See you in October?
The MTA board will vote this week to speed up the installation of elevators at the 59th Street subway station. This will put the project on track for completion in October, nearly a year ahead of schedule.
“This timeline modification allows the MTA to accelerate the in-service date of three new elevators, as well as all work in the north mezzanine and all work associated with providing a fully compliant ADA accessible path of travel at the 59th Street station, to October 2020,” said the MTA.
The project includes one mezzanine-to-street elevator and two mezzanine-to-platform elevators, as well as an expanded north mezzanine.
“We’re determined to get a lot of projects done faster and cheaper while ridership is low,” said Janno Lieber, president of MTA Construction & Development. “Here, finishing the project almost a year early will deliver millions in overhead savings — savings that will offset most of the cost of the extra personnel and longer hours necessary to accelerate construction.”
The project also includes the following work, to be completed by the end January 2021:
• Reconfiguration of two street stairs and two platform stairs
• Rehabilitation of one street stair and two platform stairs
• Reconfiguration of the fare control area
• Construction of new ADA-compliant toilet facilities, and back-of-house support spaces
• New ADA-compliant sidewalk curb cuts.
“Expediting the project will allow more customers in Brooklyn to more easily access this station far sooner than expected,” said Alex Elegudin, NYC Transit’s senior advisor for systemwide accessibility.
The costs associated with accelerating this work – $3.5 million including an incentive for early or on-time completion of the elevators, the entire ADA path of travel and all mezzanine work – are partially offset by projected savings of approximately $2.65 million from shortening the project timeline.
