Guild: Shelving of Fulton Dome Could Help Us

By ARI PAUL

Because the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's development of the Fulton Street Transit Hub is running more than $400 million over budget, plans for a grand glass dome were scrapped last week.

CLAUDE FORT: Cutback offers opportunity.

While the move was criticized by a top local legislator, the union representing Engineers and Architects said it could herald additional work for its members as the MTA seeks other cost savings.

"The MTA's plan to reduce the size of the Fulton Street Transit Center in downtown Manhattan is outrageous and unacceptable," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who also represents the district, said in a statement. "Those who live, work and visit downtown have been misled for far too long with grand plans and unrealistic timetables for projects, and enough is enough. What was promised to this community by the MTA must be funded and built."

For Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375 of District Council 37, the plan had been a source of conflict between it and the MTA, as the authority had chosen to use outside contractors rather than in-house Engineers.

Local 375 President Claude Fort saw the dome's cancellation and the project's exorbitant costs as a possible first step for MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot G. Sander that could lead to reconsideration of the use of outside contractors for the Fulton Street hub, and for the Second Ave. subway line as well.

"I hope I'll have a chance to sit down with him and offer some solutions and that we can be partners, and encourage him to use more in-house Engineers," he said in a phone interview Jan. 31. "Hopefully that will improve the situation."