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Fulton Center Dey Street Concourse connection to PATH


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New Access Point Links 9 Subway Lines with Port Authority Trans-Hudson Rail Service
 
May 25th, 2016 
fulton_center_underpass.jpg?itok=2Pa6AXE

Customers seeking to connect between Fulton Center’s Dey Street Concourse and Port Authority’s World Trade Center transportation hub will be able to use the underground passage to reach the PATH station, Battery Park City and World Trade Center Towers 1 and 4 will be able to do so, starting Thursday, May 26 at 5 p.m.

The Dey Street Concourse, a 350 foot-long, 27 foot-wide pedestrian tunnel, allows customers to walk underneath Dey Street between Broadway and Church Street without exiting the station complexes. The connection to the Dey Street Concourse and the PATH World Trade Center station is accessible at the bottom level of Fulton Center.

The opening of the subway-level link to the PATH station is a vital connection for customers who transfer between the New York City Transit subway system and the PATH rail system. It offers customers a safe alternative to heavily trafficked streets aboveground, decreasing the number of pedestrians who previously had to walk through existing World Trade Center site-related construction and heavy vehicular traffic on narrow downtown streets. The connection also provides a viable option for ADA customers, who can use Fulton Center’s 10 escalators and 15 elevators, to access the PATH station, which is also fully accessible.

The pedestrian transfer between Fulton Center and the PATH World Trade Center station cements both transportation hubs as major retail centers and civic spaces of a revitalized Lower Manhattan. Fulton Center, at the southeast corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, offers 65,000 square feet of retail and commercial space with a fully digital presence and a distinctive glass-lined street level mezzanine.

The Dey Street Concourse, in particular, is lined with several large multimedia displays that screen digital advertisements, provide travel information such as weather and time, and host rotating new media artwork commissioned by MTA Arts & Design. A future link in the passageway will connect the e.png Line to Fulton Center via an entrance from the World Trade Center subway station terminus. The 1.png line at the Cortlandt St Station will also be accessible once reconstruction of that station is complete in 2018.

Fulton Center opened in November 2014 after a major reconstruction to integrate five subway stations serving nine lines that historically competed against each other when the subway system opened a century ago. The new Fulton Center allows customers to easily transfer between lines through well-lit mezzanines and visible sightlines for connections. In 2016, the transit center also became the first subway station in the city to receive an LEED silver certification for its environmentally friendly design, sustainability and energy efficiency, while its centerpiece artwork, “Sky-Reflector Net,” has received notable public art commendations for its innovative design incorporating natural and artificial lighting.

Up to 300,000 customers use the Fulton Center transit hub daily.

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Not realizing this wasn't open yet, a couple of months ago, explored the complex, and it was like a terrible maze, and you had to go to the street and then go all the way around in either direction to get to the PATH station. Sonow, I'll have to go back to check it out, when I get a chance.

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Checked it out this evening. Makes it a lot easier to get to the PATH. A lot of people hadn't realized it opened yet, but hopefully the crowded commuter mess on the streets will die down by next week.

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There was originally a plan to offer a free transfer between the (E) and (R)(W) lines, which was later scrapped. Does anyone know how this could possibly have worked? Once all construction has concluded at the WTC mall, the fastest way to walk between these two stations would be to use the old WTC mall's IND and BMT portals, which would necessitate leaving the fare-zone and walking through the mall itself (an inconvenient arrangement which hasn't changed for the new mall); how on earth could they have pulled that off?

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Also, I'm a bit confused as to why Westfield and the (MTA) haven't yet opened the direct connection between the southbound (R)(W) platform and 4WTC's upper concourse level. The larger one under the Oculus needs more time, naturally, but the smaller one could be installed and polished literally overnight (or at least a weekend).

 

4WTC_RW_2.jpg

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Re: the southbound (R)(W).

 

I think that the MTA was waiting for the completion of the Oculus before any construction of an entrance on that side took place. I wouldn't be surprised if a mirror image of the northbound entrance opened on the southbound side with the aforementioned connection.

 

And regarding the recent connection to the PATH:

 

That thing is super easy. The door from the Oculus literally lets you out right in front of the (R) turnstiles and the views from the Oculus is beautiful! It perfectly frames the Freedom Tower when coming from the Fulton Center side. Pretty vista.

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I think that the MTA was waiting for the completion of the Oculus before any construction of an entrance on that side took place.

 

But the southern access point isn't even located anywhere near the Oculus (it's under 4WTC, which is why it exists), and both sides of the portal have been completed and open to the public for months. One side has two pairs of installed and polished double doors (as seen in the photograph above), and the other side just has a temporary blue-painted plywood wall that could easily be dismantled with a couple of crowbars. The MTA need only throw in some turnstiles, affix some signs, clean it up a bit, and presto!

 

The smaller (R)(W) portal to the south is actually more important than the larger one to the north (near the Oculus) because commuters on the southbound platform can only enter and exit on the northern side. Therefore, if you're on one of the first few cars of a Brooklyn-bound train and want to get off at Cortlandt Street (WTC), you have to walk all the way to the northern end of the platform and then down through the underpass. Before the WTC mall reopened this past week, you even had to hike back up to the northbound platform just to reach the surface!

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Speaking of which, I'd be very pleased if the Port Authority and Westfield were to reroute One Liberty Plaza's underpass to serve the WTC mall directly instead of (or preferably in addition to) the southbound (R)(W) platform, as it had before 9/11. Ideally, it would just connect seamlessly to the eastern terminus of the mall's lower concourse level, with signage for One Liberty Plaza and uptown (R)(W) service (since downtown service is accessible from the area right above it). This would balance out access to the two directions from the WTC proper, while providing the tenants of One Liberty Plaza with direct access to PATH (and other neat stuff).

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