[IMAGE]N-Y-MTA-Fulton-St-center-2.jpg[/IMAGE]The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) opened a new entrance at the Fulton Street Transit Center, which is more than 50 percent complete and on track for its scheduled June 2014 completion.

The new entrance will provide customers with improved access to the 2/3/4/5/A/C/J/Z lines and will ease congestion between the Fulton Street 2/3 and A/C stations. Additional entrances at 150 William Street and 129 Fulton Street are also set to open in 2012.

Completion of the station entrance at 135 William Street is part of a larger contract which reconfigures the Fulton Street A/C mezzanine. All structural work has been completed on the A/C mezzanine and final finishes are going up, including glass tiles and LCD-lit advertising panels on corridor walls.

Improvements will include two additional staircases from the platform to the mezzanine — for a total of ten new staircases — along with five new elevators and two new escalators. Center columns on the mezzanine also have been removed to improve pedestrian flow. The A/C mezzanine is scheduled to open in 2013.

When fully complete, the $1.4 billion Fulton Street Transit Center will connect five subway stations and eleven subway lines, improving access for over 300,000 daily customers that pass through this major transit hub in Lower Manhattan. The new transit center complex will also provide over 25,000 square feet of new modern retail space and will upgrade the complex to full ADA compliance.

Other elements of the complex continue to progress. Superstructure steel for the transit center building is slated for completion this fall. The southbound Cortlandt Street platform on the R line will reopen on or before September 11. Station rehabilitation on the 4/5 continues and the Dey Street Concourse is structurally complete. Restoration of the historic Corbin Building is continuing inside the 1888 landmark and is expected to be complete in late 2012.

Some components of the Transit Center have already been completed and opened for customer use, including the rehabilitated 2/3 Fulton Street Station, new 4/5 Fulton Street Station southern entrances, and the northbound Cortlandt Street platform on the R line.