The Line That Time Forgot (Second Avenue Subway)

The Second Avenue Subway (under Manhattan’s Second Avenue) has been proposed since the 1920, but has had many false starts. One nickname of the Second Avenue Subway has been “the greatest New York construction project never built.”
 
In March 2004, New York magazine used the nickname “The Line That Time Forgot.” Another groundbreaking for the subway line was made in the spring of 2007.
 
   
Second Avenue Subway
The Second Avenue Subway (SAS) refers to a series of public works projects and engineering studies undertaken to construct a subway line underneath Second Avenue in the borough of Manhattan as part of the New York City Subway system. A dream for more than three quarters of a century, the Second Avenue Subway tunnelling contract was awarded to the consortium of Schiavone/Shea/Skanska by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on March 20, 2007. This followed preliminary engineering and a final tunnel design completed by joint venture between DMJM Harris and Arup. This contract, and the full funding agreement with the Federal Transit Administration expected to follow within weeks to months, for Phase I of the project, which is an extension of the Q (Broadway Express) subway line to Second Avenue and 96th Street. A ceremonial ground-breaking for the Second Avenue Subway was held on April 12, 2007 and the contractor prepared the initial construction site at 96th Street on April 23, 2007. A Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) is on order and was expected to arrive six to eight months after construction began; meanwhile, utility relocation is in progress.
 
As a consequence of the many “false starts”, the SAS is often cited as an egregious example of bureaucratic red tape and governmental ineptitude. However, the reasons for its delay are numerous and complex. The line is sometimes referred to as “The Line That Time Forgot”.
 
New York magazine
The Line That Time Forgot
They call the Second Avenue subway the greatest New York project never built. They may have to think of a new name.
By Greg Sargent
Published Mar 29, 2004
Beloved, believed in, glimpsed fleetingly only to disappear again for decades, the Second Avenue subway has long seemed to be New York City’s version of the Loch Ness monster. The plan has been on the drawing board since the year Babe Ruth hit his first home run for the Yankees—that is to say, since 1920, when it was envisioned as part of a massive subway expansion that brought us the IND, the trains that now run under Sixth and Eighth avenues. But the Second Avenue subway was derailed by the Great Depression, and despite a string of vigorous efforts, the plan just never got back on track.
 
That, however, may be about to change. The Second Avenue subway is surfacing again, and this time the vision of a new line just may finally be realized.
 
Google Groups: nyc.transit
Newsgroups: nyc.transit
From: “JohnnyCJohnny”

Date: 13 Mar 2007 03:36:54 -0700
Local: Tues, Mar 13 2007 6:36 am
Subject: MTA to sign 2nd Ave line contract
 
MTA to sign 2nd Ave line contract
By Chuck Bennett, amNewYork Staff Writer
March 12, 2007
It’s almost “T” time.

On March 29, the MTA is finally expected to sign a contract for construction of the long-awaited Second Avenue Subway, amNewYork has learned. The new line will be known as the T line.
 
Elliot “Lee” Sander, the MTA’s new executive director, and Chairman Peter Kalikow will approve the $333 million contract for the first phase of the project that critics thought would never happen.
 
“All of the sudden it turned from doubtful to inevitable and nobody quite knows when it happened,” Kalikow said at the last MTA board meeting.
 
Almost immediately after the contract is signed, construction trailers will start to line parts of Second Avenue in the East 90s, MTA officials said.
 
The groundbreaking ceremony, along with actual digging, is scheduled for late April or early May. The exact location has not been determined.
 
“I think it will be a significant event because of the history of the project,” Sander said of the groundbreaking.
 
“It will be a real groundbreaking, we have the funding, we have the contract. We are looking forward to getting it going, it will be an historic moment for New York.”
 
First proposed more than 80 years ago, the Second Avenue Subway was dubbed “the most famous project never built.” It will be the city’s first new subway line in 60 years. 
 
New York (NY) Sun
Doctoroff Warns of Problems With East Side Subway Plan
By ANNIE KARNI, Special to the Sun
March 16, 2007
(...)
The Second Avenue line, known as the city’s greatest transportation project never built, is a planned two-track subway line that will run along Manhattan’s East Side to the financial district from 125th street. Construction on such a line stopped in 1975, when funds for the project ran dry.