CIRCLES OF L
Tour an in-depth look at shutdown plan
The MTA and city Transportation Department prepared for the L train shutdown Monday with a tour for local officials of new bus routes.
Elected and community officials peppered NYC Transit President Andy Byford and city Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg with questions along the two-hour tour to see segments of four new Select Bus Service routes planned for the shutdown.
The trip took the officials from Grand St. at Bushwick Ave. in Brooklyn over the Williamsburg Bridge, to Delancey, Kenmare and Lafayette Sts., up First Ave. from Houston St., then across the entire 14th St. corridor in Manhattan, before looping back to Union Square.
The officials asked about locations of bus stops, turns, construction and enforcement of bus-only and HOV lanes on the Williamsburg Bridge.
“There’s nothing better than actually seeing what is going to happen and I think as time goes on, we’ll have to do a dry run some time much closer to the date,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said.
The L train shutdown planned for next April will require the closure of the line’s Canarsie tunnel for 15 months. In that time the L train will run only in Brooklyn, up to Bedford Ave., and unable to cross into Manhattan or run along 14th St.
Transit officials believe most passengers will take nearby train lines, particularly the J, M, Z and G trains. But there will be a caravan of buses, 80 of them each hour, going over the Williamsburg Bridge, which will have an HOV lane for vehicles with at least three passengers, to allow buses to move more quickly across the span. There will be a bus-only corridor along 14th St., as well.
The transit officials asked about concerns that luxury bus companies, particularly one called The New L, would interfere with the flow of buses over the bridge.
Byford said he still believes displaced L train riders will stick with the MTA. He said that officials will discourage people from using these services.
“We don’t want to see a big bus jam across the bridge,” Byford said. “That’s why we are going to be doing everything possible to discourage people in single-occupancy vehicles, and for that matter, even private luxury mini-buses.”
Trottenberg said that passengers will get a “faster, smoother ride” on an MTA bus. She said it was unclear what legal action she or the city could take on a licensed operation to keep them off the bridge during the shutdown.
“We are monitoring what we’re starting to hear about what some of these companies are proposing,” Trottenberg said. “We’re going to be in communication with them. And I think we will try, if we need to, to act as aggressively as we can, but I do have some legal constraints.”
Jamie Getto, president of The New L, said he has had no contact with MTA or Transportation Department officials. The 12-passenger shuttle vehicles would meet the HOV restrictions on the bridge, but won’t head down the bus-only lane at 14th St. Instead, they will have different dropoff locations.
Getto criticized the agencies’ travel alternatives plan, saying that it’s unfeasible and “comical” that 70% of L train riders would use nearby subway lines and that there “simply aren’t enough buses available.”
“The fact that the MTA has failed so horrendously to address the L train shutdown with government-funded public transit — this is the reason why we have to worry about traffic. Shuttle buses are the best way to mitigate,” Getto said. “If the DOT or MTA tries to pass legislation to stop other buses from crossing the bridge, they will not have only failed to put out a viable plan, but they will be making the shutdown far worse for everyone.”