The Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges are vital links of Brooklyn to Manhattan Island and are all undergoing rigorous reconstruction to prevent them from falling down. The BMT, IRT, and IND subway routes make Brooklyn an integrated part of New

he Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges, are vital links of Brooklyn to Manhattan Island and are all undergoing rigorous reconstruction to prevent them from falling down. The BMT, IRT, and IND subway routes make Brooklyn an integrated part of New York and yet these essential pieces of infrastructure seem to be on their last rope. Is Brooklyn being severed from the rest of New York City by it's rotting infrastructure, or are we winning the war to remain connected. See this in depth interview with one of Brooklyn's electrical workers, who has worked on construction and maintenance projects on the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, and the Cortelyou Road, Parkside Avenue, Lincoln Road, Prospect Park, Beverly Road train station reconstruction projects on the D train, and the Utica Avenue Junction station on the A in Bedford-Styvesant.

Ruben:: Welcome HT to Brooklyn On Line's News section!
HT:: Hello Ruben - what's doing?
Ruben: I wanted to start off today discussing the conditions of our local subway stations. How do you view the current condition of the system and the lines that you've worked on particularly. Are you finished with the Prospect Park Station?
HT:: We are finished at Prospect Park. We've replaced nearly all the electrical cables and fixtures, and the track work as well. Most of the other stations along that stretch, Beverly and so on, are also pretty much finished.
Ruben: Is that also true of the actual station structures as well, the walls and so on, because the last time I was at the Prospect Park station, I still saw stalactite ( editors note: An icicle-shaped mineral deposit, usually calcite or aragonite, hanging from the roof of a cavern, formed from the dripping of mineral-rich water.) hanging from the section there which is under the ground. That would make it less than complete in my eyes. And that is aside from the cracks I saw on the walls.
HT:: Well - the electrical systems are completely enclosed from the water runoff which comes down from the houses and the streets above the station, and the structural supports have all been checked and replaced as needed so the station is as strong as possible, as good as it was when it was new. The main problem is in the ejector rooms because of the high voltage that runs through them, and they have been completely repaired now. There is not much that can be done about the cracks because to fix that we would have to remove the homes which are above the station, and that's not possible.
Ruben: Actually - I think those are apartment buildings over that station.
HT:: I'm pretty sure that those are private homes, but the platform has been refurbished
Ruben: But from my point of view, as a subway patron, that's simply not acceptability, and the Prospect Park Station isn't alone in this. The Nevins Avenue station on the IRT is outright disgusting, and the work that was done on the Flatbush Avenue Station on the 2 and 5 has been virtually undone by the runoff through the grading, not to mention the spring which runs down the center of the tracks. I've been told by TA workers that the water there is a result of a fresh water spring.
HT:: I haven't worked on that end of the system so I can't really say anything authoritative about that, but the problems that you are speaking of are actually maintenance problems and the TA is not willing to spend the money needed to upkeep a 100 year old system in that way. The walls need to be continually re plastered, and the ceiling periodically scrapped and washed. This is politics as much as anything. Look at the Beverly Road Station. That station was originally built because a Mayor once lived there, which is the only reason it originally was built (laughter), not that it is not an essential station today because of the large population around the station today.
Ruben: I'm not really convinced that maintenance is the only issue on this count. The Boro Hall stations' tiles were completely fixed and replaced, painstaking work, and 6 months later, they are all popped off and cracked again because of cracks in the wall behind it, and this as a repair problem which takes some foresight on the part of management. The result is that the money spent on that project was entirely wasted.
HT:: Well - water seeks it's level
Ruben: ...which is why the wall flat out needs replacement or sealing or whatever. How would you describe the state of the system in general?
HT:: It's alright for it's age, it's safe, but it needs major improvements. The TA can save millions of dollars if it updated the switching system, which still uses manual switching in the train yards. They are still using ancient enunciation...
Ruben: Which is?
HT:: That's the way the dispatch and traffic control stations determine where the trains are on the tracks and the track conditions.
Ruben: Oh - like the lighted boards that you might see at Franklin Avenue
HT:: exactly
Ruben: How would this help save money or improve service? I don't necessarily buy into the idea that computerizing everything would make it more efficient, as much as maintaining it would.
HT:: If the system was fully updated, they would know the track condition instantly whenever there was a problem, now they wait until a small problem becomes a large one before they make any adjustments. The same thing with the trains. Maintaining tracks and trains would be much easier, and traffic can be more tightly controlled. The signals would also be more accurate and they could pass crossing trains closer together and run the trains faster more often. This would take major revenue, and the city is trying to stop infrastructure repair
Ruben: I thought this administration was rather pro-infrastructure. But when you have as much corruption and fiscal constraints as they are looking at now, it's hard to get anything done. Look at the FDR, for example. No one could tell me that this is not a Mafia contract. They've been working on the damn thing my entire adult life, and the way they are going about it, a segment at a time, they leave behind built in cracks in the asphalt, and they are back to square one a few days after the "repaired" section is repaired. Meanwhile, the Bridges and Trains are being starved of funds and everyone wonders why things can't get done.
HT:: They are also using inexperienced non-union labor to try to save money, and the result is that most of the time the Union workers have to go back and fix the mistakes that the non-union workers make. This just happened on the Utica Avenue job, where the non-union contractor did such a shabby job, that for us to do our part of the work, we had to go back and redo their entire project. But over all, the central focus of the system is not the well being of the public. And they are not sensitive to the problem of unemployment or job security. Most of our Union members are native New Yorkers, and there is plenty of worthy things that need to be done.
Ruben: I think this is born out with the Metrocard fiasco, which the MTA has spent millions of dollars on, and which it's main benefit is that it will be easier to raise fares. And ditto with the new electric toll stickers called the EZPASS for the toll bridges. They wanted to put tolls up on the Brooklyn Bridge, but they didn't want to add to the congestion. Now - No problem. It's a matter of time when the free Brooklyn - Manhattan venues, which is the birthright of every Brooklynite, and the reason why Brooklyn joined Manhattan in the first place, will be wiped away without a trace.
HT:: As I said, the publics welfare is not the central focus of the system.
Ruben: With what I view as the imminent tolls on our broken down and half closed bridges, and the increasing unreliability of the subway to Manhattan, I see that we are slated as a Borough being more and more cut off from the cities' center. I think that compared to the repairs done on Christopher Street in the Village, the Prospect park station has been severely short changed.
HT:: The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Even without computerization, there is a lot of work to be done. In terms of the Metrocard, it also gives the Government the ability to track people.
Ruben: How can they track anyone, they have no idea who is getting what cards?
HT:: Yes - but the free cards given to employees, especially city employees, can trace the usage of the cards for each person.
Ruben: I see, but despite the need for more work, it seems only the high profile stations are getting all the attention - Squeaky Wheels?
HT:: Actually - the BedSty stations are getting most of the attention at the moment because of the local and racial politics
Ruben: I don't begrudge them this. Let them get their new stations. People in those areas need good access to Manhattan if they are ever going to integrate or improve their lot. With the recent accident on the Williamsburg bridge, they decided that the emergency braking system on the tracks wasn't high enough, and rather than fix it, they decided to slow down the entire system by a couple of minutes, but the real blunt of the slow down has been on the J, M and F trains, which have come to a crawl.
HT:: If the system was computerized, this wouldn't have happened. The TA is also using cheap non-union labor and inexperienced labor and they are doing shabby work. Then the Union has to continually fix their problems. The Union has a strict training program so that inexperienced workers are properly supervised.
Ruben: I would think this would also pose a danger to the workers
HT:: It's been known to happen
Ruben: While we're on this subject, what are the working conditions like on the tracks
HT:: It's filthy. There are homeless people on the tracks and in the rooms in between the stations which causes dangers. They hide in the storage room and hidden parts of the stations and tunnels, even where trains run.
Ruben: Rats?
HT:: Yup - there is a rat infestation, besides the mice, and a lot of garbage between stations. The stations today are cleaner then at one time, but between the stations and in the tunnels, you have to be careful. There are hypo syringes on the tracks.
Ruben: Wonderful. Has the station manager program helped with this at all
HT:: That's a good program and it's had a real positive impact, but it doesn't help with everything.
Ruben: People are really into Ghost stations, do you have a favorite?
HT:: There are a lot of them, but the best one is the Utica Avenue Ghost station on the A line which was just bricked up. It would have spurred off the A line down Utica and I've been told that the tunnel is already built all the way down. By the way, that tunnel is a big homeless problem.
Ruben: I wanted to ask you a little about the Bridges. First of all, what does an electrician do on the bridges besides changing lightbulbs?
HT:: The electrical work on the Bridges is power and conduit work. This means that there are large power cables that go across the bridge feeding power to the Manhattan and Brooklyn sides, and these need a lot of work.
Ruben: Sounds dangerous, especially in bad weather
HT:: I Know (laughter)
Ruben: The Williamsburg Bridge seems just to dangerous to cross at this point, and everytime we go across the Manhattan Bridge by train. Yet I remember the days when the train would roar across that bridge at over 60 miles per hour and it took only 30 minutes from Kings highway to 34th street on the Brighton Line Express
HT:: Don't expect those days to come back.
Ruben: Why does the city think either of these bridges are salvageable?
HT:: They are sound because the towers are still sound. The rotting cables you see are not the essential cables for bridge support. The Williamsburg bridge actually shifted a little and one road is being closed. Delancy Street will be hell for a long while...
Ruben: You mean more hell then it already is. If they took the Williamsburg bridge down, it would give them a chance to integrate it into the BQE and the FDR in a more sensible way. As it is now, it is a bridge that empties out on a near dead end street.
HT:: Well things will be worse. One of the things that causes the cost of fixing these things is the cities' interference, for better or worse. For example, it was decided that the sandblasting on the Bridge was putting lead into the surrounding land and water, so they had to entirely encapsulate the paint. But this stuff is while the work is in progress which sometimes winds up cheating the contractor, or reversely, the contractor gets a big bonus from the extra non-contracted for work. Then the city changes specs in the middle of the project or individual inspectors with individual views on how to read the regs decide that the way something has been done for 2 years suddenly can't be done that way, and all new materials and techniques need to be changed on the fly. Often these materials are brought in from overseas. Never mess with an inspector, it's like sticking your hand into a hive of angry bees.
Ruben: I'm quite familiar with this sort of stuff. About 6 years ago, a small bridge over the brighton line on Ditmas Avenue had to be rebuilt. 6 years later, they've changed the code so many times, that the darn bridge is still not finished. And we're talking about a bridge no more and 60 feet long.
HTM:: There you go! But the Williamsburg bridge, if it will be safe, needs steel replaced. I was told by an Iron worker, and this is just here say, that the Manhattan side has frozen and no longer sways as it is designed to do, which puts a lot of stress on the foundation at the on ramps and where the cables are anchored to the main cable that holds the whole thing together at the footage. If not taken care of, the steel that holds up the roadway might be lost. But this is here say and a lot of work is being done on it.
Ruben: Well - thank You H- - your on the job insight on these projects is just wonderful. I think the Mayor should get together with you so maybe we can get a few things done around town (smile).
HT:: No problem - it's a pleasure

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