New approach to station redevelopment will expedite transformative renovations at 30 MTA stations

Written by Jenifer Nunez, assistant editor

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has unveiled the eighth signature proposal of his 2016 agenda, which is to modernize and fundamentally transform the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), improving the travel experience for millions of New Yorkers and visitors to the metropolitan region.

 

The proposal includes a new approach to rapidly redesign and renew 30 existing subway stations across the system. It also includes a number of technology initiatives to bring the system into the 21st century, including expanding Wi-Fi hotspots, accelerating mobile payments and ticketing to replace the MetroCard and providing USB ports on subway trains, buses and in stations to allow customers to charge their mobile devices.

“The MTA is absolutely vital to the daily functioning of New York City, but for too long it has failed to meet the region’s growing size and strength,” Gov. Cuomo said. “This is about doing more than just repair and maintain – this is thinking bigger and better and building the 21st century transit system New Yorkers deserve. We are modernizing the MTA like never before and improving it for years to come.”

“The MTA is committed to meeting Gov. Cuomo’s challenge head-on, eliminating every possible inefficiency to deliver these improvements faster, better and at a lower cost,” MTA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Prendergast said. “We’ll accomplish this by incorporating the governor’s suggestions to use alternative delivery methods, such as design-build, leveraging private-sector expertise through public-private partnerships and streamlining our procurement processes to ensure the entire MTA is focused on delivering improvements to the people who rely on us every day.”

More than six million people ride the New York City subway on its busiest days and the proposal is designed to bring rapid improvements to their daily experience while enhancing a system that is more than a century old. The proposal introduces new customer-friendly initiatives and accelerates existing projects to bring meaningful improvements to the transit system that New York relies on.

The MTA will revamp the design guidelines for subway stations to improve their look and feel, then put them in place at 30 stations across the entire system which will be completely renewed. These cleaner, brighter stations will be easier to navigate, with better and more intuitive wayfinding, as well as a modernized look and feel.

The MTA will use design-build procurement to deliver the projects more quickly, at a lower cost and with better quality, as a single contractor will be held accountable for cost, schedule and performance. Stations will be closed to give contractors unfettered access with a singular focus – get in, get done and get out.

Similar improvements will come to the Richmond Valley station on the Staten Island Railway and the entirely new Arthur Kill station opening later this year will also feature many of these elements. These new processes and innovations will inform future improvements to stations on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, as well.

Work on the majority of these 30 stations will be completed by 2018 and all will be finished by 2020, with timeframe for redevelopments from start to finish being reduced by more than 50 percent. On average, station redevelopments are expected to take between six and 12 months. Comparatively, under the previous piecemeal approach, station redevelopments relying on night and weekend closures could take two to three years or more to be completed.

 

Tags: