Riders take photos and videos as they exit the first Long Island Railroad train to arrive in Grand Central Station in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. After years of delays and massive cost overruns, one of the world’s most expensive railway projects on Wednesday began shuttling its first passengers between Long Island to a new annex to New York City’s iconic Grand Central Terminal. AP Photo/Seth Wenig
For decades, work on a massive rail project has been grinding 15 stories below the shuffling footsteps of millions of New Yorkers and beneath the East Hudson River and Manhattan skyscrapers.
After years of delays and massive cost overruns, the enormously expensive railway project shuttled its first passengers Wednesday from Long Island to a new annex in New York City’s iconic Grand Central Terminal.
The new transit center, built inside a massive man-made cavern and served by rail tunnels carved through bedrock, is being heralded as an important addition to the nation’s busiest railway network.
“We got the job done,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said, the ninth governor to oversee the project that had its genesis six decades ago. “There were so many roadblocks and challenges and detours along the way.”
The new 700,000-square-foot terminal, dubbed Grand Central Madison, was conceived and constructed at a time when New York City’s transportation system was bursting with passengers. It opens in a different era, with ridership still significantly down from where it was before the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era of remote work.
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