repairing it threatens to be highly disruptive for daily commutes<\/a>.<\/p>\nThis steel holds up a street above the B and Q subway tracks in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Stephen Nessen \/ Gothamist<\/p>\n
“These bridges date back to 1907 and we look forward to rehabilitating them with generational upgrades to last another 120 years,” said DOT spokesperson Scott Gastel “We will make sure all proper mitigations are in place for commuters as we proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MTA and city transportation department got into a dispute over a decade ago over who was responsible for fixing the bridges, according to \u200aJerrell Gray, the \u200achair of Brooklyn Community Board 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community board was advocating for the agencies to settle those jurisdictional issues since 2012,\u201d said Gray. \u201cThat was honestly the main driver why those bridges haven’t had improvements since they were built\u2026 \u200aNeither agency wanted to take responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city has since taken responsibility for the bridges. But the MTA is in charge of Newkirk Plaza, which is decked over the subway station and is filled with shops, restaurants and a more than 100-year-old barber shop.<\/p>\n
Fixing the bridges comes with a host of challenges that could make the work expensive. The notice posted by the transportation department says a repair job may have to work around a sewer line that runs beneath the subway tracks. And city engineers noted they could not find the original drawings for the Foster Avenue bridge.<\/p>\n
City engineers have identified dozens of severely corroded spots on the bridges that bookend Newkirk Plaza.<\/p>\n
NYC Department of Transportation<\/p>\n
Commuters have come to accept the state of the bridges, but on a recent visit, commuters didn\u2019t seem particularly worried.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI don’t love the condition of it, you know?\u201d said Sal Swar, a 26-year-old commuter taking in the station’s spalling concrete. \u201cIt looks kinda s—ty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max Moston, a 55-year-old musician who lives nearby, said he\u2019s used the station for most of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThis neighborhood remarkably hasn’t changed as much as the rest of New York City has changed. It\u2019s always been a little dilapidated, a little livable,\u201d he said. \u201cThis bridge, the homeless guys use it as a bathroom, this stop has always been kind of a little rustic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Repairs to the bridges are still years away, and it\u2019s not yet clear how the fix would affect subway service on the B and Q lines. The MTA referred all questions on the bridges to the city transportation department.<\/p>\n
Gray, the community board chair, said he hoped the transportation department would also take ownership of Newkirk Plaza. If that happened, he said the space would be eligible for more funding and upgrades through city-run programs.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aMany local businesses aren’t happy with what it is now,\u201d said Gray. \u201cThey feel like it’s impacting their businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two century-old bridges above a busy Brooklyn subway station have grown so corroded from a lack of maintenance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-226984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}