MTA To Award Culver Viaduct Contract
Well F & G riders continue to get it from all sides when it comes to the Culver Viaduct project. The news first started in October 2007 when the MTA announced that the Smith-9th Streets station will be closed up to 1 year due to needed repairs on the crumbling Culver Viaduct, which stretches over the Gowanus Canal. The news got worse almost a year to the day when word came out that the repairs would not only be pushed back but cost more.
The latest news is now that the MTA will award a $179 million contract to rebuild the Culver Viaduct. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News has more in this report:
Subway riders on the F and G lines are in for a long, bumpy ride as a major construction project forces trains to skip stations – and straphangers to take shuttle buses.
The MTA board today is expected to award a $179 million contract to rebuild the Culver Viaduct, a crumbling concrete and steel structure above local streets and the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens.
But for about four months at the beginning of 2011, F trains will skip Smith-Ninth Sts. and only northbound G service will be available there. Starting around the summer of that year, the station will be completely closed – for about nine months, according to the agency.
During one period of the project, only northbound trains will be stopping at 15thSt.-Prospect Park and Fort Hamilton Parkway. During another, only southbound trains will stop there. When the local tracks are not able to be used, trains will stop at the nearby Bergen and Carroll Sts. stations.
The first impact, Cafiero said, would be a benefit. Starting this fall, the G train’s route will be extended deeper into Brooklyn to Church Ave.
In a much-needed glimmer of good news for the MTA, the contract to be approved by the board is $62.5 million less than originally estimated. That’s because more contractors are looking for work, increasing competition and lowering the price.
“This is one of the more encouraging things we’ve had turn up in procurement in quite some while,” NYC Transit President Howard Roberts said.
I feel the pain of the riders here as this will be an inconvenience. However I also understand that for the better of these same riders & the overall infrastructure, the work is vital & must be done. The sooner they can get started, the sooner it will finish. If it really turns out to cost them less that originally anticipated, the better. The MTA could sure use financial breaks regardless of where they come from.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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[…] the Culver Viaduct project in February, it was to talk about the MTA announcing the awarding of a $179M dollar contract for the project. However the story originally dates back to 2007 when the MTA announced that the […]