The MTA announced preliminary plans of a new transit ‘center’ at Fulton Street today (to be accompanied by a presentation this afternoon; link at left). And, surprise! It’s a vaguely organic shape of shimmery glass. The initial renderings (see the MTA docs for details) highlighted the glass box more than the ‘oculus’ that surmounts it. It looks like someone spruced up the renderings to make them look a little more happy, though in point of fact, the site (narrow streets, lots of shade) will likely make it difficult to perceive the bulk of the glass ‘egg’ piercing through the roof unless you are seeing it from the inside. And that is probably a good thing. I’m not entirely averse to glass blobs, but selling it as a way to pull light into the passageways underground? That’s some snake oil there. Just make the hole in the roof bigger. A breakout of the costs of the elements would have been helpful, given the $750 million price tag (it may be in the MTA docs, maddeningly posted as individual chapter PDF’s), if only to find out what a really nice front door costs. And note this is a far cry from the underground boulevard / regional hub imagined in the early days of post-9/11 planning (which showed a single, massive passageway that spanned the full distance from the PATH station to the 2/3 platform). ‘Expanded passageways’ and some new connections are promised, but the details are vague. So to recap: $3.2 billion dollars is allocated for rebuilding a regional tranist station that was just rebuilt, and to add some elevators and two new tunnels for the subway lines in the area. This is not to say that public funds shouldn’t be spent on capital improvement (even if there isn’t a demonstrated ROI; there a number of intangible reasons that can justify the outlay), but that only nominal infrastructure improvement is being provided by this project, and, aside from the formal exercises, isn’t visionary in any way. People have (and should want) to use the subway. If an excess (in the best way) of investment is going be allowed (even though if the budget was $0 ridership would not diminish), shouldn’t we aspire to more than a big skylight?
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Another fancy glass turnstile.
The MTA announced preliminary plans of a new transit ‘center’ at Fulton Street today (to be accompanied by a presentation this afternoon; link at left). And, surprise! It’s a vaguely organic shape of shimmery glass. The initial renderings (see the MTA docs for details) highlighted the glass box more than the ‘oculus’ that surmounts it. It looks like someone spruced up the renderings to make them look a little more happy, though in point of fact, the site (narrow streets, lots of shade) will likely make it difficult to perceive the bulk of the glass ‘egg’ piercing through the roof unless you are seeing it from the inside. And that is probably a good thing. I’m not entirely averse to glass blobs, but selling it as a way to pull light into the passageways underground? That’s some snake oil there. Just make the hole in the roof bigger. A breakout of the costs of the elements would have been helpful, given the $750 million price tag (it may be in the MTA docs, maddeningly posted as individual chapter PDF’s), if only to find out what a really nice front door costs. And note this is a far cry from the underground boulevard / regional hub imagined in the early days of post-9/11 planning (which showed a single, massive passageway that spanned the full distance from the PATH station to the 2/3 platform). ‘Expanded passageways’ and some new connections are promised, but the details are vague. So to recap: $3.2 billion dollars is allocated for rebuilding a regional tranist station that was just rebuilt, and to add some elevators and two new tunnels for the subway lines in the area. This is not to say that public funds shouldn’t be spent on capital improvement (even if there isn’t a demonstrated ROI; there a number of intangible reasons that can justify the outlay), but that only nominal infrastructure improvement is being provided by this project, and, aside from the formal exercises, isn’t visionary in any way. People have (and should want) to use the subway. If an excess (in the best way) of investment is going be allowed (even though if the budget was $0 ridership would not diminish), shouldn’t we aspire to more than a big skylight?