Costs are growing for the second-phase of the Second Avenue Subway, says a federal government document that suggests a $496.8 million grant to the project.
The new cost estimate is $7.699 billion, up from the January 2022 estimate of $6.95 billion, the feds say in official documentation related to the project. The MTA updated the feds on the project in December, the document says.
The MTA did not immediately provide a response Thursday when asked what led to the $750 million increase in the project’s estimated cost.
When news broke Thursday of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s intention to fund nearly $500 million of the Second Avenue Subway, MTA Chair Janno Lieber expressed excitement.
“I am thrilled that the Biden administration recognizes the importance of this project,” Lieber said during an unrelated press conference.
“We’ve been promising East Harlem and central Harlem the Second Avenue subway since Joe Biden was 10 years old,” he added.
Phase 2 of the long-delayed effort to put more subway tracks under Manhattan’s East Side would connect an eastern section of Harlem to the Q train at 96th St. and Second Ave.
It would include three new stations — at E. 106th, E. 116th and 125th streets — and would also require the building of new power substations and car cleaning facilities.
The project — the second of four phases of Second Avenue Subway construction — would bring service to parts of the city without rail service since the demolition of the Second Avenue Elevated line in the 1940s.
The federal money — which is now dependent on congressional approval as part of President Biden’s budget — will require matching funding from the MTA.
“One thing needs to be kept in mind,” Lieber said. “To land that grant once and for all, USDOT is requiring us to demonstrate that we’re going to have financial stability in our operating budget, so that we can pay for the operation of the new train line.”
That means that Gov. Hochul’s budget proposal “has to be acted on by the legislature,” Lieber said.
The Second Avenue Subway — which was first proposed in 1920, begun in the 1970s, and abandoned soon after amid a city fiscal crisis — finally opened to riders in 2017.
That first phase, a tunnel under Second Ave. from E. 65th street to E. 105th Street, currently operates as the three northernmost stations on the Q line.