MTA Independent Engineering Oversight

New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is North America’s largest transportation network, moving 2.6 billion people annually through a 5,000-square-mile (12,950 km²) system of bus routes, rail lines, and subways. Jacobs Associates is providing independent engineering oversight services to MTA’s tunneling projects as a subconsultant to McKissack+Delcan Joint Venture. The Joint Venture is MTA’s independent engineering consultant for its Capital Program, which manages improvement and extension of the MTA system. Below is a brief overview of three of the major projects Jacobs Associates is overseeing.

The four-phase Second Avenue Subway (SAS) Project will create a new 8.5-mile (13.7 km), two-track subway line under 2nd Avenue, traversing the length of Manhattan from 125th Street to the Financial District. Phase 1 is in construction. The TBM has been launched at 96th Street; the other station caverns have begun subsurface stabilization and utility relocation. Phase 1 scheduled completion is December 2016.

The No. 7 Line Subway Extension Project will extend the No. 7 Line west from the New York/New Jersey Port Authority Bus Terminal on 8th Avenue toward the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, add a station at the convention center and, pending further funding, another station at 10th Avenue. Construction activities have begun, and final design will be complete by year’s end. Two hard-rock TBMs launched last summer have completed mining operations. Excavation by drill and blast for the shafts, cavern, and adits is also complete, as is cavern waterproofing. Remaining contracts include ventilation shafts, ancillary structures, finishes, and track and signal work. Scheduled completion is July 2015.

The existing Fulton Street Transit Center (FSTC) complex is the busiest in lower Manhattan and is made up of five separate subway stations built between 1905 and 1932. The FSTC Project will create a new focal point of entry into the Lower Manhattan Subway network and eventually connect the WTC Port Authority Trans-Hudson Station to the NYC subway system. Current construction includes foundation excavation, underpinning, and building of the Transit Center structure to street level. Scheduled completion is June 2014.