The Second Avenue Subway has been nicknamed the "The Line That Time Forgot" because it is one of New York City's greatest projects never to be built—although this will soon change. On November 19, 2010, a group of civil engineers from the Younger Member Forum got a unique glimpse at construction of Phase I of the underground subway line with a tour of the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) Launch Box site.
Located beneath Second Avenue between 92nd and 96th Streets, the Launch Box is an underground cavern approximately 815 feet long, 65 feet wide and 55 feet deep. The Launch Box was used to assemble the TBM that arrived in April and began mining the west tunnel in May. It is also used to bring rock and debris excavated by the TBM to the surface, where it is removed by trucks.
Before going on the site tour, the group received a presentation on the history of the Second Avenue Subway project and an overview of the utility relocation work, excavation of the Launch Box and construction of the running tunnels using the TBM.
Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway is expected to open in 2016. The project will include new stations on Second Avenue at 72nd Street, 86th Street and 96th Street as well as an expansion of the existing station on Lexington Avenue at 63rd Street (currently served by the F line). All of these stations will be served via an extension of the Q line from the existing station on Seventh Avenue at 57th Street.
When it opens, the Second Avenue Subway will help relieve congestion on the IRT Lexington Avenue line (Number 4, 5 and 6 lines), which is the nation's most heavily-used transit line and has a daily ridership of 1.3 million (more than the combined ridership of the subway systems in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles and Atlanta). Phase I of the Second Avenue Subway is expected to have an average daily ridership of 213,000.
See the Met Section photo gallery for more pictures from this event.