The platform at 7th Ave. on the Brighton line has seen better days. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
When the MTA warns you to stand back from the platform edge, it’s usually because the agency doesn’t want its passengers struck by oncoming trains. But an accident at Kings Highway gives a whole new meaning to that familiar phrase.
At the end of January, 14-year-old Avi Katz stepped to the platform edge to check for a Q train. The wooden planks gave way, and Katz fell onto the tracks. He narrowly avoided getting hit by a train. GerritsenBeach.net has the details:
Katz had been at the station around 6PM on January 29 and, per WABC 7, “stepped onto the edge of the platform to see if his train was coming.” The platform, made of wood, cracked and Katz fell three feet into the tracks. Katz, accompanied by his mother and Assemblyman Dov Hikind, spoke at a press conference, “I was laying on the tracks and I was really scared. My yarmulke fell off and I didn’t even care. I saw the train coming and all I could think was, ‘Get up, get up – this isn’t how I want to die.’”
Katz said it was hard for him to get up and after three attempts, he managed to get back to the platform. Though the MTA did patch up the platform, Hikind questioned the MTA’s commitment to maintenance; pointing to the decrepit conditions (per WCBS 2, “crumbling concrete, rotted wood, and burned-out lightbulbs”), he asked, “This is our transit system that we spend billions and billions of dollars for it to look like this, at one of the busiest transit stations?”
For many of us, Katz’s tale is a horror story that hits a little bit too close to home. I know I’m guilty of waiting close to the platform edge, peering into the tunnel trying to spy the approaching lights of an oncoming train. To me, Katz’s story is something of a wake-up call.
After reading about Katz’s ordeal yesterday, I inspected my own subway stop — the 7th Ave. station on the B/Q. I snapped the picture above on the Manhattan-bound platform, and it truly is an alarming photo. The wooden planks at the edge of the platform, that last barrier between passenger and track, are in a sorry state. The paint is mostly yellow, but the boards are rotting away. In many places, entire chunks have long since fallen off.
Hikind got it right at the press conference. What is the MTA doing to insure a secure infrastructure for the city’s aging subway system? We know they’re painting just 12 stations a year with another handful scheduled for complete renovations each budget cycle. But the system needs more than that. This example at 7th Ave. — a heavily trafficked station — is just one of many throughout the system. From midtown to Midwood and Inwood, the subway stations are falling apart. Katz escaped disaster, and the MTA can’t afford wait for a tragedy to befall the next person to suffer from a collapsing platform before repairing its stations.
9 comments
You know about the Jewish taboo against giving two people the same name? The idea is that the Angel of Death might come for the wrong person. Maybe this time the Angel of Death was looking for poor href=http://www.nypost.com/seven/02122008/news/regionalnews/fatally_hit_on_way_to_oprah_pal_97207.htm>Harvey Katz.
Sorry, let me correct that link: Harvey Katz.
Both platforms at the 96th Street IRT station are currently under repair. I feel so much safer now.
I can’t wait to see the revised estimates for the cost of the 2nd Avenue Subway. They still have not begun building it. All they have done for 10 months is move cables and pipes around on one side of the street to prepare to build the subway. But they still have to spend about a year moving cables and pipes on the other side of the street first. The Javits Center project doubled in cost, and the Penn Station construction plans have also ballooned in cost. The Second Avenue Subway was supposed to cost 3.8 billion, but that was 7 years ago. It must be around 5 billion today, at least. Remember a tunnel and four stations must be built. The MTA has about 1.7 billion from the government, 450 million from bond sale. Where is the other 3 billion coming from? The MTA said it would complete the stubway in 2013; before they began they said 2014. They are already behind their timetable. A reasonable estimate is that they can build 4 stations and a 37 block stubway in maybe ten years. By which time scores of businesses will have closed. And I haven’t even started to discuss the dangers posed by the reckless way the fences and pathways have been set up. It is only a matter of time before a pedestrian is killed.
Hikind really does not know what he is talking about. NYCT invests around 2 bil. every year to keep the system up and running. Peanuts in comparison to assets totaling an estimated 500 bil. (less that half of 1%).
There appears to be a lot more work going on than painting 12 stations. See their 5-yr capital plan:
http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/mta/b...../part2.pdf
We’re talking about someone who used to be a member of a terrorist organization (Hikind). Why would he in general have a clue?
[…] the wake of the public outcry over the collapsing platform at Kings Highway, MTA New York City Transit President Howard Roberts ordered a complete inspection of every station […]
[…] way back in February, a few newspapers created a stir at the MTA when they reported on the bad conditions of the platform edge at numerous subway stations around the City. While New York City Transit has since inspected every […]
[…] in February of 2008 when a station collapsed. That day, part of the Kings Highway station platform fell and took a 14-year-old with it. The next day, NYC Transit President Howard Roberts promised an inspection of every single […]