The new underground connection between the Fulton Center subway complex at Broadway in lower Manhattan is nearly completed, but transit officials say it won't open until at least 2015.
The station at the edge of the World Trade Center site will stay close until the new World Trade Center site and the traffic heavy PATH connections are completed.
Known as the Dey St. Concourse, the subterranean walkway will feature a wall of giant video screens, some displaying advertising and providing travel information.
The passageway which cost $200 million was scheduled to open in November, but according to the New York Daily News, the few riders that will make use of the free transfer and fears of the homeless overtaking the space will keep it locked for at least two more years.
"The small number of people we believe would use the transfer...does not justify the expense of opening, maintaining and policing the passage," MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg explained to the Daily News.
The MTA told the Daily News an analysis concluded that if the tunnel were to open in November as initially planned, just five people would use the walkway every hour, just to make a free transfer between the R train at Cortlandt St. and the many lines running through Fulton Center.
"It's an extra challenge we don't need, a transit official told the Daily News.
Trains on eight subway lines stop at Fulton Center and the MTA has been working on the complex, station by station, for years.
The Daily News reported that there are new and wider mezzanines, interior stairways and street-level entrances. There are also better lighting and improved systems installed.
The Dey St. headhouse also has a new entrance with a glass canopy and escalators at the corner of Dey and Broadway, and is expected to open this month, possibly next Monday.
But the Dey St. Concourse transfer station will remain sealed behind locked doors and temporary walls, the Daily News confirmed.
