Between Simpler Transfer Or Fancy Roof, I Want The Roof!

The architecturally ambitious street-level structure at the proposed Fulton Street Transit Center is reduced to a mere “fancy roof” by MTA board members upset at the lack of funds for — I guess — more useful features:

The long-delayed and overbudget Fulton Transit Center is slated to have a 20-foot-tall glass dome, envisioned as a beacon to travelers and symbol of post-9/11 renewal.

But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn’t have the funds for an underground passageway that would provide faster, and simpler, transfers among several subway lines, an official said at an MTA committee meeting.

“I won’t support a project like this that’s going to discombobulate tens of thousands of daily riders every single day because you want a fancy roof,” veteran board member Barry Feinstein said in a rare burst of anger.

The Fulton Transit Center will replace the confusing and antiquated Fulton St./Broadway Nassau complex where trains on nine lines — the A, C, J, M, Z, 2, 3, 4 and 5 — now stop.

. . .

The passageway that critics say is missing from current plans is a north-south underground “connector” passageway between the R/W Cortlandt St. station and the E train terminal at the northern edge of the Trade Center site.

Without it, riders looking to take the Broadway or the E lines would have two options: Go up to the streets and brave the elements, or take a more circuitous underground route through the PATH station.

Mysore Nagaraja, president of the MTA’s Capital Construction Co., said his engineers would search for solutions, but he said money is tight.