The MTA has paused construction on the extension of the Second Avenue subway into East Harlem, transit officials said Tuesday.
The long-sought subway line is one of several MTA projects on the chopping block after Gov. Kathy Hochul “indefinitely paused” congestion pricing, which was supposed to finance $15 billion worth of mass transit upgrades.
“We have stopped work on Second Avenue subway,” MTA President of Construction and Development Jamie Torres-Springer said during a news conference. “There are a lot of projects that we will not be able to build, and we’ll be focusing on state of good repair.”
He continued, “We have, in a couple of cases, issued stop work orders on projects that do not strictly meet that state of good repair requirement.”
His comments came hours after Hochul declared the subway extension would move forward, even without the funding from congestion pricing.
The governor at a separate new conference on Tuesday said her move to halt the lower Manhattan tolls “does not mean that we will not find funding for the Second Avenue subway or the wheelchair accessibility. All the ADA work that we’re going to be doing, the signalization, we’re doing the internet, the Interboro Express, none of those stopped.”
Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to questions about Torres-Springer’s comments.
The MTA in January issued a contract to relocate utilities to make way for the project, which aims to extend the Q line from its current terminus on E. 96th Street to a new, expanded station at E. 125th Street and Lexington Avenue. Before Hochul paused congestion pricing on June 5, the MTA was seeking companies to excavate the tunnel for the extension.
The federal government last year agreed to cover $3.4 billion of the project’s estimated $7.7 billion price tag — but only if New York officials cover the remaining cost.
To build the extension of the subway line, MTA officials planned to repurpose a tunnel that was dug out roughly 50 years ago when officials previously tried to dig out a Second Avenue subway line uptown. That project was abandoned during the city’s financial crisis of the 1970s.
MTA officials plan to lay out further cuts to its current construction plan during a board meeting next week.