The LIRR station in Manhasset will be closed for a second weekend as the MTA completes the second leg of construction along the Manhasset viaduct, MTA officials said last week.
MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said nearly one third of the project to replace aging timbers that support the rails on the bridge structure was completed during the first weekend of the three-weekend project March 9 and 10, mainly to the center section of the viaduct.
“We are undertaking timber replacement on the viaduct based on age and condition of the existing timbers,” Donovan said. “Nothing on the viaduct is in an unsafe condition.”
The last segment of the project will take place April 13 to 14.
The ongoing work is part of a $335 million rehabilitation project by the MTA to fix many of the LIRR’s 640 bridges, 30 viaducts and four tunnels that enable travel across the region’s waterways, highway crossings, and dense urban and suburban areas, according to a MTA release.
The release said the work would require the closure of Bayville Avenue to vehicular traffic during each weekend of the project, and that buses would replace trains along the Port Washington line affected by the construction.
LIRR riders departing from the Port Washington, Plandome and Manhasset stations will be able to board a bus 25 minutes ahead of the trains scheduled to leave Great Neck.
The MTA estimated 2,634 customers would be affected.
Riders traveling east of Great Neck will take a bus headed for the Plandome, Manhasset and Port Washington stations and to anticipate an additional 25 minutes of travel time. MTA estimated 2,985 customers would be affected each day of the work.
Another MTA spokesman, Salvatore Arena, said in an e-mail that work will begin after train service is suspended each Saturday morning after the arrival of the last eastbound train at Great Neck, expected at 12:53 a.m.
The work will continue until just before the departure of the first westbound train from Great Neck, expected to depart at 12:10 a.m. Monday.
