Everything to know about Grand Central Madison

BY CAROLINE SPIVACK

The Issue 1

After nearly six decades of planning and construction, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has opened a new Long Island Rail Road connection to Grand Central Terminal. The project, known as East Side Access, is infamous for its years of delays and ballooning costs. Now projected to cost $11.1 billion, it is one of the most expensive mass transit undertakings in the world.

All that effort has linked every LIRR stop with the new Grand Central Madison station and is expected to shave as much as 40 minutes off the commute of thousands who work on Manhattan’s East Side. It also creates connections to parts of Queens and Metro-North stations. Transit officials say the project is poised to boost train capacity to and from Manhattan by 50%, with an estimated 45% of LIRR commuters diverting to Grand Central Madison—which could help alleviate crowding at Penn Station.

The launch, however, was only a partial opening. For up to four weeks, the new rail link to Grand Central Madison will run with limited service. A shuttle, which the MTA has dubbed Grand Central Direct, is shepherding riders between the Jamaica station and Grand Central. The staggered start, transit officials said, will give travelers a chance to familiarize themselves with the station ahead of new train schedules, which will allow passengers on 10 of the 11 LIRR branches to transfer at Grand Central Madison.

The gleaming, new station was built 17 stories below Vanderbilt Avenue. It features the longest escalators in the city: 180 feet. From the mezzanine, travelers can depart from Grand Central Madison’s main entrance at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and East 47th Street or four other street-level points.

WHAT’S NEXT 5

The Grand Central Direct shuttle is scheduled to run for up to four weeks. Then the MTA plans to publish new LIRR schedules and commence full operations to and from Grand Central Madison. Currently, only one to two trains are running per hour in the station, when full service kicks in, that figure will spike to 24 per hour.

The Players

2MTA officials have long spoken about East Side Access as a critical expansion for Long Island and Queens residents that can serve as an economic driver. MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber, after riding the inaugural shuttle into Grand Central Madison with Gov. Kathy Hochul, emphasized that the rail link has benefits beyond saving time for Long Island commuters. It also makes it easier for workers to reverse-commute to the island, he said.

“[The project is] going to benefit Long Islanders with shorter commutes. But you can’t forget about the Long Island businesses that, for the first time, are going to be able to recruit from the entire region,” Lieber said.

Since taking over as governor in 2021, Hochul has been a vocal cheerleader for the project. The completion of East Side Access under her leadership might curry favor with Long Island voters—a majority of whom supported her Republican challenger, former Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island.

“For those who have to backtrack [from] Penn Station to the East Side, those days are over,” Hochul said. “And for the businesses that are struggling after the pandemic, trying to get workers back, they have one more reason to say, ‘Come on back.’”

YEAH, BUT … 3

The project was stunningly expensive. East Side Access, for many years, was a bureaucratic boondoggle and will be a reminder of how not to build a megaproject.

Grand Central Madison’s opening also comes as commuting patterns are in flux due to remote and hybrid work. Weekday ridership on the LIRR is hovering around 65% of prepandemic levels. That’s roughly the same as the subway, but the city’s trains and buses carry 24 times as many riders each day, causing some transportation advocates to question the project.

“The MTA has backed into a massive new subsidy for Long Island, and the city is left out,” said Danny Pearlstein, policy director for the Riders Alliance. The MTA has pushed back on that argument, pointing to the more than 20 LIRR stops in Queens, parts of which have a dearth of mass transit options.

“Overwhelmingly, this is giving more options to some of the most exclusive communities in the U.S.,” Pearlstein said. There are also equipment challenges. The LIRR currently lacks the diesel locomotive necessary to tow disabled trains out of the tunnels if there is, say, a power outage. The MTA is exploring alternatives to a lengthy bid for the equipment.

Some Background

The concept for East Side Access dates back to the 1960s, but the project didn’t secure federal funds until the late 1990s due to former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, a Long Island Republican. The complex undertaking has persisted through nine gubernatorial administrations, with a long list of delays, construction challenges and billions of dollars in cost overruns, obliterating an early 2009 deadline and a $4.3 billion budget. Lieber acknowledged that the project was “a hot mess” when he took over as president of MTA construction and development in 2017. But despite the setbacks, he has argued, it was a worthy investment for riders and the economy.