Stalled Second Avenue Subway Expansion Inches Forward, After $54M State Allocation

The Second Avenue subway expansion project will resume again, after Governor Kathy Hochul announced that she had managed to direct $54 million in state funding towards construction on July 30.

It marks the re-start of “Phase 2” of the longstanding undertaking; the money will go towards preliminary work aimed at extending the Q line nearly 30 blocks up to 125th St., in East Harlem. Phase 1 opened in 2017, and extended the Q line to 96th St.

The funding allocation for Phase 2 was originally included in the projected revenue from the congestion pricing toll program. Congestion pricing was expected to raise $1 billion a year, which would have gone towards $15 billion in needed capital improvements. Yet Hochul herself indefinitely postponed the rollout of the tolls in early June.

The entire phase of the Second Ave expansion is estimated to cost $7.7 billion dollars, with nearly half of that covered by a $3.4 billion grant from the federal Department of Transportation. However, the grant comes with the stipulation that that state must cover their share of the funding, which the congestion pricing pause compromised. The $54 million–while getting the ball rolling again–constitutes just a fraction of the needed financial gap.

Hochul added that the tranche of funding will go towards relocating utilities to make room for the extended line, as part of a $182 million contract signed last year.

Hochul later clarified to reporters that the money was “unallocated capital funding” left over from an $85 million fund, created by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, that went towards the $4 billion dollar Tappan Zee Bridge replacement. The bridge was renamed and refurbished as the Mario Cuomo Bridge by the younger Cuomo, after his father–who governed the state from 1983 to 1994–died in 2015. Since that funding pool was earmarked for “infrastructure or economic development” projects, Hochul figured it was game for use on the 2nd Avenue expansion.

“When I announced the pause on implementing congestion pricing, I directed my team to think creatively about how to keep these generational investments moving forward. Now, we are committing the funds needed to continue the utility relocation contract, the first step to building this transformational project to meet the needs of everyday New Yorkers,” Hochul said in a statement.

In a statement of his own on the expansion funds, MTA Chief Janno Lieber reference to the broader funding gap left by the congestion pricing pause: “Advancing that utility work now – while congestion pricing is on pause – puts MTA in a position to keep the overall Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 project on schedule while Albany resolves how to fund the $15 billion outstanding for the MTA’s 2020-24 Capital Program.”

This echoed the declaration made a day earlier by Jamie Torres-Springer, the MTA’s President of Construction & Development, that the transit agency was maintaining the expectation that the $15 billion would be accounted for on schedule–or “resolved,” as Lieber put it. In other words, the MTA would not be halting the broader improvement plans tied to congestion pricing.

Harlem politicians, such as City Council Member Yussef Salam, hailed the $54 million as well. “This funding only demonstrates real commitment to advancing critical infrastructure, but also ensure that the resident of my community in Harlem, one of the most transit– dependent neighborhoods in New York City, will have better access to reliable and efficient transportation,” he said.