Elected officials from New York called on the Federal Transit Administration to fund the $6 billion second phase of the Second Avenue subway under the FTA's capital investment "new starts" grant program.
The four-station first phase might open by Dec. 31, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have said.
"Phase 1 is nearly complete, but there's still a lot of work to be done to complete the full build subway," U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney said at a press conference Thursday in Manhattan. The board of state agency MTA has already approved the design and environmental consultant contracts for the second phase.
The line is intended to alleviate crowding along the north-south Lexington Avenue corridor. The first four stations are Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street, and then along Second Ave. at 72nd Street, 86th street and 96th Street.
The second phase would stretch 1.7 miles north to 125th Street in Harlem. An even more distant third phase would extend about five miles south of the newly constructed line to Hanover Square in lower Manhattan.
Congressman-elect Adriano Espaillat and state Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez, D-East Harlem, joined Maloney at the press conference.
Maloney and U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel have written FTA Acting Administrator Carolyn Flowers urging her to approve the MTA's project development application for Phase 2.
The MTA's 2015-2019 capital plan includes $1.5 billion for Phase 2.
"We are concerned that any delay in entering into [project development] would make it impossible for the MTA to use the allocated funding during the current capital plan," Maloney and Rangel wrote.
