Two Astoria subway stations will close for renovations Monday, just over a week after two other stations in the neighborhood reopened after eight months of upgrades.
The Broadway and 39th Avenue stations, which serve the N and W trains, will be closed until February 2019, the MTA said.
The agency reopened the 30th Avenue and 36th Avenue stations on June 22 after they underwent renovations as part of the Enhanced Station Initiative, which has been criticized for focusing on aesthetic upgrades, rather than improving train performance.
The changes at the 30th Avenue and 36th Avenue stations included rehabilitated staircases, railings and canopies, as well as new LED lighting, wood-paneled benches, digital signage and artwork. The stations also received structural repairs to concrete and steel structures that deteriorated over the years. Broadway and 39th Avenue are expected to get similar upgrades.
All four of the above-ground stations originally opened in 1917.
The improvements do not include adding elevators or repairing the antiquated signal system. The MTA announced a separate plan, called Fast Forward, that has goals of modernizing the signals and making the system more accessible.
The Astoria Boulevard station, one stop north of the 30th Avenue station, is set to get four elevators, the MTA said in April. Construction on that station is expected to begin in September, but a finalized timeline has not been announced yet.
The Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard station, the last stop on the N and W trains, has also been undergoing construction since April, but remains open.
