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By Natalie Musumeci
Brooklyn Daily
The long-shuttered Smith–Ninth Street subway station will finally open next month after transit-starved Red Hook straphangers waited nearly two years for major renovation work to come to an end.
The closed F and G train stop on the border of Red Hook and Carroll Gardens was slated to reopen last December, but fell behind schedule due issues with contractors — pushing the planned grand reopening back to late March.
March apparently came around to soon, however Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials now say the elevated station is on track to open the week of April 22.
“There were some residual delays from the contractor and some residual delays from Sandy,” Andrew Inglesby, the MTA’s assistant director of government and community relations, said at a Thursday night Community Board 6 meeting.
Red Hook commuters, who have limited transportations options even when the station is in service, aren’t putting much stock in the Smith–Ninth Street stop’s newest proposed reopening date.
“It opens when it opens,” said Hicks Street resident Desmond Hill. “I just hope it was worth all the wait.”
The complete renovation of the station, expected to cost more than $41 million, is part of the city’s $257.5 Culver Viaduct rehabilitation project, which Inglesby announced will be completed by the end of the year.
“We’re close — we’re deep in the home stretch,” he said.
The project includes the restoration of several other stations, such as the under-construction Fourth Avenue–Ninth Street stop, where work will wrap up by May, said Inglesby.
But station renovations aren’t over for Brownstone Brooklyn commuters.
Transportation officials are in the planning stages of rehabbing the stairwells at the Seventh Avenue B and Q train stop in Park Slope, which could start as early as June, said Inglesby. The job will take six to eight months to complete.
Reach reporter Natalie Musumeci at nmusumeci@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505. Follow her at twitter.com/souleddout.