Blessed are the New Yorkers! The nation's largest new station is nearing completion starting next year, LIRR people can reach Midtown without having to transfer to Penn Station

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that people taking the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) to Grand Central Station is no longer an idea, but a dream come true.

Starting next year, New York commuters — especially those in Queens and Long Island — who take LIRR to Manhattan will no longer have only one terminus, Penn Station, but also Grand Central.

On Halloween Sunday, Oct. 31, Hochu arrived at a new station deep underground at Central Station on the first trial trains on the Long Island Railroad — marking a milestone in the long-delayed East Side Access project, amny reported. The project will open to the public next year.

Around 8 a.m. on Sunday, Hochu, along with traffic and union leaders from Jamaica in Queens, took a test train to a new track about 9 stories below Madison Avenue and 46th Street, a journey that took about 27 minutes.

"That's how I celebrate Halloween, and in the future it will be a fun trip for new York and Long Island residents," Mr. Hochu told reporters at a news conference after getting off the bus. "New York is the most concentrated area on earth and deserves the best transportation network."

Image credit: New York Governor Hochul Twitter

The $12 billion expansion of transportation infrastructure is scheduled for completion in December 2022. The MTA also introduced the all-new 350,000-square-foot passenger hall this morning — a little larger than seven football fields , with four new platforms and eight additional LIRR rail lines under Grand Central Station.

The MTA expects the East Side Corridor to increase passenger capacity by taking LIRR into Midtown Manhattan by 45 percent and shorten round-trip commuting times by about 40 minutes.

The new station is located 140 feet below Park Avenue and passengers will arrive down on an 182-foot high-rise escalator between the lobby and the mezzanine.

Construction of the East End Corridor project — trains coming in from Harold Interlocking (north America's busiest Queens passenger railroad crossing) and crossing 63rd Street in the East River Tunnel — began more than 50 years ago, stalled for decades, restarted in the 1990s, and began construction on both sides of the East River in 2006.

It is the largest new train station construction in the United States in more than half a century and the first expansion of LIRR in a hundred years.

"People have been talking about the East End Corridor for generations," said Janno Lieber, acting chairman and CEO of the MTA. "Now it's close to becoming a reality."

Lieberman took over the project in 2017 when he became the agency's head of construction and development.

Before the pandemic, the MTA estimated the new facility would facilitate about 162,000 passengers, but many office buildings in Manhattan's business district remain largely vacant due to more remote work options and a resurgence of the outbreak fueled by delta variants earlier this year.

According to the latest data, the city's coronavirus infection rate has dropped to 1.38%, and Hochu predicts that more commuters will return by the end of 2022 due to additional transportation options and increased vaccination rates in New York City.

"When all this is done and people see that they can have a better commuting experience than they did before the pandemic, it will also tempt people to say, 'I'm going back to midtown work,'" the governor said.

Compile: V