Beginning this weekend a construction project on the F and G lines means BIG service changes and station closures through 2012.
Users of the 15th Street and Ft. Hamilton stations (i.e. people who live in Windsor Terrace and Kensington) may have it the worst and they have every right to be PISSED:
Manhattan and Queens-bound service from 15th Street-Prospect Park and Fort Hamilton Parkway will be completely suspended from Monday, January 10 through May 2011. This will force strap hangers to walk to Church Avenue or Seventh Avenue for subway service.
Also screwed: there’s no Manhattan-bound service at the Smith-9th streets station. Manhattan and Queens-bound trains will stop on the express track at Seventh Avenue and Manhattan-bound F and Queens-bound G trains will stop at a temporary platform at the 4th Avenue-9th Street station.
Why is this happening? The MTA says there’s a $275.5 million engineering and construction project aiming to fix elevated and concrete Culver Viaduct structure, which both the F and G train lines run along.
The MTA says they are also working on signals and switches, as well as the platforms, canopies and historic archway at the 4th Avenue-9th Street station.
Yup. The express tracks completely bypass those stations. After 7th Ave., the express tracks cut under the park while at Fort Hamilton Parkway, they’re below the local tracks. Check it out: http://images.nycsubway.org/trackmap/detail-prospect.png
VLM: Thanks for your response. I’m still confuse though. Where are these express tracks at 15th Street/PP? I spend a lot of time in that station and it seems to me that there is only one track in either direction, on which the G & F both travel. Is there some hidden express track (like the mysterious one under Bergen Street?)
bigmissfrenchie: They have to be closed because of decisions the city made in the 1930s when it first built the F line. The tracks run express from 7th Ave. to Church Ave. and completely bypass Ft. Hamilton and 15th St. It was a stupid design then, and we’re paying the price for it now.
But what I don’t understand is why 15th Street and Fort Hamilton have to also be closed. If they trains are running, that means that they are running through those stations. Are they redoing those stations as well? And if the G is running to Smith/9th, why can’t it also stop at 15ht and FH? It makes no sense.
I noticed this morning, on the G train going from Williamsburg to 4th Avenue that there IS a temporary platform on the either side of the Smith-9th Street station. The Queens-bound G train will stop there, so people can get on the G and change for the F at Carroll or Bergen and then go on to Manhattan (and Forest Hills).
Also, why does anyone have a right to be pissed? This happens all over the city when the MTA has to make structural repairs, and only self-centered entitled Park Slope yuppies feel the need to be pissed about it.
I’d rather have two stations closed for four months in one direction than the Culver Viaduct collapse into the Gowanus Canal, as it’s in danger of doing. Wouldn’t you?
“Screwed”? Damn. That’s quite the hyperbole. You make it sound like people can’t walk ten extra minutes to get to the next stop.