The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today announced that it has successfully replaced the first section of the aging 130-year-old Park Avenue Viaduct without disrupting Metro-North service. This represents a major step toward ensuring this critical transportation infrastructure remains in a state of good repair and enables Metro-North to continue safely delivering record on-time performance.

The Park Avenue Viaduct is an elevated steel structure that carries four Metro-North Railroad tracks and serves all Metro-North trains traveling into and out of Grand Central Terminal, totaling 750 trains every weekday. This past weekend’s operation utilized two gantry systems which extend over the viaduct to remove and replace the existing concrete and steel bridge deck with new prefabricated bridge units, weighing around 190,000 pounds each. This innovative approach helped MTA Construction & Development, in partnership with Metro-North Railroad, perform this work better, faster, and cheaper and without significant disruption for riders. Watch this simulation video of the replacement operation.

Phase 1 of the project, extending from East 115th Street to East 123rd Street along Park Avenue includes replacement of the existing steel structure as well as new tracks, power, communications, and signal systems. Substructure construction to replace the viaduct’s foundations and columns began in September 2023 and construction for Phase 1 will continue through 2026. This first round of work is part of the $590 million earmarked for the first phase of the Park Avenue Viaduct Replacement project, of which $500.9 million is federally funded.

The entirety of the Park Avenue Viaduct runs from the entrance of the Park Avenue Tunnel at East 97th Street to the Harlem River, however, the Park Avenue Viaduct Replacement project focuses on the structural elements in need of repair dating from the 1890s between East 110th Street and the Harlem River Lift Bridge, spanning 1.8 miles.

-via Press Release