The MTA's massive East Side Access project, which will connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal, has been in the works for years, from getting federal funding in 2006 to being really overbudget this year. At any rate, it's the country's largest infrastructure project which will—hopefully—relieve congestion at Penn Station as well as crosstown congestion. Plus, it's really awesome how it's being built.

Today, the MTA announced that sandhogs "broke through the final piece of reinforced concrete separating newly built tunnels in Queens from newly built tunnels in Manhattan. In so doing, they created a continuous tunnel running more than 3½ miles from a cavern 12 stories underneath Grand Central Terminal to four concrete-lined, 22-foot diameter tunnels just feet below the Sunnyside rail yard in Queensof the elevated BMT Astoria Line, which carries the N and Q subway trains.



Project workers had to drive a new set of foundation pilings into the ground to temporarily support the Astoria Line tracks and elevated structure during the construction of the tunnel. They then jacked up the line ever so slightly in order to relieve its permanent foundation supports of the line’s weight, and shift the weight to the temporary supports. Then, they cut into the permanent foundation, which had been protruding into the right-of-way where the new tunnel is being built. In later phases of construction, workers will restore the subway line to its permanent foundation, which has been modified to rest on top of the newly completed section of LIRR tunnel. The tunnel has been