 "Photo: Alex Palomino/The Observer")
MANHATTAN-Makeshift blue wooden walls, orange spray paint and yards of yellow caution tape placed throughout the 59th Street/Columbus Circle subway complex offer riders an inkling of the changes coming to the complex over the next two years.
Among the 44 subway stops that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is rehabilitating as a component of its $21.285 billion 2005-09 Capital Program, the 59th Street/Columbus Circle complex will undergo extensive renovations and additions well into 2009, the MTA's final proposed budget for 2007 confirmed.
Signs inside the complex extend an apology by the MTA that the construction might "inconvenience" subway riders-a portion of whom use the A, B, C, D and 1 trains to commute to Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC). However, students and faculty say that the ongoing work has not yet inconvenienced their daily commutes.
"Overall, I don't have a problem with it," Isabel Castro, FCLC '07, said. She added that the only difficulties she had recently encountered at the Columbus Circle stop had been train delays, and Castro said they were most likely a result of traffic and congestion-not the complex's overhaul. "Around six or so, that's when rush hour is, so they delay us on other stops before they reach 59th Street."
Delays are one of the many issues that the complex's rehabilitation aims to address.
The 59th Street/Columbus Circle complex is comprised of two interconnected subway stations: the Eighth Avenue IND Line station, which services the A, B, C, and D trains, and the Seventh Avenue IRT Line station that services the 1 train. Roughly 150,000 people use the complex daily, according to a press release by Parsons Brinckerhoff and Richard Dattner and Partners Architects (PB/Dattner), the firms contracted by the MTA to design the rehabilitation.
The press release by PB/Dattner cites reorganization of turnstiles, new lighting, new signage and wider stairs as some of the planned objectives of construction. Likewise, a report released by the MTA in 2005 concerning capital improvement projects stated that the construction will restore transfer service to Columbus Circle's long-unused center island platform in the Eighth Avenue Line station.
According to the MTA's 2007 final proposed budget, the full rehabilitation of the 59th Street/Columbus Circle subway complex is separated into four separate projects, costing a total of almost $100 million: making the complex accessible to riders with disabilities, consolidating and renovating employee facilities, rehabilitating the Eighth Avenue Line station and rehabilitating the Seventh Avenue Line station.
The two most expensive projects focus on bringing both the Eighth Avenue Line and Seventh Avenue Line stations into a "state of good repair," and together they account for more than 85 percent of the rehabilitation's aggregate expenses, the proposed budget stated. The MTA's renovations will include repairing structural deficiencies in both stations, building more stairs on the stations' platforms, removing "visual clutter" in the stations, and even installing new artwork, the 2005 capital improvement report showed.
The beautification of the Columbus Circle complex may come as a relief to some subway riders. "Aesthetically, it is a mess," said Andrew Clark, assistant professor of French, who takes the A and C trains to Columbus Circle.
Clark said the rehabilitation of the complex has not been overly inconvenient, but he did call the temporary plywood structures on the stations' platforms a "hindrance" because they restrict passenger movement. Clark also said traces of what he perceived to be asbestos and lead dust throughout the complex were "a little disconcerting," particularly when traveling with his five-month-old daughter.
Brianna Hill, an FCLC '07 commuter student, said she had not come across any obstacles at the Columbus Circle complex that really "altered her day too much." Other than occasional delays, which she believes are unrelated to the complex's rehabilitation, Hill said the construction had in no way affected her trips to FCLC.
Similarly, Mark Mattson, an assistant professor and associate chair of the psychology department at FCLC who commutes from the South Shore of Long Island, said that while the rehabilitation has forced him to use a difference staircase, traveling to 59th Street/Columbus Circle has actually gotten better in recent years.
"I've been making this trip for 18 years," Mattson said, "and my experience is that the station and service in general have improved over that time."
Be the first to comment on this article!