Grand Central Subway Platform Dangerously Narrow, Commuters Say

MIDTOWN, NY — Commuters who travel through the Grand Central 4, 5, 6 subway station say the city's plans to narrow staircases and get rid of platform obstructions are necessary for pedestrian safety.

"This is very dangerous, lots of traffic, and it's very chaotic," said Veronika Laley, who told Patch she commutes several times a week through the Grand Central 4, 5, 6 subway platform.

As Laley spoke, she looked down at the subway tracks and widened her arms to point to the narrow strip of platform barely wider than the yellow platform edge the MTA warns passengers not to stand on.

"The platform is so narrow it's crazy," said Janet Qu, a 30-year-old graduate student studying marketing at New York University. Qu travels through the station three times a week, she said.

As part of a $220 million project to upgrade the area connecting future skyscraper One Vanderbilt and Grand Central Terminal, the city is planning to build extra staircases, new exits, and add trains to the 4, 5, and 6 subway lines, the city announced Tuesday. It is also planning to narrow the staircases and get rid of obstructions in the platform to make more room for pedestrians to stand.

"The project will improve the flow of customers in and out of the station," said MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz.

The money is coming from SL Green, the developer of One Vanderbilt, and in return the developer got to increase the floor area ratio for the tower.

There will also be a new pedestrian plaza between the skyscraper and Grand Central, new connections from One Vanderbilt to the subway, Metro-North and LIRR's East Access (coming in 2022), and a 4,000-square-foot transit hall on the ground level of the skyscraper.

The renovations will accommodate 2,200 more riders every hour at Grand Central Terminal, and to make sure they all fit onto the subway, the MTA will add one train per hour in each direction, the city said. Renovations are due to be completed by 2020, the mayor's office said Tuesday.

Kelly Ozello and Kathryn Gauker, both 21-year-old undergraduate seniors studying business at Fordham, commute around four times a week through the Grand Central 4, 5, 6 subway platform. They both agreed the station gets really clogged during rush hour. But they were concerned that if renovations narrowed the staircase to make the platform wider, it would clog up pedestrian traffic even more.

"It would be a total waste if they narrowed the staircases, it would only make the problem worse," Ozello said.

Photo credit: Sarah Kaufman/Patch, header image: City of New York