page_title: East Side Access
section_title: Queens side
hierarchical_section_title: East Side Access / History / Construction progress / Queens side
caption_attribution_description: East Side Access project Queens area work site, highlighting the Northern Boulevard tunneling segment. Image: Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
context_page_description: East Side Access is a public works project under construction by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City, which will extend the Long Island Rail Road from its Main Line in Queens into a new station under Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan's East Side. The new station and tunnels are tentatively scheduled to start service in December 2022, some 15 years behind schedule. The project's estimated construction cost has risen nearly threefold from the planned $3.5 billion to $11.1 billion as of April 2018, making it one of the world's most expensive underground rail-construction projects.
  East Side Access is based on transit plans from the 1950s, though a terminal on Manhattan's East Side was first proposed in 1963. The planned LIRR line was included in the 1968 Program for Action of transit improvements in the New York City area. Lack of funds prevented the construction of any part of the connection other than the 63rd Street Tunnel under the East River.
  Plans for the LIRR connection were revived in the late 1990s. The project received federal funding in 2006, and construction began the following year.
context_section_description: Previous work extending subway service through the upper level of the 63rd Street Tunnel to lines in Queens also extended the lower level to a point west of Northern Boulevard, across from the Sunnyside Yard. Work in Queens included extending the tunnel under Northern Boulevard and boring four tunnels under Sunnyside Yard. This was a particularly delicate and expensive task due to the existence of the elevated BMT Astoria Line and the underground IND Queens Boulevard Line directly above. In addition, the existing tunnel bell mouth west of Northern Boulevard was expanded to serve as the staging area for the Manhattan work, bringing in workers, equipment and supplies and bringing out the muck and debris from excavation. A temporary narrow-gauge railway and a conveyor belt system were constructed behind the tunnel boring machines and through the 63rd Street Tunnels to the Queens bell mouth. Due to its shape, the Queens work site was nicknamed the "Q-tip".
  Pile Foundation Construction Company built an $83 million cut structure, which extends the tracks under Northern Boulevard into the Sunnyside Yard. It created an area that served as both the launch chamber for soft-bore Queens tunnels, connecting the 63rd Street line to the main LIRR branches, and an interlocking and emergency exit and venting facility. The cut was then covered with a deck. In August 2009, Perini Corp. was awarded a $144 million contract to reconfigure the Harold Interlocking, increasing its capacity to accommodate trains bound for Grand Central Terminal and to construct new yard lead tracks to allow trains to enter the storage yards. Smaller contracts for structural work, environmental monitoring, and data measurement were also awarded. Some Amtrak buildings in Sunnyside Yard were demolished to make room for the East Side Access portals in Queens.
  In September 2009, the MTA awarded Granite-Traylor-Frontiere Joint Venture a $659.2 million contract to employ two 500-ton slurry tunnel boring machines to create the tunnels connecting the LIRR Main Line and the Port Washington Branch to the 63rd Street Tunnel under 41st Avenue. The four tunnels, with precast concrete liners, total 2 miles (3.2 km) in length. The contract included a $58 million option to dig three tunnel pits and three emergency shafts, as well as complete an open cut. The two custom-built slurry TBMs, which could dig through several types of earth, were the first such machines to be used in the New York City area.
  The two tunnel boring machines began digging on the Queens side in April 2011. On December 22, 2011, breakthrough was achieved in Tunnel "A" of the four Queens tunnel drives from the 63rd Street Tunnel bellmouth. By July 25, 2012, all four Queens tunnel drives were complete. In April 2014, contracts were awarded for the final modifications for the tunnels, as well as for communication systems.
  The scope of the project within Queens also included the construction of two bypass tunnels for Amtrak trains within Harold Interlocking. While eastbound Amtrak trains to New England would be able to go through the interlocking without crossing the paths of East Side Access trains, westbound Amtrak trains to Penn Station would use tracks that intersected East Side Access tracks. East Side Access trains to Grand Central came from the east and would diverge to the northwest while Amtrak trains to Penn Station came from the north and would continue west, so the final environmental impact statement called for a bypass for westbound trains. Around $295 million was allocated for the bypass in 2011, and work on this project started in 2013. However, by October 2015, the tunnels were behind schedule because Amtrak and the MTA could not cooperate on track access schedules. These delays ultimately raised construction costs by almost $1 billion as of April 2018, and in a report that month, the MTA attributed the delays to a lack of cooperation on Amtrak's part. The work at Harold Interlocking also included the installation of a microprocessor-based signal system, replacing the old track circuit-based sign
caption: Construction site in Queens, nicknamed the "Q-tip," where tunnels under the Sunnyside Yard were launched and the connection under Northern Boulevard to the 63rd Street Tunnel was made
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