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The entire western half of the platform is out and down to the supports, and they've replaced or repaired all of the necessary supports. They did not completely demolish all of them and start over, as it appears they only replaced those that were in really bad condition. It also appears like they have installed wooden fixtures on top of the supports so the new platform sections can be easily put into place. It appears like many of the concrete platform sections have already been per-frabricated someplace else and brought to the site. There are quite a few of them siting in the parking lot immediately to the south of the tracks. I did not have enough time to get all the way over to the far corner of the site where they had the concrete platform sections stored, but there appeared to be quite a number of them of all various sizes there. From what I've seen, it looks like over the course of the next couple weeks they will bring a crane in and hoist the new platform sections right into place. Then they just secure the sections to the supports and move on to the next one. I would wager they would be able to do a couple of them a day, and they could probably have the majority of them in place in just a matter of a couple of weeks. After that they'll move onto constructing the canopies over certain sections of the platform, then it's just a matter of some decorative work, yellow tactile warning strips, some loudspeakers and monitors, lights, miscellaneous wiring, and they're in the home stretch. If everything goes according to plan, they should be just about finished with the western half of the platform by the spring, and then they'll shift over and do the same thing on the eastern half.
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One of the consequences of the western half being out of service is the fact that there is now only one place to access the station platform...the east underpass. Massapequa station, unlike many other stations on the Babylon Branch, is not built up on supports, but rather built up on an embankment, so there are only three opportunities to get from one side of the station to the other--the east underpass, the middle underpass, and the Broadway underpass. The staircases from the Broadway and middle underpasses have been closed off since they lead to the western half of the platform. As a result, the platform can only be accessed from the east underpass.
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And this stinks for lots of commuters who park at the station. At Massapequa station, most of the parking lots are to the east of the station, rather than the west--so walking from your car all the way to the east underpass can be quite a long walk for some...and it can be made even longer and more painful by the cold, rain, and snow. By my calculations, the farthest parking spot at the Massapequa Station is about 0.38 miles away from the east underpass. When the other staircases were open that same walk would only be about 0.12 miles. (and by comparison, it's only about 0.53 miles from that parking spot to the very eastern end of Seaford station. So it wouldn't be that much longer to just walk over to Seaford station instead!).
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The other underpass is still accessible for those who want to get into the main station waiting room or see the station agent (who's only there on Mondays and Wednesdays now), but the ticket vending machines and almost all of the foot traffic has moved to the east underpass.
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Back at the east underpass, the wooden staircase that replaced the escalator is still there (and you can see the outline of the former escalator on the wall). Making this move definitely seems to have helped, since it helps with passenger flow off the platform. During the evening rush, the staircases can get swarmed pretty quickly since this station sees a ton of daily commuters. Presumably, the escalator will be replaced as part of Phase II.
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Lastly, I'd like to briefly address the station canopy question, which I've heard a lot since this project started. Currently, Massapequa is one of the very few stations that has a full length canopy covering the entire platform. This is a nice feature when it's raining or during the summer heat, and many commuters want to know if they're going to get the full-length canopy back when the project is done. It looks like the answer to that is no. When they renovated the Seaford station, they only put the canopies over certain parts of the platform like over the stiarcases and waiting areas, while the other parts of the platform was left open to the air. Looking at the renderings for the completed station platform, it looks like they are going to do the same here. The full length canopy at Massapequa station, while nice at times, was actually probably one of the major factors in the deterioration of the platform. As the canopy aged, it got lots of holes in it, and when it rained, a whole lot of water was funneled out that one hole and concentrated on one piece of the station platform. That ultimately caused that particular piece to deteriorate more rapidly than the rest of the concrete. Repeat that situation dozens of times down the platform and you get the dilapidated platform we see now. The partial canopies, while not as convenient or nice during the rain, will be easier to maintain and hopefully the station will stay in better shape for longer. I took a number of photos at the site yesterday, and while I did not use them all in this post, you can view all of them on
my Flickr page.
Posted on
01/11/2014 06:00:00 AM No comments:
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