Community leaders in East New York are pressing the MTA to hire more people from their own neighborhood to work on the sweeping renovation of the Broadway Junction transit hub, arguing that a public project of this size should be putting far more local residents to work. Their push comes as the Brooklyn hub undergoes a $400 million overhaul aimed at improving accessibility for the many commuters who pass through it every day.
At the center of the dispute are the hiring numbers. Community leaders say that out of nearly 170 workers hired for the Broadway Junction project so far, only 13 are local residents. That works out to just under 8 percent, a figure they say falls far short of the roughly 20 percent share of local hiring the MTA had promised when the work got underway on one of the city's marquee transit investments.
The leaders point out that Broadway Junction was billed as one of the city's first local hiring pilot programs, a model meant to steer jobs from a major public works project into the surrounding blocks. They want the MTA to draw workers from the eight zip codes that make up the East New York area around the station, and they say the current shortfall undercuts the very promise that was used to sell the program to the community.
For residents, the frustration comes back to where the money ends up. A public investment approaching $400 million is an enormous sum, and community advocates argue that if those dollars are not circulating within the neighborhood through paychecks and local jobs, the project is failing a central part of its purpose. As one community leader put it, if that money is not staying in the community, then what are we doing here.
Broadway Junction sits at a busy crossroads of subway and bus lines in Brooklyn, and the renovation is intended to modernize the aging hub and make it easier to navigate for commuters, including riders with disabilities. The scale of the work, and the years it will take, is exactly why neighborhood leaders say the employment that comes with it should be felt on the surrounding streets and not just at the station.
In response to the criticism, a spokesperson for the MTA said the agency's contracts are consistent with state and federal law, and that the investment in Broadway Junction will improve the quality of life for riders while supporting the neighborhood's economic growth and revitalization. For the community leaders pressing the issue, however, the question of who actually gets hired for the $400 million project remains far from settled.