Officials to decide on full or partial L train closure in 2-3 months
The universally dreaded L train shutdown will commence in January of 2019, transit officials explained to a crowd of community members at a public meeting at the Marcy Avenue Armory in Brooklyn on Thursday.
Over the course of the nearly three-hour meeting, NYC Transit President Veronique Hakim and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chairman Thomas Prendergast utilized a series of videos and visual presentations to lay out the two options for repair of the Canarsie tunnel, one of the nine subway tunnels severely damaged by Superstorm Sandy. The purpose of the meeting, they said, was to “make sure people understand why we have to do this, and present the public with as much information as possible.”
The first repair option involves a complete service shutdown between Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan for 1 1/2 years, or from January 2019 to July 2020. This option, known as the “get in, get done, get out” plan, is favored by transit officials for its speed and cost-effectiveness, but will force the nearly 300,000 daily L train riders to find a new path in and out of Manhattan.