It's about time. Fifty of the most disgusting, dilapidated and neglected subway stations of the Metropolitan Transit Authority have been scheduled for at least partial renovations over the next five years, according to MTA documents cited in a published report.
Straphangers have suffered through varying degrees of filth and disrepair – from aging platform edges to discolored ceilings to stairs that have been falling apart for years – at the dozens of stations MTA has targeted for its new $657 million project.
Seven stations each on the F and M lines, as well as six stations each on the 3, L and A lines, all in Brooklyn and Queens, are getting upgrades, reports The New York Post. Four W and N stops in Astoria are also slated for renovation, while just one stop in Manhattan, Grand Street on the B and D lines, is getting spruced up.
Most of the stations are in outlying areas less traversed by the thousands of commuters that take the subway every day. The attention to the far-flung locations has the straphangers who use them pleasantly surprised, reports the Post.
"It's beyond time. They should have done this a long time ago," Bob Kemp, who often uses the Grand Street station, told the Post. The station "needs a whole lot of improvement. They need to clean and fix up the stairway."
The makeovers are a component of the MTA's $28 billion budget plan. Authorities will identify the parts of the subway stations most in need of repair rather than engage in more comprehensive renovations, which would take awhile and cost a lot more.
"Some of these stations are like the land that time forgot," Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign, told the Post.
