Image via Wikimedia cc.
The MTA has announced the addition of four express trains to the F line during morning and evening rush hours. Two F trains will run express between between Church Avenue and Jay Street-MetroTech stations, stopping only at Seventh Avenue, during the morning and evening rush hours, AM New York reports. Beginning in September, two Manhattan-bound trains will run express from Church Ave. between 7 and 7:30 a.m., and two Coney Island-bound trains will run the express route between 5 and 5:40 p.m.
The new diamond F Brooklyn route will be the first since the 1970s, and it has been a point of contention between neighborhoods like Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill and their neighbors further south. Brownstone Brooklyn residents will lose some service when the express trains bypass their stations; some believe the six stations in those neighborhoods are too busy to bear a reduction in service. MTA board member Andrew Albert said. “Those neighborhoods have grown exponentially since the last time we had F express. It’s bypassing too many people. What’s going to happen to the wait times for the people at Bergen, Carroll and Smith-9th?”
Albert has proposed running express F service only between Coney Island and Kensington. Councilman Brad Lander, who represents neighborhoods that express trains will skip, called the change “a sad form of F train polarization.”
Commuters coming from areas around Coney Island, however, have been calling for faster subway service for years. South Brooklyn representative Councilman Mark Treyger praised the proposal for finally taking constituents’ demands into consideration: “With thousands of additional housing units coming on line and the expansion of amusements, faster and more reliable transit service is a necessity, not a luxury, and is a matter of transit equity for Southern Brooklynites.”
MTA NYC Transit president Andy Byford said, “We’re adding some limited express service to the F line in Brooklyn because our customers asked, and we listened. It will benefit thousands of commuters by getting them to their destinations faster instead of sitting waiting as their train makes all local stops.”
The MTA has said in a news release that more than half of rides on the F line affected by the express service will benefit from the changes and that some will be able to cut about an hour from their commute each week.
[Via AMNY]
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