The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s long running $11-billion journey to connect Long Island Rail Road commuter lines to Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal rail hub is in its final stretch, with the East Side Access project team completing a battery of tests of tracks, tunnels, station features, yards, support facilities and dozens of train systems. The project team aims to start service at the end of 2022.
The massive project—conceived of decades ago, started and stopped in previous eras, funded just before the 2008 financial crisis and since reprogrammed several times along the way—has had various milestones over the past 10 years, including the completion of tunneling, track laying and excavation of caverns for a 350,000-sq-ft station beneath the existing Grand Central. But the current phase is the real end game—train and engine crews doing pilot runs, installing and testing train systems and final station fit-out work.