Full Lengthy Island Rail Highway service is lastly set to commence at Grand Central Madison on Feb. 27, Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Janno Lieber introduced on Wednesday.
The model new, 714,000-square-foot terminal deep below Manhattan’s east facet will till then proceed to host solely the Grand Central Direct shuttle service to-and-from Jamaica, Queens, developed to acquaint riders with the brand new station and the methods it may change their commute. However the finish of February will carry to fruition the MTA’s final purpose with the megaproject: growing LIRR capability by greater than 40% and shaving up to 40 minutes off riders’ commutes.
“This is transformational,” Lieber mentioned at a press convention exterior the MTA’s decrease Manhattan headquarters. “Faster, more convenient travel that brings Long Island and the city closer together is a major shot in the arm for the regional economy, for the effort to get people back to offices, to shopping, to theater, to everything that connects us as neighbors and as New Yorkers who like to have the full experience of the region.”
Lieber mentioned the station allows the LIRR to run an extra 271 trains per day in its service space, growing capability not solely to Manhattan within the morning and again to the Island within the night, but in addition service for the rising class of reverse-commuters who stay within the metropolis and work on Lengthy Island.
The station, and the shuttle service, opened to nice fanfare final month, after many years within the pipeline and a notoriously protracted design and development course of suffering from mismanagement and price overruns. The undertaking in the end sported an eye-popping $11.6 billion price ticket, making it one of the crucial costly infrastructure initiatives in American historical past.
Regardless of the splendor and the expense, it didn’t take lengthy for one of many metropolis’s longest escalators, bringing riders from the concourse to the platforms 17 tales underground, to break down at the terminal.
The MTA’s LIRR schedules now replicate service into Grand Central Madison; be taught extra at new.mta.info/agency/long-island-rail-road/timetables.