That dome is actually pretty ugly, no? (Source: MTA Capital Construction)
The Fulton St. Transit Hub sure has a long and tortured history. The MTA is halfway through building…something…at Fulton St. and they’ve nearly completely run out of money for the project based on their budget projections.
As I’ve detailed — sometimes painstakingly — the fun started in January when the MTA announced that the transit hub would be scaled back because of skyrocketed costs. Fulton St. residents objected and the MTA promised something in March and then, um, something in April. The only problem was that they didn’t say what they were promising, only that something would come, and they would tell us real soon.
Today, Julie Shapiro of Downtown Express picked up on the growing absurdity of this process and the MTA’s promises. Her article is a hilarious microcosm of bureaucratic ineptitude:
For the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, answers on the Fulton St. Transit Center continue to be 30 days away.
That’s how many days the agency said it needed back in January, after announcing that it ran out of money to build the Fulton St. Transit Center. Within 30 days, the M.T.A. promised, a revised plan would be on the table.
But at a City Council hearing in April, the M.T.A. again deferred all questions about what would be built over the hole in the ground at Broadway and Fulton Sts., where the M.T.A. demolished a row of buildings to make way for the glass-domed hub. City Councilmember John Liu demanded answers, and the M.T.A. repeated assurances that answers were coming — in 30 days.
Then, at the Community Board 1 World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee Monday night, the M.T.A. gave another update on the project. In response to specific questions about what the M.T.A. is planning to build, Uday Durg, the project manager, said he didn’t know yet, but he’d have answers in three to four weeks.
And that, folks, is why few big projects are completed in New York City anymore.
Meanwhile, check back sometime soon for the next round of updates on the Fulton St. Transit Hub. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me on this again in, oh, 30 days.
3 comments
Pitch a big tent, move the flea market there from 41st Street and — presto! — shopping hub under soaring roof. Problem solved.
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