NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – Officials signed a $3.4 billion funding agreement to extend the Second Avenue subway line from 96th Street to 125th Street on Saturday, an infrastructure development that would help correct the transit desert in East Harlem.
Governor Kathy Hochul, US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Senator Chuck Schumer, MTA Chair and CEO Jano Lieber and Congressman Adriano Espaillat were among the public officials at the announcement and funding signing, held at 10:00 a.m. in East Harlem.
The plan will extend the Q line from 96th Street into East Harlem and across 125th street where it will meet the 4, 5, 6 lines and Metro North, also providing relief to the Lexington Avenue line.
"Let's hear it for the new Second Avenue subway. The money's there, we will build it, you will ride it!" Schumer boomed at the fanfare-filled announcement.
In a post on X, Schumer called the funding "the largest Capital Investment Grant in the history of the program," and noted it as an important step in bringing New York "closer to achieving transportation equity.
The long-desired plan to extend the Second Avenue subway was first proposed by then-Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s, and residents of the area have been calling for transit developments for just as long.
"East Harlem is the most transit dependent neighborhood in New York City, and people have been waiting for this project for 80 years," Lieber said.
The day shovels begin breaking ground on expanding the tunnels has not been announced, but it is expected that the project will take eight years to complete.
Hochul brought her address to racial and transit equity, acknowledging that the project will "begin to right the wrongs of the past" in a community that has been left out of the conversation.
"It matters to me. It matters to your elected officials. And that's why we're so committed to this project. Because it defines us as a people, where we put our money is where our priorities are," Hochul said. "All communities need to deserve to know they matter, that their communities are important to all of us."
Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who represents the area, attended the event and posted on X throughout the morning about the announcement.
"The Second Avenue Subway is our nation's largest transit equity project and reaffirms our commitment to empowering working-class New Yorkers," Espaillat's post read.
The project is the second of four planned phases to extend the Second Avenue subway in a push to improve transit service in the area.
In address to the East Harlem community, Transporation Secretary Buttigieg said "The biggest message we have is we see you, and we're going to make sure that where people have been waiting years and years for service they deserve, we're going to bring that to them whatever it takes."
