PHOTO: Michael Arnone
Free at last: Commuters hurriedly disembark from the 6 line at Grand Central Station after a crowded ride. Other riders rush to take their place.

Subterranean Sardine Cans

Grand Central Station, 8:30 a.m. Another working day starts for New York commuters - if they can get on the subway, that is.

They pack the platforms for the 4, 5 and 6 trains, jostling each other, jockeying for the best position to enter the cars. As the train clatters to a stop, those waiting can see it's wall-to-wall people inside - riders cheek-to-cheek, jammed against poles, walls and each other.

Desperate eyes lock on opposite sides of the plexi-glass windows, the insiders yearning to get out, the outsiders steeling themselves to barge in.

To those East Side subway riders who think their commute can't get any worse, deliverance could be on its way.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority has announced it will finally build the Second Avenue Subway - the first entirely new subway line the city would see since the 1940s.

The line, on the city's to-do list for nearly 80 years, would eventually stretch from East 125th Street to the Lower East Side. It would parallel the Lexington Avenue lines - the 4, 5 and 6 - and is intended to provide much-needed relief to crowded commuters.

"Right now, we face a capacity crisis in our subway system, virtually every subway line is operating at capacity at rush hour," says Steven Weber, senior planner with Regional Planning Associates. "It's virtually impossible to add more people onto these trains. This new line will add a capacity for 80,000 during rush hour."

Weber forecasts that the new line will relieve the crisis in overcrowding. The Upper East side is one of the most densely populated areas of the city and it has only one subway tunnel with three lines - the 4, 5 and 6. The West Side of the Island has the 1, 2, 3, and 9 and A, B, C and D lines running along Broadway and Central Park West.

The plan - which experts estimate could cost $8 billion to $15 billion and take 15 to 20 years to complete - has started to draw attention as more and more subway riders are getting fed up with the cattle-car conditions.

But starting - let alone finishing - such a monolithic project is complicated and difficult. And the question remains: Will a new subway line ease the East Side crunch?

 

  
How Bad Is It?

Depending on whom you ask, riding the East Side subway lines ranges from mildly irritating to downright frustrating.

-- "Sardines," is how Hope Johnson, 29, of Brooklyn describes her trips on the subway, especially the 4 and 5 trains.

-- "The 4, 5 and 6 move 1.4 million people a day," says Gene Russianoff, staff attorney with Straphangers, a subway advocacy group run by the New York Public Interest Research Group. "It's jam-packed, miserable and scary."

Not everyone, though, agrees that riding the subways is a chore.

-- "It's gotten better, but I can't say it's enjoyable," says Kevin Chan, 34, of Manhattan. The reduction in graffiti has made the ride better despite the crowds.

-- Alan Gottleib, 70, from Long Island, has ridden the subway for decades and doesn't think crowding is especially bad now.

"It's a pretty efficient system," he says. "We're a very tolerant people. We adapt to conditions."

"Mayor Giuliani says we have to ride the subway, right?" he jokes.

Building the Second Avenue Subway seems like a good idea to many.

-- "For all the people on the East Side, the closest station is Lexington (Avenue)," Chan notes.

-- "They need something over there," says Nancy Maksomski of Manhattan as she clambers onto a standing-room-only 5 train.

-- "It is very necessary to build this line," says Joshua Shank, a transportation planner with the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee.

"If the MTA goes with East Side access - allowing the Long Island Rail Road into Grand Central Station - there needs to be another subway line on the East Side," he says. "The Lexington line is already over capacity."

But the prospect of a multibillion-dollar construction project doesn't enamor everybody.

-- "I don't know about a new subway line," Johnson says. "I don't know how it would affect other areas.

-- "It would be an enormous problem," Gottleib says.