The Brooklyn Paper reports that the mayor wants to see express subway service on
the F line. Trouble is he has no control over the MTA.
Mayor Bloomberg called for the creation of express subway service on
the F line, one of the most crowded routes in Brooklyn, as part of a
larger campaign announcement calling for a multitude of mass transit
improvements around the city.
“Now is the time to act,” the third-term-seeking mayor said in a statement.
Physically, the mayor’s F-line call could be enacted relatively
simply by the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority because
there’s an unused track for a zippier ride through stations in Cobble
Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope en route to Coney Island.
Bloomberg also called for the extension of the V train, which
terminates in Manhattan, to run on the F line out to Coney Island for a
one-two punch that Brooklyn hasn’t seen since Jim Gilliam and Pee Wee
Reese were at the top of the World Series-winning Dodgers lineup in
1955.
Express trains could stop at currently unused platforms at Bergen
and Carroll streets beneath the existing ones, but they would skip
Smith-Ninth Streets and Fourth Avenue before stopping again at Seventh
Avenue in Park Slope. From there, they would bypass the Prospect Park
and Fort Hamilton Parkway stations en route to Church Avenue in
Kensington.