Which Brooklyn Subway Stops Are On the Verge of Collapse?
A/C/J/Z/L; Broadway Junction station
So, remember the horrific bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007? 13 people died and 145 more were injured. The bridge that collapsed was a truss bridge (“a truss is a rigid framework of straight components connected at their ends and arranged in triangles, and is generally used to support a bridge, roof, or other structure) and, following this disaster, “NYC Transit used a consultant to inspect all of its truss bridges in 2008.” So, that’s good anyway. Truss stations are pretty safe. But what about all the other elevated stations? Were they also inspected in 2008? NO. NO, THEY WERE NOT. In fact, “none of the ten elevated, non-bridge structures more than 35 feet above street level has gotten up-close inspection since 1997. For five of the ten structures, we could not determine how many years before 1997, if at all, they were last inspected.” One of those stations is the incredibly busy, incredibly high-up Broadway Junction Station. Are there plans to inspect these stations? Sure! The plan is that inspectiosn should start this year. But, probably they will not. The Inspector General is very skeptical because getting the approval for the “master plan,” which involves budgeting for repairs, can take an incredibly long time, and while the idea was proposed in 2011, a master plan has still not been submitted. Thus, the report notes, “It seems unlikely, therefore, that inspections will begin in 2013. As with the ceilings discussed above, NYC Transit cannot accept failure to perform these inspections in regular and timely fashion, because such failure increases the risk that safety-related structural defects will go undetected and unaddressed.” Yikes.