DiNapoli: LIRR's East Side Access 10 Years Behind Schedule

ALBANY-The train is running behind schedule: New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Wednesday said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's East Side Access project to bring Long Island rail Road service to Grand Central Terminal will finish about 10 years later than expected and at more than twice the MTA's initial cost estimate.

The first expansion of the LIRR in more than a century, East Side Access was expected to cost $4.3 billion and to begin service in 2009, but is now projected to cost $8.76 billion when completed in August 2019, DiNapoli wrote in a report. A spokesman for the MTA tells GlobeSt.com the agency has no comment.

“Time and again, the MTA has come up short on the goal to deliver the East Side Access project on schedule and within budget,” DiNapoli says in a statement. “While this project is an important addition to the regional mass transit system serving New York City and Long Island, taxpayers will have to bear the brunt of these unanticipated costs. There must be lessons learned at the MTA from this experience as they move forward with their capital program.”

The initial cost estimates and targeted completion date for the massive project date from 1999. The cost had increased to $6.3 billion by the time design work advanced in 2006, and has since grown by another $2.4 billion. The figure of $8.76 billion includes about $500 million in additional rolling stock that will be needed to meet service demand.

Much of the report is based on information previously disseminated by the MTA. For example, the report quotes the transit agency as saying there's an 80% probability that the actual cost of East Side Access may be at or below its current estimate, and that service could begin up to one year earlier than currently forecast. Conversely, there is a 20% probability of additional costs or delays.

More than one-quarter of the project's cost overruns stems from the cost of building the new LIRR terminal below GCT. In the MTA's initial estimate, the terminal would have cost $709 million, but that cost has now jumped to $1.9 billion, an increase of 170%.