BY JULIANNE CUBA AND ANTHONY
ROTUNNO
L no!
Gov. Cuomo on Jan. 3 abruptly announced
the L train will not close
for 15 months in April, upending the
planned reconstruction project that
state and city transit leaders for years
warned Brooklynites would wreak
havoc on their commutes.
The new plan no longer requires the
two Brooklyn–Manhattan tunnels inside
the line’s superstorm Sandy–ravaged
Canarsie Tube to close for the duration
of the job. Instead, workers will
spend nights and weekends repairing
one tunnel at a time, leaving the other
free for L trains to travel their entire
route, Cuomo said.
“With this design it would not be
necessary to close the L train tunnel
at all, which would be a phenomenal
benefi t to the people of New York City,”
he said during a press conference at
his 38th-fl oor offi ce inside a Manhattan
skyscraper. “There would need to
be some night and weekend closures
of only one tube, so service would still
work because there are two tunnels.”
The scheme will still kick off in
April, according to the governor, who
did not say if it will begin on the previously
set date of April 27 in announcing
the change.
And it may only take fi ve more
months than the 15 that transit leaders
expected the so-called L-pocolypse to
last, according to the acting chairman
of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation
Authority’s board Fernando
Ferrer, although Cuomo refused to
promise the new approach would wrap
in 20 months.
State transit offi cials back in 2016
began prepping locals for the closure,
fl oating two options for the fi x: completely
shuttering the Canarsie Tube
for 18 months to repair it, or drastically
cutting service on the line in order
to slowly restore the infrastructure
over three years.
The newly adopted Tube-repair
plan is based on similar work done
in Europe and Saudi Arabia, but the
scheme is new to the United States,
and has yet to be implemented on a
rail-line tunnel, Cuomo and transit offi
cials said.
And it will shave more than a year
off the prior timeline for repairing
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the Tube while running reduced service
on the line, because workers will
install brand new electrical cables
along the sides of the two tunnels instead
of removing and rebuilding the
so-called bench walls that now enclose
the storm-damaged cables, according
to the governor and the engineering
experts he recently toured the Tube
with .
Offi cials couldn’t immediately
say whether all of the previously announced
alternative-commuting options
during the closure — which included
more service on other subways,
a dedicated Williamsburg–Manhattan
ferry , new bike paths and bus routes ,
and a high-occupancy vehicle lane
across the Williamsburg Bridge —
will still roll out as planned.
But Metropolitan Transportation
Authority bigwig Andy Byford, who
oversees the state-run agency’s local
arm, the New York City Transit Authority,
said offi cials will likely still
boost service on some subways including
the M and G trains, but scrap the
planned ferry service and the high-occupancy
vehicle lane.
And the fate of the new bus routes
will be announced after Byford discusses
their necessity with city Department
of Transportation bigwigs,
he said.
The news came weeks after the governor
took his late-night trek through
the Tube with the pro-bono experts to
ensure there was no way to speed up
the job that his own administration
spent years preparing for , and stunned
straphangers across the borough and
beyond — especially after Cuomo told
locals not to get their hopes too high
following his time underground.
But the last-minute changes still
need to be approved by Authority
board members, according to the governor,
who pushed the panel to hold an
emergency meeting to review the new
scheme.
“I urge the MTA board to review
the alternative plan, allow the public
to comment on the plan, and, in its discretion,
to commence a revised plan if
that is its conclusion,” Cuomo said in
a statement following his announcement.
And the new proposal may also require
the sign off of the governor’s frequent
political rival President Trump,
because the Feds are footing the bill
for part of the massive project.
UNBELIEVAB-L: Gov. Cuomo’s new plan,
which still requires Metropolitan Transportation
Authority bigwigs’ approval, would no
longer require stopping Brooklyn–Manhattan
L-train service in April to accomodate 15
months’ worth of repairs.
L-pocalypse no!
Gov. pulls plug on 15-month closure, reveals
new plan that will allow continued service
Photo by Julianne Cuba
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