Subway riders, who have had to deal with the bottleneck transferring between the Lexington Avenue line and the 7 train, now have more options to get between the two.

A new passageway and stairs between the 7 train platform, and the escalators up to the Grand Central Station mezzanine, opened to the public Tuesday.

According to the MTA, the passageway serves as a solution to prevent overcrowding when passengers exit the 7 train platform. An average of 150,000 riders transfer per day to the 4, 5 and 6 trains, the MTA said.

The construction was done more than 55 feet below Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street without disrupting service, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said. 

“We had to blast through a thousand tons of rock and dirt, down a 55 foot shaft, 140 feet across right through Manhattan shist bedrock, and it was all done through these low-velocity explosions, low-velocity detonation,” Lieber said at a news briefing. “A technique that had never been done in the subway before.”

Other improvements at Grand Central included replacing some of the busiest escalators in the system, as well as widening staircases.