BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — The MTA has denied a request by a local community board to renovate the shuttle station at Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street, according to preliminary budget documents.
Community Board 3 in Bedford-Stuyvesant had asked that the shuttle be renovated in the latest round of preliminary budget requests, according to board members.
"[The station's] physical appearance looks blighted and fosters an unsafe environment," the request read. "Another year has gone by without the work being done. Community District 3 is requesting that this station be refurbished. It is imperative that funding be allocated for this work."
But in the preliminary budget document revealed to the public at a full board meeting on Monday, the MTA shot down the request.
"This request is not recommended for funding," the authority said, according to the documents.
MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said the Franklin Avenue shuttle stations were already renovated in the late 1990s.
"And while the community board has regularly asked for another rehab job, there are other stations in the system with much more pressing needs for renovation and rebuilding," Lisberg said in an email.
In 1997, the MTA committed $74 million to rebuild the 1.4-mile-long shuttle line, including the addition of elevators and ramps for disabled riders, as well as new tracks, bridges, retaining walls, signals, power supplies, communications links and MetroCard Vending Machines, according to the MTA.
The project was completed in 1999.
The Franklin Avenue shuttle makes stops at Fulton Street, Park Place, the Botanic Garden at Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park, with connections across the line to the A, C, 2, 3, 4, 5, B and Q lines.
Conditions on the short line were once the worst in the entire city, then-MTA Chairman E. Virgil Conway said at the time. Since the renovation, daily riders on the line have doubled from about 10,000 commuters to about 20,000 in 2008, according to the New York Times.
Community Board 3 Chairman Henry L. Butler told the crowd at Monday's meeting that the board would continue pressing the agency for the funds needed to restore the Fulton Street station.
