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Subway construction blasting on Second Avenue temporarily halted after gripes


Harry

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Blasting on the Second Ave. subway project was temporarily halted Tuesday amid a storm of complaints from upper East Siders about dust.

 

Long-suffering residents living with the constant tunneling are up in arms over the clouds of dust that appear during the underground explosions carving out what will be the 72nd St. station.

 

Community Board 8’s Second Avenue Subway Task Force Committee got an earful Tuesday night from 60 locals griping about pollution, noise and “the Second Ave. cough.”

 

Read more: Subway construction blasting on Second Avenue temporarily halted after gripes* - NY Daily News

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First off, the picture is very misleading, the caption states that it is at the 63rd street bellmouth during the TBM breakthrough ("late September"), NOT the 72 st station site, as one would believe.

 

Back to topic: if the dust is enough to cause a cloud and irritate people, then it is definately a failure of site management, and the TA did the right thing by suspending the blasting. If I'm right I don't recall there being any issues during the blasting at the TBM launch box. These contractors need to step up their game, or the TA needs to hit them hard for these "oversights".

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Okay okay, so where are all of the Second Avenue supporters at talking about there not being problems with construction underground now??? B) I want to hear what excuse they come up with now. Or better yet, they'll accuse the residents of being obnoxious yet again for complaining against the darlings of transportation... The (MTA). B) All of their concerns must be in their heads. B)

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Guest lance25

Nah, they have a right to complain this time because I, with absolutely no background in construction or demolition, know that that much dust coming up means there's something wrong here. And that needs to be rectified immediately.

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Nah, they have a right to complain this time because I, with absolutely no background in construction or demolition, know that that much dust coming up means there's something wrong here. And that needs to be rectified immediately.

 

I worked in construction for a few years and I can tell you that when I had to on site for meetings (I was mainly in the office but had to on site for some issues), there is nothing worse than having dust all over the place. Not a good situation health wise at all.

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Okay okay, so where are all of the Second Avenue supporters at talking about there not being problems with construction underground now??? B) I want to hear what excuse they come up with now. Or better yet, they'll accuse the residents of being obnoxious yet again for complaining against the darlings of transportation... The (MTA). B) All of their concerns must be in their heads. B)

 

I'm an SAS supporter, but like most others who share my disposition, I'm reasonable and know a legitimate problem from a weightless fuss. The process is being handled properly and the TA is not trying to dodge out of this, like you usually assume that they would.

 

The main problem is that the TA should not be hearing about this from the residents if the contractors are properly doing their job. The real problem is the contractors who don't care about the repercussions of cutting corners to get the work done. "The dust settles in minutes, we don't need to totally seal the blast site..." it's a residential area!

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I'm an SAS supporter, but like most others who share my disposition, I'm reasonable and know a legitimate problem from a weightless fuss. The process is being handled properly and the TA is not trying to dodge out of this, like you usually assume that they would.

 

The main problem is that the TA should not be hearing about this from the residents if the contractors are properly doing their job. The real problem is the contractors who don't care about the repercussions of cutting corners to get the work done. "The dust settles in minutes, we don't need to totally seal the blast site..." it's a residential area!

 

lol... My question is doesn't the (MTA) have some sort of oversight on these projects? If they did then they would already know about the problem and not be hearing about it from residents. I would think that with all of the money that they spend for "Project Managers", paying them 90k and up that surely they could afford to put someone on site to see what is going on.

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Okay okay, so where are all of the Second Avenue supporters at talking about there not being problems with construction underground now??? B) I want to hear what excuse they come up with now. Or better yet, they'll accuse the residents of being obnoxious yet again for complaining against the darlings of transportation... The (MTA). B) All of their concerns must be in their heads. B)

 

Actually here they have a right to complain because air quality is something that's strictly regulated at ALL work sites, and if the air is hazardous the blasting should be suspended.

 

A far cry from whining about the impact on property values a new subway entrance still in the design stages might have.

 

In the words of referee Mills Lane..."I'LL ALLOW IT!"

 

mills_lane-char.jpg

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Actually here they have a right to complain because air quality is something that's strictly regulated at ALL work sites, and if the air is hazardous the blasting should be suspended.

 

A far cry from whining about the impact on property values a new subway entrance still in the design stages might have.

 

In the words of referee Mills Lane..."I'LL ALLOW IT!"

 

mills_lane-char.jpg

 

lol... Why thank you...

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lol... My question is doesn't the (MTA) have some sort of oversight on these projects? If they did then they would already know about the problem and not be hearing about it from residents. I would think that with all of the money that they spend for "Project Managers", paying them 90k and up that surely they could afford to put someone on site to see what is going on.

 

No offense, but that was the most straight forward post I have read of yours. You should get to the point more often instead of stirring the pot. I agree with you, there should be a client representative at every area of work on these projects, if (s)he does his/her job properly.

 

Now hoping your construction experience is extensive enough, you know the can of worms involved in a process/position like that. Hopefully the person does his job as desired. That is why all this stuff is spelled out either in law or on contract. These guys should know better than to let something like that happen on such a high-profile project and not try to mitigate it.

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No offense, but that was the most straight forward post I have read of yours. You should get to the point more often instead of stirring the pot. I agree with you, there should be a client representative at every area of work on these projects, if (s)he does his/her job properly.

 

Yeah well sorry, but I wouldn't be me without my sarcasm. B)

 

Now hoping your construction experience is extensive enough, you know the can of worms involved in a process/position like that. Hopefully the person does his job as desired. That is why all this stuff is spelled out either in law or on contract. These guys should know better than to let something like that happen on such a high-profile project and not try to mitigate it.

 

I don't know how the (MTA) is set up on the construction end, but I do know from my construction experience that they could always hire a GC (General Contractor) as a consultant if they don't have the manpower or the experience to handle a project such as this one. The GC could be a consultant in terms of giving the (MTA) advice from a cost point of view, along with other measures, but the (MTA) would basically still run the show but have the GC on the side for assistance, or they could just hire the GC outright and have that GC handle things. Either way I am a bit curious as to how this even got this far and the only thing that I can see is a lack of oversight. Even with a GC though you can be burned, so either way you have to be careful and cover all of your bases.

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I don't know how the (MTA) is set up on the construction end, but I do know from my construction experience that they could always hire a GC (General Contractor) as a consultant if they don't have the manpower or the experience to handle a project such as this one. The GC could be a consultant in terms of giving the (MTA) advice from a cost point of view, along with other measures, but the (MTA) would basically still run the show but have the GC on the side for assistance, or they could just hire the GC outright and have that GC handle things. Either way I am a bit curious as to how this even got this far and the only thing that I can see is a lack of oversight. Even with a GC though you can be burned, so either way you have to be careful and cover all of your bases.

 

Since the SAS is a Capitol Project, the whole thing is contracted out to a GC who then hires a boat load of subcontractors. The MTA does not do any of the work, any MTA employees you see on one of these jobs sites is from CPM. Back when there was that story of MTA employees knocking a whole in the an apartment wall, it was not MTA employees, it was subcontractors. The only time TA employees actually are the one working on a job site, is when it's an in house job.

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This Project WILL NEVER be finished:mad: because of these kinda of issues.While I agree it can be bad to have dust all over the place but for the Love of God CLOSE UR FREAKIN WINDOWS AND ANY OTHER SOURCE OF OUTSIDE AIR During the Actual blasting...This is the Price of Subway Construction folks! So not only are These residents pushing back the Completion date (2016?) But they are also Costing Jobs in these hard times!...NY Post said that workers had to be Laid off because they weren't needed anymore...smfh...I Say MTA abandon the whole thing and let These Yuppies Keep there nice and pokey M15 select crap service...and Divert all funds to the People who need the Subways and would gladly let them build it ....Southeast Queens...Co Op city...Southern Brooklyn...Eastern Queens...the list goes on lol :P

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Guest lance25

I understand your concerns and frustrations at the increasingly slow pace of this project, but we can't have people developing lung conditions because large plums of smoke are allowed to flow from the tunnels. It doesn't bode well for all involved. There's quite a difference between folks complaining at the noise factor or the fact that they're otherwise inconvenienced by the construction and having thick smoke billowing out of the tunnels. This needs to be addressed and remedied post-haste.

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This Project WILL NEVER be finished:mad: because of these kinda of issues.While I agree it can be bad to have dust all over the place but for the Love of God CLOSE UR FREAKIN WINDOWS AND ANY OTHER SOURCE OF OUTSIDE AIR During the Actual blasting...This is the Price of Subway Construction folks! So not only are These residents pushing back the Completion date (2016?) But they are also Costing Jobs in these hard times!...NY Post said that workers had to be Laid off because they weren't needed anymore...smfh...I Say MTA abandon the whole thing and let These Yuppies Keep there nice and pokey M15 select crap service...and Divert all funds to the People who need the Subways and would gladly let them build it ....Southeast Queens...Co Op city...Southern Brooklyn...Eastern Queens...the list goes on lol :P

 

 

And what makes you so sure that folks in other communities would be so glad to have dust and noise and pollution in their community????

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And MTA wonders why there's a ton of NIMBYism with the SAS. NIMBYs beware, MTA ain't stopping till that first Q train makes it to 96th Street.

 

 

Still this latest diaster, makes much less likely the SAS will *ever be extended* past 96th and 2nd. With that said, I agree with everyone takes the NIMBY's were 100% correct with the dust in the area. Not to mention the construction teams and crews doing the work at time of this incident should be penalized i.e loss of pay from the contract. And if neglience was part of this incident all of the crews inolved in the fiasco should be fired IMO.

 

Despite many problems, of this mega project, IMO at least $1 Billion would been wasted if we stopped now.

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