Explosion At 72nd St SAS Station Cavern
I have been so busy over the past few days but I could not ignore the big story from the other day when an explosion occurred at the 72nd St Second Avenue Subway station cavern. While the explosion was of the planned variety, the result of debris & a thick cloud of smoke rising was not. Andy Newman & Vivian Yee of the New York Times have more:
An intentional underground explosion on the Second Avenue subway project at 72nd Street propelled a thick column of debris and smoke into the air and shattered windows above ground on Tuesday.
The authorities said that no injuries had been reported as a result of the blast, around 12:45 p.m., and that work would be suspended.
“We were doing a controlled blast,” said Adam Lisberg, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman, “when clearly something went awry and an explosion was felt at street level.” Photos by a witness published by The Daily News show a violent eruption rising eight stories in the air.
Michael Horodniceanu, president of the authority’s capital construction division, said that workers had been blasting to clear space for an escalator from the street to the subway, but that “we do not know why” the blast erupted up onto the street.
Click here for the complete report.
Following the incident, MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph J. Lhota released this statement:
What happened at the Second Avenue Subway construction site today is completely unacceptable. The MTA is investigating what went wrong and will not resume work at the 72nd Street site until we receive a full explanation for what happened and a plan to make sure it does not happen again. While I am thankful that no one was injured today, I fully understand why neighbors of the construction site are upset. I am, too. The safety of the community is the MTA’s utmost priority. We will continue working with the community to ensure their concerns are heard and acted upon.
It should come as no surprise that work has been completely halted at the location barring a full investigation. I am extremely curious to hear what caused this event to happen, especially considering a similar blast did not go as planned a few months prior albeit with much less damage.
MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu released preliminary findings into the investigation late yesterday afternoon. It turns out that the blast site was not properly equipped to handle the force especially considering the angle & intensity was changed from what was originally planned. Vivian Lee of NY1 has more:
Work remains suspended on a section of the Second Avenue subway line after Tuesday’s blast, which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says was conducted at a different angle and intensity than planned, rocked an Upper East Side street and sent passersby running for cover.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, MTA officials said the incident happened during a controlled tunnel blast at the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Second Avenue — an area the agency says was not equipped to handle the force of the blast.
“The force of the blast was concentrated in one particular area. That was not anticipated. The other factor was, the area it was all focused on, was not ever anticipated to take that kind of blow,” said MTA Spokesman Adam Lisberg.
Agency officials say the explosion knocked off the wooden piling and steel plate covering the blast section, allowing debris to fly into the street.
MTA Chairman Joe Lhota is calling the incident “completely unacceptable.”
While it was somewhat of a chaotic scene with windows shattering, no one was hurt.
MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu told reporters on Wednesday that the agency will retain an independent safety consultant for the project and that a blasting consultant will be more involved in the process.
Click here for the complete report.
I agree with the Chairman that this was completely unacceptable. One has to wonder why the original blast plans were changed? Also why were better precautions not taken considering a blast problem occurred a few months prior albeit with much less damage? They need to clean up their act before someone gets hurt!
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Knickerbocker Ave Station Closes For Rehab
Catching up on some transit news over the past few days, MTA NYC Transit announced a few days ago that the Knickerbocker Avenue station on the 
will be closed for 5 months due to station rehabilitation. This along with 4 other stations are part of a major station rehabilitation project. Here is more via the official press release:
MTA New York City Transit announces the renewal of five stations on the Myrtle Avenue M line set to begin with Knickerbocker Avenue this weekend. Effective 12:01 a.m., Saturday, August 18, Knickerbocker Avenue will close in both directions for station rehabilitation for five months. Central Avenue is also scheduled to close for five months from March through August 2013. Over the next twelve months, Seneca Avenue, Forest Avenue and Fresh Pond Road stations will have important station component work done as well.
At Knickerbocker Avenue and Central Avenue stations, workers will entirely reconstruct the control houses, refurbish the station agent booths, replace the street and platform stairs, install new windscreens, perform structural repairs, install new drainage systems and repair column bases. At Seneca Avenue, Forest Avenue and Fresh Pond Road stations, customers will see improvements to the control houses, stairs, platforms, columns and flooring.
During the station closures, customers may walk or take the bus to the nearest station. In addition to the regular B54 bus during the day, a B54 fare-free shuttle bus will be available during the overnight periods operating every 20 minutes between Broadway and Wyckoff Avenue. We will closely monitor B54 service at all times at the beginning of each closure to determine if service is adequate during rush hours and off peak daytime hours.
Thankfully the area has other stations within short walking distance so the majority of customers should not be majorly inconvenienced.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Service Diversions 08-20-12
I have just updated the Service Diversions by removing all of the work that wrapped up as of 5:01 AM. The latest work for the week is front & center.
As always if I see anything interesting or noteworthy, I will tweet about it so follow @TransitBlogger which you can easily do by clicking the button in the sidebar.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Service Diversions 08-17-12
Get an early jump on your weekend travel plans as I have just updated the Service Diversions for this weekend, next week & beyond in some cases.
Follow me on Twitter by looking up @TransitBlogger or clicking the button in the sidebar as I am using it a lot more! Check the diversions page daily as I update it as changes occur, diversions end, etc….
As always, have a safe & wonderful weekend.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Jay St Escalator Breaks Down Often
Subway riders don’t consider many aspects of the system their friends. The few things they might are seats, nice cold (in the summer) & warm (in the winter) cars, & oh yes those precious escalators. They come in especially handy when your feet are killing you & the thought of climbing stairs makes you want to scream.
Unfortunately if you use the Jay Street-Metrotech station, you are questioning the quality of your friendship these days. It turns out that a specific escalator in this station had been out of service 33 times within the first 3 months of this year. Sadly it does not end there as this same escalator is out 20% of the time. Tina Redwine of NY1 has more:
Riders were delighted to see this new escalator installed at Downtown Brooklyn’s Jay Street-Metro Tech station about a year-and-a-half ago.
These days, though, riders are not as enthusiastic. In the past month, riders at Jay Street have encountered a broken escalator an average of once every four days.
“Come on now. I suffer from my legs anyway, I have neuropathy. I mean, you’re paying $2.25, you shouldn’t have to go through this,” said a subway rider.
The problem is not new. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s own records show that this escalator, ES 357, shut down unexpectedly 33 times in the first three months of the year and was out of service 20 percent of the time. That is five times longer than the typical subway escalator, which is usually about 10 years old.
Click here for the complete report.
My initial thought when reading this is that this sounds like a lemon. Something is very wrong when a fairly new escalator has a poorer track record versus its much older counterparts. This is completely unacceptable.
The agency says it has no plans to replace the escalator but after awhile, are patchwork repair jobs really the solution? If anything, have it reinstalled since it is still under warranty. Why chance things getting worse which you know it will magically once the warranty expires? Hopefully the agency will reconsider their stance on this.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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