<story><title>Tunneling Below Second Avenue (for New Subway)</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/magazine/tunneling-below-second-avenue.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rayiner</author><text>The story highlights something I think anti-rail proponents always miss: the lifetime of this infrastructure is far beyond what ordinary businesses deal with. Parts of the NYC subway are a century old, and parts of the London subway are pushing 150 years old. Decisions like spending extra money to build express tracks on the Manhattan subway system are paying enormous dividends at a time when the people who made the decision have been long dead.&lt;p&gt;Not only do these time scales lengthen the amortization period of these projects, but they dramatically influence peoples&apos; choices. You can&apos;t just base your decision to build a subway line on present commuting patterns. People will adjust their lifestyle to take advantage of the new infrastructure, especially over the century-long timescales involved.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tunneling Below Second Avenue (for New Subway)</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/magazine/tunneling-below-second-avenue.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Anechoic</author><text>The TBM&apos;s finished digging tunnels for all three NY projects in July, now beings the cleanout and cut &amp;#38; cover work so they can start laying tracks and prepping the stations: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120725/long-island-city/mta-completes-digging-13-miles-of-new-tunnels-for-megaprojects&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120725/long-island-city/mt...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I worked briefly on the environmental side of this project at my last job in 2002 and something I don&apos;t hear that often is that there are completed cut-and-cover tunnel segments for the 2nd Avenue subway right now - the project initial began in the 1970&apos;s and some work was completed before the project ran out of money and it was shut down. I&apos;ve been in the completed tunnel sections under 2nd Ave in the around 95th Street and under the Bowery. I think there is another section further north in Harlem but I haven&apos;t been in that one&lt;p&gt;Tunnel section under 95th street: &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitpic.com/afuoxv&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://twitpic.com/afuoxv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tunnel section under the Bowery: &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitpic.com/afupg0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://twitpic.com/afupg0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The initial plan was to tie the new tunnels with the existing section, but last I heard (and this was admittedly 8 or 8 years ago) they abandoned the plan to tie into the Bowery section (they want to go under it) since the route has changed somewhat to tie in with other lines.&lt;p&gt;The scale of the project still amazes me, I&apos;m glad to see that it&apos;s proceeding.</text></comment>