Sandy Repairs for the Clark Street 2 and 3 Lines' tunel

[daveklepper]

Rather than starting a new thread, I picked the first (latest) New York Sandy-related threat I could find:

 

MTA reinforces South Ferry station with steel doors to shield from Sandy-like storms

South Ferry gets new steel doors to shield from Sandy-like storms

BY Dan Rivoli

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, October 27, 2017, 7:24 PM

The next rip-roaring hurricane to hit New York is going to have a tough time bursting the MTA’s new steel-reinforced bubble at the South Ferry subway station.

The subterranean station at the southern tip of Manhattan was destroyed when Hurricane Sandy made it an Upper Bay tributary, a heartbreaking loss because it had been rebuilt just three years earlier at a cost of $530 million.

Now, another $340 million later, the station that’s home to the No. 1 train is expected to be a worthy opponent when the next Sandy-like storm brings it on.

Reopened in June, South Ferry has custom-fitted, retractable flood doors at its three entrances that can withstand a flood surge 14 feet high off the asphalt, along with 3-ton steel doors throughout to protect rooms that house critical equipment. It passed one test while still under reconstruction in September 2016, when Tropical Storm Hermine rained down its havoc.

Program Executive for MTA Sandy Recovery and Resiliency Branko Kleva (l.) and MTA Chairman Joseph J. Lhota (r.) demonstrate how to utilize the flood gate at South Ferry subway station in Manhattan on Friday, Oct. 27, 2017. 

(Anthony DelMundo/New York Daily News)

“I feel we are in relatively good shape in preparation for lower Manhattan,” MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said. “If we have another storm that mimicked what happened five years ago, clearly we’ll do much better than we did five years ago.”

After Sandy, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had its work washed out for it in the underground canyon that is New York City’s subway and tunnel system. The transit agency is working its way through a $7.6 billion budget for nearly 300 projects – $4.6 billion just to repair the damage Sandy wrought and $3 billion to keep it from happening again.

So far, the MTA has spent or committed about 80% of the funds, leaving $1.6 billion.

“The first few years after Sandy was, as much as anything, an investigation of what we can do and what’s going to be effective,” said Bill Henderson, director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Council to the MTA.

Repairing the damage, he said, is the easy part. “When you’re trying to figure out what you do to keep water from getting in,” he added, “you can’t run a real-world test on it.”

The brass at the MTA recognize the risk climate change presents, calling rising sea levels and coastal storm surges “the greatest threat to the MTA system – as evidenced by the enormous flood damage” during Sandy, according to the agency’s climate-adaptation report from April.

Employees from MTA New York City Transit work to restore the South Ferry subway station after it was flooded by seawater during superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012.

(Patrick Cashin/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Of the system’s nine early-20th century subway tunnels, the four under the East River that flooded with corrosive saltwater have been repaired.

To keep the subway tunnels dry, the MTA has to plug thousands of entry points in Lower Manhattan where floodwaters can pour in. Workers at the Whitehall St. stop demonstrated the agency's current ingenuity by stacking metal logs on top of each other to seal the station. There is also a 3,000-pound door at the station that can be sealed tight with a pump — similar to doors found on Navy aircraft carriers, according to Lhota. Above ground, at the No. 1 train station on Canal St., an MTA worker with a hand crank manually pulled a flexible Kevlar cover over the staircase entrance. In addition, more than 2,000 sidewalk vents in Lower Manhattan are fitted with mechanical hatch doors.

 “We’re addressing the low point because water seeks the lowest point, which is downtown,” said Robert Laga, the Sandy program director for NYC Transit.

The subterranean station at the southern tip of Manhattan was destroyed when Hurricane Sandy made it an Upper Bay tributary, a heartbreaking loss because it had been rebuilt just three years earlier at a cost of $530 million.

(Craig Ruttle/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The MTA can use these flood-fighting devices to seal up 48 station entrances, with 58 to go.

Elsewhere in the transit network, a seawall rising 10 feet from the ground and descending 30 feet below it will protect low-lying A line tracks that lead to the Rockaways. It also will protect the Queens peninsula from storm surges.

Temporary flood walls were erected around the MTA’s biggest train yard at Coney Island as the MTA works toward permanent protection.

MTA workers demonstrate how the flex gate closes and open at Canal Street subway station in Manhattan on Friday, Oct. 27, 2017. 

(Anthony DelMundo/New York Daily News)

“God forbid there’s another hurricane like that, we’ll have the time to be able to shut the system down and in the meantime, lock it up,” Lhota said.

There’s still a lot of work to do, most critically, repairing the L line’s Canarsie tube, which was one of the most damaged underwater tunnels. That project has to wait until 2019, requiring the MTA to figure out the monumental task of moving 250,000 daily L train commuters between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Please note: forwarded message attached

From: Albert Holtz <[e-mail]>
To: William Worth <[e-mail]>, Bob Vogel <[e-mail]>,  Julien Wolfe <[e-mail]>,  Bruce Russell <[e-mail]>, Bob Campbell <[e-mail]>,  Fritz Plenefisch <[e-mail]>,  Curt Carlough <[e-mail]>,  James Giovan <[e-mail]>,  Jeff Marinoff <[e-mail]>,  John Sharkey <[e-mail]>,  Marc Glucksman <[e-mail]>,  "R. Solomon" <[e-mail]>,  Sasha Ivanoff <[e-mail]>,  Stephen Gaddes <[e-mail]>,  Tony Fitzherbert <[e-mail]>,  Ralph Spielman <[e-mail]>,  Ron Yee <[e-mail]>, Mike Glikin <[e-mail]>,  Harvey Glickenstein <[e-mail]>,  Jack May <[e-mail]>,  "Henry H. Deutch" <[e-mail]>,  Randy Glucksman <[e-mail]>,  John Hayward <[e-mail]>,  "William J. Coxey" <[e-mail]>
Subject: MTA reinforces South Ferry station with steel doors to shield from Sandy-like storms
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2017 14:01:19 +0000 (UTC)

 

[MikeF90]

Here's the link for the above truncated text:

http://www.mta.info/press-release/nyc-transit/sandy-related-repairs-coming-clark-st-23-tunnel

[daveklepper]

December 09, 2016

Sandy-Related Repairs Coming to Clark St 2/3 Tunnel Weekend Closures to Start Spring 2017

In order to make Sandy-related repairs, the subway tunnel that carries the  lines between Manhattan and Brooklyn under the East River will undergo weekend closures in both directions starting in spring 2017 to fix integral components heavily damaged during Superstorm Sandy. To facilitate reconstruction of the Clark St Tube, no  or  service will be able to operate between Manhattan and Brooklyn on weekends when construction activity is underway.  This will result in temporary, long-term schedule and route adjustments on weekends on the  and  lines.  The 1.2 mile-long tunnel, known as the Clark St Tube, was one of nine MTA New York City Transit subway tunnels flooded and damaged by an unprecedented storm surge during Sandy in October 2012. More than half a million gallons of corrosive salt water flooded the tunnel, damaging tracks, signals, pumping equipment, and electrical and switching equipment. Although temporary repairs immediately after the storm enabled a safe return to service, extensive reconstruction is required in the Clark St Tube to ensure that  and  line operations remain safe and viable.  This critical work can be performed over 56 weekends and therefore will not affect regular weekday daytime service.  The proposed weekend service plan to facilitate reconstruction of the Clark St Tube was developed with the same “get in, get it done, get out” philosophy as other recent major construction projects. “The Clark St project is the next phase in what is the most extensive reconstruction and fortification effort in the history of the New York City subway system,” said NYC Transit President Ronnie Hakim.  “This effort is well underway and we continue to face the challenge of performing these vital tasks as quickly and effectively as possible while minimizing the impact on our customers’ commutes.  We also aim to minimize the duration of the project and avoid customer confusion by providing the same service every weekend, when possible, throughout the entire project.”   Allowing the worksite to be accessed predictably and consistently will reduce delays and contractor costs.  This plan also maintains the flexibility to provide additional service when it is needed to accommodate special events and other necessary weekend service changes for capital and maintenance work. During the weekend work,  and  trains will terminate at alternate locations in Lower Manhattan. In order to provide alternate service to the greatest extent practicable while taking into account  the locations of track switches that allow trains to terminate and change directions,  trains would be rerouted via the  line south of Chambers St and would terminate at South Ferry. Because of capacity constraints at South Ferry,  trains will terminate at 14 St. As a result of these service reroutes, there will be no  subway service available at the Park Place, Fulton St, Wall St, Clark St, Borough Hall, and Hoyt St stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn on weekends.  However, service on other lines will be available at stations that are a short walk from the affected stations. To provide alternate service in Brooklyn on weekends,  service will be extended from Crown Heights-Utica Ave. to New Lots Av. to replace the .  In addition,  service will be extended from Bowling Green to Flatbush Av-Brooklyn College to replace the .  Both the  and  will operate as local service south of Nevins St. The weekend service plan will also include a free out-of-system transfer between the Bowling Green  station and the  and  (late nights only) at the Whitehall St.-South Ferry station complex to facilitate travel between Brooklyn and the 7 Av and Broadway lines in Manhattan. To improve operations and reduce the need for additional train crews, the northern terminals of the  and  in the Bronx will be swapped.  All  trains will operate via the Dyre Av line between Eastchester-Dyre Avenue and E. 180 St, and  trains will operate via the White Plains Road line between Wakefield-241 St and E. 180 St.  Summary of Service Changes to Accommodate  Customers:  service will be extended to New Lots Av to replace the  in Brooklyn;  service will be extended to Flatbush Av-Brooklyn College to replace the  in Brooklyn; For Service between Brooklyn and Manhattan, riders should use the ;  Free out of system transfer will be available between  and  (late nights only) at South Ferry and  at Bowling Green;  riders may also transfer to the  and  (late nights only) at Whitehall St-South Ferry for service to Brooklyn; No  subway service will be available at Park Place, Fulton St, Wall St, Clark St, Borough Hall, and Hoyt St. Customers at these stations should use nearby stations for alternate service; Customers can use the  at Borough Hall and the  at Fulton St For Hoyt St: Use Nevins St , Borough Hall  or Jay St-MetroTech  For Clark St: Use Borough Hall  or Court St  For Wall St: Use Rector St , Wall St , Broad St , or Rector St  In addition to operating on Saturdays and Sundays, this service plan would operate overnight from Sunday night until 5 a.m. on Monday mornings.  Combined, all of these changes will affect approximately 205,000 riders on the average weekend, and average travel time will increase by about 4.5 minutes.  These schedule and route changes will be incorporated into schedules starting in June, however, work in the Clark Street Tube will start prior to June 2017 and require a few weekend service diversions before we implement the array of route revisions previously outlined. The Clark Street Tube project is the seventh major tunnel restoration in the aftermath of Sandy. Repairs have been completed on the Montague  Tube, Greenpoint  Tube, and the Steinway  Tube, and work is ongoing in the Cranberry , Joralemon , and 53 St  Tubes. For photos during Sandy and Sandy-related damage on MTA property, go to MTA’s Flickr page. Customers may visit www.mta.info and check out “The Weekender,” accessible by clicking “The Weekender” tab located within the Service Status Menu. The Weekender makes it easy for subway customers to visualize exactly how weekend work will affect subway service.