Benjamin Kabak’s blog, Second Avenue Saga, is about the New York subway. He is a native New Yorker and a huge subway buff. He’s one of those people who is obsessed with trains. He likes riding them, reading about them and writing about them.
Kabak, like many of us, was dismayed by Gersh Kuntzman’s recent editorial in the Brooklyn Paper against an F Train Express. I think it’s a perfectly good idea and a legitimate use of train tracks that already exist.
While the F Train Express may do little to help those in Brownstone Brooklyn it will be a service to those who live farther out on the line. What’s wrong with that?
This morning, Kabak sent me this note about a letter to the editor that will hopefully be in the Brooklyn Paper this week. I won’t print it here because I don’t want to jeopardize its being in the Paper. You can, however, read it on Kabak’s blog.
I always thought everyone supported the F Express Plan.
Who wouldn’t want more train service and express train options for
underserved and overcrowded parts of Brooklyn? It seemed like a
no-brainer to me. Boy, was I naïve in this thinking.Last week, Gersh Kuntzman’s Brooklyn weekly The Brooklyn Paper ran a scathing (and, in my opinion, very short-sighted) editorial entitled “Who needs an F express?”
As you may have guessed from the non-too-subtle title, Kuntzman,
supposedly a champion of Brooklyn, isn’t in favor of this added train
service on tracks that have existed since these subway lines opened in
the 1930s.In response to this outrageous editorial, I wrote a letter to the
editor. The letter, co-signed by the other two major proponents of the
F Express Plan, Gary Reilly, the driving force behind the F Express and
author of Brooklyn Streets, Carroll Gardens, and Jen from Kensington (Brooklyn), disputes every contention made by The Brooklyn Paper in its editorial. While we hope the letter will appear in an upcoming issue of the paper, here it is in its entirety:
re: “I don’t think this is such a big issue once the season at coney is done for the summer”
for people who LIVE there, the season at coney is year-round…
Gersh Cuntzman can go F himself
Though the King’s Hwy thing did happen to me once, three times this summer I was lucky enough to be on trains that ran express to ave. x. It cut the time to Coney in half.
I don’t think this is such a big issue once the season at coney is done for the summer…
Thanks for running this story, OBKB. I agree that Gersh is short-sighted on this one, and I’m surprised that he is. It feels like an example of the Brownstone Island problem, that the rest of the borough doesn’t matter.
We have to support the MTA trying a number of alternative, like what happened with the B and D, and the best way to do it is by actually running them; these can’t be perfectly predicted. Imagine if the G were to be extended to Stillwell Ave as part of the mix, either the local or express. Think of all the Russian and Polish riders suddenly taking it between Brooklyn and Queens. Think of all the Bangladeshi and Arab and Indian riders doing the same. Think of all the Latin Americans taking it between Kensington and Jackson Heights on the weekends. If the G were permanently extended out to its off-hours terminus on Queens Boulevard, the access to LaGuardia and Shea and Flushing would be much improved. The G ridership would increase tremendously, not just for Park Slopers going to to party in Williamsburg!
The track capacity is there.
I take the “F” to Avenue U or to Coney Island once every couple of months, and much too frequently the train I’ve boarded Downtown only travels as far as Kings Highway. The announcement is generally that “there’s another train right behind this one” but generally I can walk to Avenue U without seeing that next train on the elevated tracks. Before running an “F” express, how about better serving the area beyond Kings Highway by running all the trains to Coney Island, rather than terminating many at Kings Highway?