The new Grand Central Madison terminal for the Long Island Rail Road will not open for full passenger service in 2022, MTA officials conceded on Monday — putting to bed a longstanding promise from the authority to complete the long-delayed megaproject by the end of 2022.
Yet the promise may still be partially fulfilled with a brand new LIRR shuttle service between the new, 750,000-square-foot Grand Central Madison and Jamaica, Queens, which will commence operations before the start of full service so riders can get more intimate with the new station. That may still open before the end of the year, said the MTA’s commuter railroads president Cathy Rinaldi on Monday.
The “Grand Central Direct” shuttle will launch in the coming weeks, Rinaldi said, and full service at the new terminal should be expected within three weeks after that service kicks off. The shuttle will go direct from Grand Central Madison to Jamaica, an MTA spokesperson said, with peak hour trains stopping at Woodside so Port Washington Branch riders have the chance to transfer and ride into the new terminal.
Off-peak, the shuttle will also make local stops at Forest Hills and Kew Gardens.
“This is transformational in terms of the kind of service delivery that our customers are gonna be seeing. So you can’t do that on the fly, people want to be able to plan their travel, they want to understand what this means for them,” Rinaldi told reporters in the subterranean terminal on Monday. “So we want to give our customers the opportunity to orient themselves in the terminal with the new service.”
The news, first reported by Newsday, confirms for the first time that full service will not commence at Grand Central Madison this year, despite promises from the MTA up until recent weeks that it would.
Construction is essentially complete at the new station — which will bring LIRR trains to Grand Central Terminal and is expected to increase railroad service capacity by 40% — but the authority is still neck-deep in safety testing to ensure the terminal, with platforms located 17 stories underground, is safe for passengers to use.
Airflow and fire safety testing are still underway and need to be passed before the terminal can open. The station’s “smoke extraction system” needs to be certified safe by the Fire Marshal should an inferno take place deep underground, Rinaldi said.
“That testing has to take place and has to be completed before we’re able to open it,” said Rinaldi. “We want to open as soon as we can safely do so. Which is why we absolutely have to have the testing completed and successfully completed.”
Should the testing be completed within the next two weeks, it’s feasible that the Grand Central Direct shuttle could start operating out of the new terminal before the end of the year. But there’s no chance of full service before 2023: Rinaldi said that it would be at least three weeks after shuttle kickoff before the terminal could be fully operational.
The MTA’s Construction & Development division has handed operational control of the facility over to the LIRR, so the enormous complex is now a railroad station rather than a construction site in the eyes of federal regulators. But the station — which MTA Chair Janno Lieber has described as “the size of the Chrysler Building laid on its side” — is still an active work site with crews laboring around the clock to make sure the shiny concourse is ready for commuters.
Reporters visiting the station with Rinaldi on Monday were still required to wear hard hats and orange construction vests, and were advised to wear closed-toe shoes and to keep watch for obstacles.
The finish line is in sight for the $11 billion megaproject, after 25 years, innumerable delays, and massive cost overruns. Still, some critics weren’t impressed by the MTA’s promised soft launch. Retired federal transit official Larry Penner, now a commentator on transportation issues, called the shuttle “lipstick on a pig.”
“When it comes to East Side Access,” Penner said, “the LIRR 1960’s motto ‘Line of the Dashing Dan’ should be changed to ‘Line of the Slow Moving Sloth.'”
