The bids are in on the 57th Street Substation. MTA Construction & Development opened seven bids on December 5, 2024 for contract P36204 — the rehabilitation of the traction-power substation at the southeast corner of 57th Street and Broadway in Woodside, and the replacement of control cable across Zone No. 20. TC Electric, LLC of Great Neck is the apparent low bidder at $22,963,500.

The turnout says something. Thirty-seven firms took out documents, seven priced the job, and the top of the tab bunched tight. RMD Electric Corp. came second at $26,039,000 — 13.4 percent behind the low — with L.K. Comstock & Company close behind at $26,891,200 and E.J. Electric Installation at $29,159,400. Then the tab stepped up: TAP Electrical Contracting at $33,199,900 and Voltamp Electrical Contractors at $33,339,300, nearly identical numbers, with CRC Associates topping the field at $39,862,000. The agency advertised the work at $10 million to $50 million, so every bid landed inside the bracket. Seven bidders is a healthy field for work this specialized — the city's serious transit electrical shops all showed up.

What the low bidder signed up for, straight from the agency's solicitation: replace the guts of the substation — the high-tension and auxiliary switchgear, rectifiers, DC line-ups and transformers that turn utility power into train power — plus new communication and ventilation systems, a new door with the old one sealed, a stainless-steel perimeter wall around the sidewalk hatch, raised gratings, and structural repairs including water-remedy work on walls, ceilings and floors. The Zone 20 half reaches well past the corner: new communication, SCADA and traction-power equipment in the Woodside Control Room — SCADA is the remote monitor-and-control system — and new control terminal boxes at the 41st, 45th, 69th, 78th and Hulst Street substations and three fan plants, all cabled back to Woodside. It is an A+B contract, meaning schedule was bid alongside price, with substantial completion due in 24 months. The job is fully federally funded, with a 22.5 percent DBE goal.

A traction-power substation is the machine that feeds the third rail. The MTA's own explainer puts it plainly: a substation converts AC power from the utility into the DC voltage that moves trains, and NYC Transit runs about 230 of them across the five boroughs — many sitting on residential corners exactly like this one. The 57th Street plant sits on what the MTA calls the Queens Borough Line, the subway trunk that runs under Broadway through Woodside, so the riders standing on those platforms every morning are the ones this equipment carries. And the Zone 20 cable is the corridor's nervous system: it is how the Woodside Control Room sees and steers power across five substations and three ventilation plants on that stretch. For the block itself, the visible change is modest — a new sidewalk hatch enclosure and raised gratings — while the heavy work happens behind the walls.

The usual caveat, and it holds even at this distance: an apparent low bid is not an award. On an A+B contract the award math weighs time along with dollars, so the final call rested on more than the numbers above — the contract is awarded only after MTA C&D finishes its review and the deal clears approval, and no formal award record accompanies this tab. The paper trail since the opening points one way, though. By September 2025, the MTA's own community notice for P-36204 — announcing overnight test-pit work at 57th Street and Broadway — was directing neighborhood questions to TC Electric. The RFI Wire will carry the award record when it surfaces.

Line up all seven numbers and the spread is real money: CRC Associates' $39,862,000 sits $16,898,500 above TC Electric's low bid of $22,963,500 — the top of the field priced the job roughly 74 percent higher than the bottom. That is a wide range for seven bidders working off the same solicitation, and it is worth watching where the number lands once MTA C&D closes its award review.