Equipment failure delays 2nd Ave. subway AGAIN!

The giant tunnel boring machine is carving through Manhattan bedrock an average of only about 14 feet a day - less than half the rate expected in the first stage of tunneling, the executive said at a Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee meeting.

"We have yet to achieve the productivity I was hoping [for]," said Michael Horodniceanu, president of the MTA Captital Construction Co. "We were plagued by a lot of technical problems."

The 400-foot machine started heading south under Second Ave. near 96th St. in mid June. Since then, the driveshaft broke and had to be replaced and there have been problems with electronic components and hydraulics systems, he said.

Horodniceanu said he believed the tunneling contractor has fixed the problems, which are not uncommon in the first month or so after activating a tunnel boring machine.

The MTA has pushed back the completion date for the project several times, most recently to December 2016.