It's Queens Magazine
Transit officials announced they would not decide on the viability of installing an express service for the F train- a popular measure with transit advocates - until around 2013, when other maintenance work on the line is scheduled to be finished.
In the meantime, the MTA is moving forward with several projects to improve service on the subway system’s second longest train line, which runs along 27 miles of track from Jamaica in Queens, through Manhattan, and into Brooklyn, where it ends at Stillwell Avenue on Coney Island.
Transit officials announced the work, which is already underway, at a meeting in Brooklyn just days before the MTA proposed a massive round of service cuts to help plug its budget deficit.
Glenn Lunden, MTA’s senior director of Subway Operation Improvement and Planning, said the transit authority had its eye on the F train even before it was prompted to study the line through a request by Brooklyn State Senator Daniel Squadron, who organized a December 10th town hall to discuss the F line.
The study, completed earlier this year, found the F train lacking in several major service-related categories, including daily operation, infrastructure and ridership.
Lunden also conceded that service has been hampered even more by three existing projects on the line. Those are the Culver Viaduct reconstruction, the reconstruction of the Jay Street subway hub, and an overhaul of the Carroll Street station in Carroll Gardens, which is scheduled to be completed late next year.
Lunden said on top of those projects the cash-strapped MTA will pump more money into the F train in coming years to improve service. “For the upcoming [MTA five-year] Capital Program,” Lunden said, “we intend to spend a lot of money on the F train.”
Lunden said the MTA has installed a new line manager for the F train and is conducting a “top-to-bottom review of the F line schedule.” Currently, the MTA uses a fleet of 54 trains on the line per day; at its peak, the line runs 15 trains per hour.
The transit authority will also replace outdated signal lighting inside the tunnels and repaint sections of the line in an effort to address the F train’s aging infrastructure. The MTA study found that 82.5 percent of the line was built in 1940 or earlier; 16 percent dates to the original construction, completed in 1920.
Lunden said the key would be to find a balance between maintaining the existing level of service as construction work continues, and warned that the infrastructure improvements will inevitably come at a cost. “When you’re trying to [improve] aging infrastructure it’s going to effect delays,” he said.
Andy Inglesby, an MTA spokesperson, said the new work is fully funded. He said the MTA will review the need for an express train as service work continues, adding that an express F train makes sense for parts of the line, but not for others.
An “F express is good for some neighborhoods, buts it's not good for others,” Inglesby said.
Community leaders and transit advocates have called for an express train, and service improvements on the F train for years.
Councilman-elect Brad Lander, whose 39th district covers several neighborhoods with F train service, urged community groups to continue calling on the MTA for service upgrades. “We’re going to need to keep it up,” Lander said.
Gary Reilly, a transit advocate who ran against Lander, said an express train is necessary to relieve congestion on overcrowded trains taking commuters to work in Manhattan.
“It's absolutely vital that we keep the F express on the front burner,” Reilly said.
Speaking to the Star after last week's town hall, Squadron praised the MTA’s commitment to the F line, though he said more dialogue is need to ensure residents receive the service improvements they need.
This is “the first of its kind, comprehensive look at a line and beginning the project of fixing it,” Squadron said. However, he added, “there are still a lot of difficulties and we have to hold the MTA’s feet to the fire.”
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