MTA Hopes Elevated Subway Grates Prevent Flooding
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One year after a sudden rainstorm crippled the subway system during the morning rush hour, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it's now better prepared for heavy storms. NY1 Transit reporter Bobby Cuza explains in the following report. In an effort to prevent subway flooding, the MTA unveiled Friday an elevated sidewalk ventilation grate in Jamaica.
"This street has a certain height of water in a storm," said John O'Grady, of New York City Transit Capital Program Management. "And, by raising the vent grating high enough above the water level, essentially we're preventing water from coming into the subway system."
MTA officials gathered to unveil this new prototype and to tout the MTA's progress since last summer's storm that virtually shut down the system. Among other things, the MTA has created a new Emergency Response Center and installed Doppler radar at its operations centers.
"Essentially, we have an early-warning system that we did not have before," explained MTA Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Elliot "Lee" Sandler.
On the communications front, the MTA is testing out video screens that could alert customers to service problems before they swipe their MetroCards. It's also upgraded its website, which was overloaded the day of the storm, and next month will begin sending out text message alerts when there are service disruptions.
The elevated subway grate unveiled in Jamaica is just the first of many. The MTA also plans to install them at five other flood-prone locations throughout the city in the coming months.
The locations include the areas near the 79th and 86th Street stations on the Number 1, 2, 3 lines, the Chambers Street station on the 1, 2, 3, and, in Queens, the areas between the 36th Street and Steinway Street stations on the V/R/G, and between the 46th Street and Northern Boulevard stations.
In Jamaica, the new prototype got mostly positive reviews.
"I like it," said one Queens resident. "I think it's both useful and sort of an asymmetrical work of art simultaneously. I dig it."
Some said that anything is better than the MTA's temporary solution: covering the grates with blue tarp held in place by buckets of cement.
"The temporary materials that they used was absurd, absolutely absurd," said another Queens resident. "Manpower-wise, and aesthetically, it was awful."
The grates in this area alone will cost several million dollars, which will come out of a pool of $30 million set aside for improvements after last year's flooding.