Prepping for the ‘L-pocalypse’

Manhattan L train riders received a first glimpse this week of how daily commutes will be impacted during the impending shutdown of the line, set to begin in April 2019. According to newly unveiled plans, 13th Street and 14th Street will undergo major overhauls to accommodate increased bus and bicycle traffic while the L train service is suspended, and new high-occupancy vehicle restrictions will apply to traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge.

The MTA and New York City Department of Transportation officials presented long-awaited plans to provide alternative modes of transportation during the shutdown for the line’s 400,000 daily riders at a Dec. 14 city council hearing. The shutdown mitigation plans, officially announced the day before, come more than five years after Hurricane Sandy inundated the Canarsie Tunnel with seven million gallons of corrosive floodwater, necessitating major repairs to the subway line that officials anticipate will take 15 months to complete.

“From our analysis it is abundantly clear that whether we like it or not, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will be inconvenienced, including those in communities beyond the immediate areas along the L train corridor,” DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said in council testimony. “Getting through this will involve shared sacrifice for many of us.”

Manhattan’s 14th Street corridor will be among the locations most significantly affected by the L train closure, in large part due to the challenges posed by replacing the subway service capacity along the borough’s longest crosstown thoroughfare. “The 50,000 who use the L to travel solely within Manhattan along the 14th Street corridor is a larger ridership than the any single bus route in the city and 61 percent greater than the M14’s current daily ridership of 31,000,” Trottenberg said.

The MTA and DOT plan calls for the creation of a 14th Street “busway” that will dedicate the road exclusively to bus traffic during rush hour along a core stretch of 14th Street spanning westbound between Third Avenue and Eight Avenue and eastbound from Ninth Avenue to Third Avenue. Plans for the redesigned street also include expanded sidewalk space to make room for increased numbers of pedestrians.

On 13th Street, the DOT plans to install a two-way protected bike lane that would run from Ninth Avenue to Avenue C. “This change will help us meet demand for cycling—growing even without the L train closure — safely and with fewer conflicts,” Trottenberg said.

Parking spaces on one side of 13th Street would be removed and replaced with the crosstown two-way protected bike lane, which would be the first in Manhattan. Daily cycling volume is expected to double during the shutdown, according to MTA and DOT estimates.

The Williamsburg Bridge will bear much of the increased burden of the 225,000 soon-to-be-rerouted riders who use the L train to travel between Manhattan and Brooklyn each day. To reduce congestion on the route for new L-alternative buses, the city plans to restrict Williamsburg Bridge traffic to vehicles carrying three or more passengers during rush hour, and also install new dedicated bus lanes on both sides of the bridge.

The bulk of displaced L train ridership — 70 to 80 percent of riders, according to MTA and DOT plans — are expected to use other subway lines as a primary alternative during the shutdown. The MTA plans to bolster service on the J, M, Z and G lines with more frequent (and, in the case of the G and C, longer) trains to accommodate increased ridership from rerouted L train riders. L train service will continue in Brooklyn between Bedford Avenue and Canarsie during the shutdown. The city also plans to launch a new ferry route connecting North Williamsburg to Stuyvesant Cove.

“We cannot have any delay on this,” said Council Member Corey Johnson, whose district includes the western portion of the 14th Street corridor, echoing the concerns of several council members regarding the project timeline.

The MTA is “very confident” that repairs to the Canarsie Tunnel will be finished by the target completion date of July 2020, according to Veronique Hakim, the transit authority’s managing director. Hakim said that the $477 million contract awarded for the repairs includes incentives for early completion and penalties for delays.