High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! East Side Access is a public works project being undertaken by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City, designed to bring the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) into a new East Side station to be built below and incorporated into Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. Access to the East Side of Manhattan has long been a wish of LIRR riders who work there but must use the Long Island Rail Road's Manhattan terminal at the congested Pennsylvania Station on the West Side, which is shared with Amtrak and NJ Transit riders. A 1998 study showed that only 36% of all jobs in Midtown are within walking distance of Penn Station, while almost 70% are within walking distance of Grand Central, the other major Manhattan rail terminal. (There is some overlap, and some jobs are not within walking distance of either facility.) Direct service to the East Side would allow many riders to walk to work, and others to use fewer subway and bus transfers, cutting up to 40 minutes off their daily travel time. The addition of a new Manhattan terminal will also increase capacity on the LIRR.