Here we go again.
Work has begun inside the Fourth Avenue–Ninth Street subway station as part of the Culver Viaduct restoration project that has already run millions over budget and lasted years longer than anticipated. Councilman Brad Lander (D–Gowanus) lashed out at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the long delays and cost overruns associated with the project, and for withholding information about when it will wrap up.
“I urge the MTA to inform the surrounding community about the construction plan going forward and meet that timeline,” he said in a statement.
Construction started at the R, F, and G station on Monday with the closure of the entrance to the Court-Street-bound R and Queens-bound F and G platforms. Straphangers headed in those directions will have to use the entrance across the street and schlep through the station to reach their trains, according to flyers at the stop last week.
The larger Culver Viaduct project targets the elevated track spanning the Gowanus Canal, including the underside of the track structure, the nearby Smith–Ninth Street station, and the Fourth Avenue–Ninth Street station. First announced in 2007 and begun in 2010, the part of the job focused on fixing up the Smith–Ninth Street station had run more than a year longer than originally scheduled by the time the station reopened in the fall of 2013. The project’s budget has now ballooned from $19 million to $40 million. Part of the problem is that the original contractor “walked off the project,” according to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman, in 2013, according to Lander, but the spokeswoman refused to name the company, citing ongoing litigation.
The lack of transparency bugs Lander, who in his statement cited a summer deadline for the Fourth Avenue work that has come and gone.
Interior repairs at the station have included new lighting, installation of a new roof, and exterior masonry work.
