Since then, numerous makes an attempt to patch the pipe and plug the leaks have failed, although restore crews have flooded the ability’s boiler room and uncovered asbestos piping beneath a storeroom within the course of.
However sources with information of the ability mentioned this week that that date has now been pushed again to late June 2027, almost an 11-month delay.
A contract for the work, which had been as a result of be awarded this month, has not but been solicited — the award is now scheduled for June of this yr.
“This project will be awarded and commenced in 2025, as anticipated,” MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults mentioned in response to questions concerning the cause for the delay. “We look forward to delivering upgrades to this nearly century-old depot,” she added.
The restore challenge — which additionally consists of the substitute of three,000 sprinkler heads on the depot’s first ground — is anticipated to value the MTA greater than $4.5 million to finish.
In the meantime, the transit company is anticipated to proceed to pay dozens of transit staff time beyond regulation to patrol the sweeping facility as a so-called “fire watch,” in search of fireplace 24 hours a day, seven days every week.
The East New York Bus Depot in Brooklyn. (Evan Simko-Bednarski for New York Day by day Information)
In different phrases, the MTA may spend an extra $8 million to $10 million on fireplace watch earlier than the $4.6 million in repairs to the sprinkler system are accomplished.
The East New York Depot is residence to about 250 buses in addition to upkeep, restore and tire retailers, gas tanks and MTA workplaces, and sits straight adjoining to the subway system’s East New York Yard.
All the facility has been with no functioning sprinkler system since 2021, when a portion of the underground feed pipe ruptured underneath the ability’s bus wash.
Work crews made a restore to that part of the pipe, however subsequent exams discovered it was unable to carry the excessive strain required for a fireplace suppression system.
The pipe burst once more in July 2022, 8 toes beneath a storeroom on the primary ground. That storeroom has seen not less than two further leaks since.
A portion of the broken pipe underneath the storeroom accommodates asbestos — a hazardous materials that’s difficult restore efforts and earned the MTA a security violation from the state’s Division of Labor final yr.
The plan to interchange the damaged pipe with an above-ground loop has been into consideration for almost two years. Annicaro raised the chance in a March 2023 memo to MTA’s development and improvement wing.
“The existing fire loop is located underground and is over 70 years old and has reached [the end of] its useful life,” the bus boss wrote on the time.
