Transportation-starved Red Hook straphangers are F’d until fall.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will not reopen the under-construction Smith-Ninth Street station until September at the earliest — six months after the agency promised the reopen the crumbling transit hub on the border of Red Hook and Carroll Gardens and 15 months since it shut down for repairs.
Construction snafus are the cause of the delay, MTA sources told Community Board 6 district manager Craig Hammerman this week.
The delay outrages Red Hook commuters who have few public transportation options — even when the station is operable.
“They need to get it together; what are we supposed to do?” said Danny Aiken, a Red Hook resident. “It’s upsetting.”
Aiken said she has to trek 20 minutes to the Carroll Street station — or take a crowded bus — in the morning until the station opens.
The setback comes after a scathing report blasting the B61 bus, one of the neighborhood’s few modes of transport, as unreliable and crowded.
The $32 million Smith-Ninth Street station renovation includes new canopies and lighting as part of the city’s www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/42/31_42_mm_smith_st.html“>$257.5 million Culver Viaduct rehabilitation project, which will revamp several other stations by next year.
The MTA did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Reach reporter Natalie O'Neill at [email protected] or by calling her at (718) 260-4505.
