This Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) project involved engineering services that included conceptual, preliminary engineering, final design, and construction phase services for the East Side Access project. East Side Access was the largest capital project ever undertaken by the MTA, culminating in the opening of Grand Central Madison — a new terminal located 100 feet beneath Grand Central Terminal that extends LIRR service directly into Manhattan’s East Side. The project also included the construction of a new commuter rail station in Sunnyside, Queens. Prior to this project, Penn Station had been the LIRR’s only Manhattan stop, creating a single-point bottleneck and contributing to overcrowding, delays, and longer commuter travel times; East Side Access addressed these challenges by boosting LIRR capacity by 50% and providing direct service to Midtown for all 11 LIRR lines. The project involved the development of site plans and layouts, utility plans, demolition plans, interface drawings, and structural drawings including foundations, framing, equipment loadings, and locations. The plans were prepared using MicroStation. As a subconsultant, SI Engineering, P.C. (SIE) supported the team with structural and civil engineering design services. SIE’s contributions supported major components of this longstanding regional initiative, including work at Harold Interlocking in Queens, the busiest rail junction in the U.S., and new LIRR facilities connecting to the existing 63rd Street Tunnel and the new Grand Central Madison terminal. This project involved the following structural and civil engineering tasks:
- Designing bridge girders, diaphragms, bearings and connections for 150’ 3-Span Bridge for compliance with AREMA regulations
- Conducting geotechnical engineering work using soil borings for use in creating soil springs, soil loads, and hydrostatic loads in computer analysis
- Designing reinforced concrete walls using plate analysis, utilizing both computer models and hand calculations
- CSS work for electrical, mechanical, and structural work supporting the broader expansion of rail infrastructure, including new tunnels, vent plants, systems facilities, and passenger-serving elements associated with the East Side Access program
