New York City’s L Train Shutdown Might Not Be So Terrible

When parts of New York City’s L train shut down for 15 months in April 2019* for long-overdue tunnel repairs, an estimated 275,000 Brooklyn subway riders will have to find other ways to cross the river into Manhattan. The L-pocalypse has been dreaded since it was announced in 2016, but the need for the repairs dates back to Superstorm Sandy in 2012, when salt water flooded the Canarsie Tunnel under the East River. The long lead-up to the closure has given the authorities plenty of time to prepare. The city has a host of contingency plans, including expanding subway service on the J, M, Z, G, 7 and C lines. That, says the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), will keep roughly 80 percent of L train refugees moving.

But with New York’s subway system in an extended crisis after decades of deferred maintenance, many straphangers doubt these lines—already plagued by delays and overcrowding—can actually handle the influx. Instead, they expect the L shutdown to heap a whole new layer of mobility misery upon the lives of millions of Brooklyn and Manhattan commuters.