Next stop, Grand Central Station: Cuomo announces 2022 opening of LIRR terminal

Major construction is complete on the MTA’s delay-plagued East Side Access megaproject linking the LIRR directly to Grand Central Terminal, according to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who, on Thursday, guaranteed the station would open by its December 2022 target date.

The stop at Grand Central Station will become a second Manhattan option for a commuter railroad that has depended on Penn Station to link to the heart of the city.

Cuomo on Thursday led a tour of the $11.1 billion effort, which he called the "single most ambitious and the most difficult" transportation project in the United States — entailing the excavation of eight miles of new tunnels and the construction of a nine-block-long train station that extends three stories beneath the existing Grand Central Terminal.

"We still have some systems work to do — electrical systems, etcetera — but all the construction is complete. It’s going to open up next year," said Cuomo, noting that East Side Access is a key piece of broader expansion and modernization of the Long Island Rail Road.

Those improvements include the ongoing construction of a third track through Nassau County and the planned opening of a new station at Belmont Park this fall, boosting transit options in the New York metro area.

"It is redesigning the entire Long Island Rail Road experience, which is very important, because Long Island is part of this economy, and making that commute work is vitally important," Cuomo said.

After multiple delays and cost overruns, the project — once predicted to be finished by 2009 at a cost of $4.3 billion — is now largely done, as was evident from Thursday’s tour.

An escalator in Grand Central’s dining hall leads down to a brightly lit 350,000 square-foot concourse, with white marble walls, archways, and glass storefronts that will one day house 25 retailers as well as museum-curated art installations. Engraved signs direct passengers to the "elevators to LIRR tracks."

"This is a major milestone in the project," said MTA chief development officer Janno Lieber, who took over the project in 2018 to streamline a tangled and fractured process involving about 50 separate contracts. "This feels like a train station."

A separate tour of the tunnels — using rail-mounted trucks — offered a preview of the return commute, with commuters emerging from the subterranean passages into the Harold Interlocking area in Long Island City, Queens. The busy rail junction, a notorious bottleneck for the LIRR, underwent $1 billion in upgrades.

Cuomo said the new connection between New York City and Long Island would reduce the commute time between Long Island and Manhattan by up to 40 minutes. "You now have two stations that you can ride into," he said.

It will also increase train storage capacity, reduce the number of trains going into Penn Station, and eventually increase track availability for Amtrak and Metro-North trains arriving in midtown Manhattan.

Further, Cuomo said the Grand Central stop will allow a faster connection to John F. Kennedy International Airport, with an estimated 40-minute ride from the 42nd Street hub to the airport. There will be multiple entrances to the LIRR Grand Central Station along Madison Avenue in Manhattan, the state said.

The remaining work on the project involves the installation of various electrical and communications technology such as LIRR signal systems.

Asked about his confidence in the December 2022 opening, Cuomo said: "I guarantee it."

Cuomo later softened his stance, noting that LIRR employees had yet to undergo extensive safety training that could take more than nine months. "We’re not going to open it until it’s safe and until we know every operator is thoroughly prepared," Cuomo said.

McKissack & McKissack, an independent engineering consultant hired by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has raised several concerns about the project and its timeline. In its most recent report, released this week, the firm pointed out various testing delays, which it attributed to "contractor/subcontractor performance, quality issues, and change order work." It said that the time allotted for certain tests "may not be sufficient."

The firm criticized contractors for improperly protecting and maintaining equipment, potentially resulting in more delays.

Also in question is whether the LIRR will get as much use out of its new Manhattan link as once projected. The railroad has said it expects as many as 160,000 customers to travel to and from Grand Central Terminal each weekday — about half its daily riders in 2019.

The pandemic has decimated the railroad’s ridership, which remains around 30% of pre-pandemic levels. A consultant hired by the MTA has predicted that, even by 2025, ridership may only be back to around 80% of what it was before the coronavirus outbreak.

Lieber acknowledged that "nobody knows how quickly ridership is going to come back," but noted that, before the pandemic, Penn Station was operating at triple its designed capacity.

Cuomo acknowledged that for former LIRR riders now working from home, the prospect of returning to their previous commute may sound "horrendous."

East Side Access aims to "make it attractive" by boosting the railroad’s capacity and modernizing amenities.

"Will people continue to work from home? Fewer people coming into the office?" Cuomo asked. "What I’m saying is, I think, in large part, we don’t know. And, in large part, it depends on what we do."

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.