Mass Tourist Authority

IT'S A RARE thing when Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for NYPIRG's Straphangers Campaign, says a nice thing about MTA kingpin Peter Kalikow. In fact, we depend on the oft-quoted good Samaritan to do our griping for us. But since he considers the $750-million plan to build a new Broadway-Fulton terminal "meritorious" and has recently described Kalikow as "a smart man," we'll do our own dirty work this time.

The Broadway-Fulton station has always been an unholy mess. According to the MTA's Capital Construction Campaign, the complex is "made up of six separate subway stations, built at different times by different companies or agencies between 1905 and 1932. Because the subway lines competed with each other…there was little incentive to make it easy to transfer."

We don't want to seem ungrateful, for it is rare when the MTA offers to make improvements, but cash for the Broadway-Fulton project is coming from the $1.8 billion promised by the feds for rebuilding transit after 9/11. Broadway-Fulton wasn't damaged in the attacks. So why the fix-'er-upping? Two reasons:

First, the remainder of the $1.8 billion is being used to rebuild the PATH station at the WTC site. This station will now be linked to Broadway-Fulton, making it easier for commuters to get into the city.

Second, the glass oculus planned for the external structure will be more visible. According to the MTA, "[M]illions of tourists [are] expected to visit Lower Manhattan in the immediate future, as the World Trade Center memorial area becomes one of the top attractions in the United States."

So. The oculus will be the Epcot Center to the WTC Memorial's Cinderella Castle. And therein lies the problem. Three of the five projects listed on the Capital Construction Campaign's website (LIRR access to Grand Central, an extension of the No. 7 train to the Javits Center, and the Fulton Street Transit Center) are designed for people who don't live in the city. The other two are an expansion of the South Ferry terminal to aid Staten Islanders (barely residents of the city) and the Second Avenue subway (we'll believe it when it happens).

In the meantime, in the JMZ station, there are rust holes you can stick a finger through, power has gone out in the Delancey St. station more than once and G-train construction left us with a two-hour commute on Saturdays—from Brooklyn to Brooklyn.

We're residents. We pay billions into the MTA coffers every year. All we're asking for is a little reach-around. Given the choice, we'd rather have trains that run reliably in a system that looks like a big gas-station bathroom. Instead, we're getting a beautiful palace where we'll suffer the maudlin tourists asking for directions to Ground Zero.