Gov to tour L-line job
Late-night look at coming fix will spur brief delay
Late-night L train riders will have to endure a little pain for some possible gain Thursday night, when Gov. Cuomo takes a last-minute look at the Canarsie tunnel before it shuts down in April.
The MTA decided late afternoon Wednesday to leave one set of tracks open so trains can keep running during the approximate 90-minute tour by the governor, along with his team of experts.
“At the end of the day, the customers would be appreciative of the fact that we’re having a further look,” NYC Transit President Andy Byford said Wednesday. “I think a short closure of the tunnel in order to do that is probably time well spent.”
The inspection, however, will mean longer waits on the L line as trains running in both directions squeeze through a single tube.
To accommodate the tour, the overnight schedule will kick in at 12:01 a.m., instead of the usual 1:30 a.m. Trains will run every 20 minutes between midnight and 1:33 a.m., instead of roughly every 10 minutes under the normal schedule.
After three years of planning for the shutdown, Cuomo said Monday he wants to see the tunnel for himself to make sure the project cannot be wrapped up any faster than the planned 15 months.
“I want to be able to say to every New Yorker, ‘I know it’s a pain in the neck. There is no other option. The MTA is right,’ ” he said on WNYC’s “Brian Lehrer Show.”
Reps for Cuomo and the MTA didn’t have the names of experts who will accompany Cuomo on the tunnel tour. But afterward, MTA and engineers will review their findings.
“We’re looking forward to setting out exactly why it is that we’ve got the scope of works that we do, what that scope of work will deliver and the reasons why that then drives the time frame,” Byford said.
Even if Cuomo and his team come up with ideas to ease the pain on L train commuters, Byford was unsure whether such input could be a part of the plan over the next four months. The MTA’s construction plan aims to repair the damage while improving the L line and its infrastructure for decades.
“I think a third-party look is a good thing. Let’s see what they come up with, and then it will be easier to answer that question,” Byford said.