Decades of empty promises are no more.

The MTA board on Monday approved a contract to begin major construction on the Second Avenue Subway extension into East Harlem.

The nearly $2 billion deal covers the bulk of the work for the extension, which aims to add three new stations on the Q line that transit officials said would one day serve 110,000 daily riders. The contract includes work to bore a new tunnel between 120th to 125th streets, rehabilitate a tunnel between 110th and 120th streets that was dug out and later abandoned in the 1970s, and build the new stations at 116th Street and 125th Street.

The contract represents one of the most significant steps in the history of the project, which was first conceived over a century ago. The approval of the deal comes 50 years after the MTA

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