BY YANNIC RACK | Local leaders are demanding that the city close 14th St. to cars during an upcoming L train shutdown that could last up to three years. In addition, they potentially even want to keep the critical crosstown thoroughfare bike-and-bus exclusive after the subway is up and running again.
The ideas were pitched during a town hall organized last week by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to inform straphangers about plans to temporarily limit L train service starting in 2019. The event drew a few dozen local residents, who sat scattered about the spacious auditorium.
State Senator Brad Hoylman, building on a previous report from a public policy think tank, asked the M.T.A. to consider making 14th St. a dedicated bus and bike route to facilitate commuter alternatives.
“I’d really like to see the possibility that you consider closing 14th St. to traffic,” the senator said during the event, at the Salvation Army Theatre, at 120 W. 14th St., earning cheers and applause from the audience.
“And maybe, after this is done, we’ll consider keeping 14th St. closed to traffic,” he added.
Hoylman’s comments came on the heels of an April report from the Regional Plan Association, which originally floated the car-free 14 St. idea as one strategy to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of daily L train riders who will be looking for replacement service if the line is shut down.
The report suggests restricting 14th St. between Union Square and Sixth Ave. in both directions to buses, bikes and pedestrians, with trucks permitted to make overnight deliveries or use loading zones on nearby avenues that would take the place of parking spaces.
Under the proposal, the rest of traffic could travel east of Union Square and west of Sixth Ave., but only one-way toward each river.
The planning exercise was sparked by the M.T.A.’s intention to shut down the Canarsie Tunnel, which carries L trains below the East River, starting in 2019. The subway shutdown is required to repair extensive damage that was caused by Superstorm Sandy when it flooded the 92-year-old tunnel with 7 million gallons of corrosive saltwater.
The agency is currently mulling two scenarios for the repair work. The first would close both tunnel tubes for 18 months, shutting down L train service completely in Manhattan. The second scenario would only close a single track at a time — with the total project lasting three years — which would still allow for less-frequent trains to shuttle across the borough.
Reduced Manhattan service is not possible under the first proposal — the “get in, get done, get out” option, according to M.T.A. Chairperson Thomas Prendergast — since the agency says it won’t be able to keep trains running in the borough without connection to a maintenance yard in Brooklyn.
“There isn’t a yard in Manhattan, and we can’t otherwise service the trains that would be stuck in Manhattan,” explained Veronique Hakim, the M.T.A.’s president of New York City Transit.
Under the second option, trains would still be running both ways but only carry about one-fifth of the commuters that currently use the line, according to the M.T.A.
The agency says that 225,000 daily riders would be affected by the shutdown, including around 50,000 traveling solely in Manhattan.
“[There’s] an awful lot of ridership and volume along the 14th St. corridor,” said Prendergast.
M.T.A. officials at the meeting did not respond directly to Hoylman’s comments. But Hakim later gave a vague answer to a similar question from Christine Berthet, the former chairperson of Community Board 4, who asked whether cars would be restricted on the crosstown street.
“On dedicated bus lines, and restricting cars and other types of vehicles on 14th St. — working with the city Department of Transportation, making 14th St. work is obviously a top priority here,” she said.
This week, a D.O.T. spokesperson said the agency would work closely with the M.T.A. regarding all options.
Either way, the M.T.A. is already planning to help alleviate the strain of reduced L train service with a range of improved alternative transportation options.
Under both scenarios, additional M, J and G trains would run to accommodate commuters, with J and Z trains making local stops between Myrtle and Marcy Aves. in Brooklyn. Free outside-of-the-system transfers would be provided between the Broadway G and Lorimer St. J, M and Z stops.
In an 18-month full-closure scenario, there would also be a bus service across the Williamsburg Bridge and M14 Select Bus Service across 14th St., with some buses running up to E. 20th St. to connect to a ferry from Williamsburg.
The M23 S.B.S. and M34 S.B.S. would also be extended to connect to a new ferry — the amount of extra bus service required prompted Hakin to admit the M.T.A. would need “S.B.S. on steroids to make this work.”
Under a one-track closure, additional buses would also run along 14th St. and between Bedford and Lorimer Sts. in Brooklyn, and the agency is working with the city to figure out whether to install dedicated bus lanes on the Williamsburg Bridge.
The M.T.A. says it will also improve the subway stations at Bedford Ave. and First Ave., with new elevators and stairs and a new entrance at Avenue A for the Manhattan stop.
Even though full-blown work on the tunnel reconstruction won’t begin until January 2019, the M.T.A. says it will pick one of the two scenarios in the next few months, after gathering more feedback from residents in Canarsie and presenting the two options to all affected community boards.
“We’ve got time to do these options right,” Prendergast said.
The only audience members who directly opined on the two options — via previously submitted question cards — seemed to prefer the shorter, 18-month closure, which one commenter referred to as the “preferred first option.”
After a similar town hall in Brooklyn last month, many had perceived the agency to be not-so-secretly favoring the quicker option, but the top brass were careful to avoid showing any preference last week.
“The first option, not the preferred one,” M.T.A. Chief of Staff Donna Evans was quick to correct the commenter.
“People say, ‘You’re probably preferring one option,’ ” Prendergast added later. “No, we’re having a dialogue. We need to make sure we understand the pros and cons of these options.”
So far, which option will be chosen, and how it will affect residents and commuters in both Brooklyn and Manhattan, remains to be seen.
But no matter which scenario is picked, the transit honchos admitted that it wouldn’t be an easy burden for straphangers.
“This is going to be a hardship,” Hakim said. “But at the end of the day, we need to get it done.”
