Yet more delays on the MTA’s two largest subway projects will cost a total of up to another $1.3 billion and leave straphangers without the improvements for at least more than a year longer than expected, sources told The Post today.
The Second Avenue Subway, which was scheduled for completion in 2015, is now set to be finished between July 2016 and July 2017, sources said.
The project is supposed to alleviate the severe overcrowding on the Nos. 4, 5, and 6 lines.
The massive $4.3 billion price tag will now be between $100 million and $500 million more expensive.
And the East Side Access project — extending the LIRR to Grand Central Terminal — is now scheduled to be finished between March 2016 and January 2017. It was slated to be done by February 2015, sources said.
And the cost could skyrocket to $8 billion, up from $7.2 billion.
“Time is money,” said Bill Henderson, of the permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “Just stretching the project out, you have construction supervision you pay for and construction inspection. There’s costs to all of that.”
The news came as the agency completed a full-scale review of both projects, which are already years behind schedule.
The MTA said the excess costs will be covered by the next five-year capital plan, which will budget the agency’s biggest projects from 2010 to 2014.
The review was “in response to risks associated with an overheated construction market and a limited pool of contractors available for large, complex projects,” an agency statement said.
“The result includes revised budgets and timelines, but most importantly a mitigation strategy and management plan that is realistic and achievable,” the statement said.
Several contractors have run into delays on the two mega-projects.
Installing reinforcement walls along the Second Avenue line was taking twice as long as expected, and a contractor on the East Side Access project was defaulted for not performing the work as promised, a source said.