Astoria Boulevard station (via MTA NYCT)
March 5, 2019 By Nathaly Pesantez
The MTA has at last announced a closing date for the Astoria Boulevard station as the stop prepares to undergo a near year-long overhaul.
The station will close at 10 p.m. of March 17 for a nine-month project that will result in an entirely new and raised mezzanine and a total of four elevators installed—making the station one of the handful of ADA-compliant stops in the system.
Initial work on the station, which is expected to open back up at the end of the year, began last September. Its imminent closure follows the January re-openings of the Broadway and 39th Av stations after seven months of repair and enhancement work.
“We’ve been on a steady march of improvement work on the entire Astoria Line to increase reliability and improve safety and the customer experience, and this elevator project is a huge win for our customers,” said Andy Byford, MTA New York City Transit President, in a statement. “Raising the height of the station is also vitally important for our train service and structure as well as the vehicles that use the streets below those elevated tracks.”
One street-to-mezzanine elevator will be built at Columbus Triangle, and another at the intersection of 31st Street and Hoyt Avenue North. The mezzanine will then connect to the platform with another set of elevators.
While the station is expected to re-open in December, the elevators, according to the MTA, will only begin to be operational eight months later in August 2020. Additional work after the station reopening also means that the project has an official completion date in late 2020.
The station’s mezzanine will be rebuilt and raised and the roadway below lowered by several inches in order to prevent a long-known issue at the site—trucks off the Grand Central Parkway hitting the bottom of the station.
The stop’s many fixtures, like light posts, signs, garbage bins and canopies, will also be enhanced or replaced as part of the project. Artwork is also expected to adorn the station.
The nine-month project means a series of road closures below over 14 weekends beginning late March and through June. The MTA has also made the station work overlap with scheduled weekend track work on the line.
For a detailed list of upcoming road changes, including maps, and dates for service changes on the line, visit the MTA’s Astoria Line webpage.
