15 years to build. Construction is planned to begin in 2004.
The subway, the first entirely new line to be built in the city in 70 years, will run from 125th Street in Harlem to lower Manhattan.
The only other East Side line, along Lexington Avenue, is overcrowded, and the new line is seen by proponents as crucial to alleviating that congestion.
“We’re supporters of the project, and we hope it goes ahead, but it’s got a very long road,” said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign advocacy group.
The MTA is counting on big infusions of cash from the state and federal governments to fund the entire project, which has been on the drawing boards for more than 50 years.
Several portions of the line, which is expected to cover eight miles with 15 stations, already have been built.
The Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall firm, which already has other contracts with the transit system, won the contract.