I just spoke to Gary Reilly, one of the candidates for City Council in the 39th district about Bloomberg's support of an F train express in Brooklyn.
Reilly is a transportation wonk; he is passionate on the topic, which he knows inside and out. In 2007 he circulated a petition and got thousands of signatures to add express service to that crowded and busy line. Now two years later, Mayor Bloomberg has gotten on board. Reilly is happy to see that.
"That's our proposal," Gary told me. "He didn't mention that of course. But two years later he's on board. The more support the better even though the mayor doesn't have control over that sort of thing," Reilly told me.
"Bloomberg is a bit of a headline grabber when it comes to transit improvement," Reilly said. "He could have put up the money when the MTA had a surplus a few years back. Instead he gave out a discretionary tax rebate when he could have put the money into much needed transportation improvements."
"Still I appreciate when city leaders put an emphasis on transportation. It should help. City officials drive the discussion about what transportation improvements are needed.
According to Reilly, the V-line already runs express from Queens to Second Avenue. He hopes that it will be extended all the way to Church Avenue in Brooklyn. There is, he says, "More than enough capacity on that line to do this."
Here is an excerpt from Reilly's blog First and Court. about this issue:
transit service (which I'll get into in more detail later).
The headline for the city-wide media
is the proposal for free cross-town bus service in Manhattan (a good
idea). But the big news for Brooklynites is the Mayor's belated support
for enhanced F/V service on the Culver Line in Brooklyn, which I and
other transit advocates have been calling for for years. From the Brooklyn Paper,
“Closer
to Downtown, you’re talking about a couple of minutes. As you get
farther out towards Coney Island you’re talking about potentially
saving 20 minutes — that’s huge. But it’s also about the possible
alleviation of crowding everywhere,” said Gary Reilly, a Democratic
candidate for City Council in Carroll Gardens, who has advocated for
years on behalf of the F line. “We need this and we deserve it. It’s a
low–hanging piece of fruit.”
and I have kept the pressure on the MTA and elected officials over the
years to ensure that Brooklyn gets these despeerately needed transit
improvements when the Culver Viaduct reconstruction is complete – and
we led the fight to ensure that the Viaduct reconstruction would
include the necessary track and signal work to accommodate express
service.
In the summer of 2007, I held a press conference at the Church Avenue F station with Councilmen Bill deBlasio, Simcha Felder and Domenic Recchia, along with Paul Steely White from Transportation Alternatives and Gene Russianoff from the Straphanger's Campaign to demand enhanced F/V service fro Brooklyn.
In
these difficult times we need to make the most of our transit
infrastructure. The restoration of express/local service on the F/V to
Brooklyn is a relatively cheap and efficient way to not only improve
the quality of life for tens of thousands of Brooklynites, but also to
aid in the revitalization of Coney Island and South Brooklyn.
Brooklyn deserves enhanced F/V service. And our time is coming.
The
battle for better transit service is what inspired me to run for City
Council – if you care about improving the state of our transit system,
visit my campaign website at www.garyreilly.org. Our team is growing
every day, and you too can help to make our city a better place to
live.
As I think of the subway projects I would like to see enacted, the F-express seems truly trivial and a real waste of time/money. I take the F-every day. Most people get off the F-train by 7th Avenue in Park slope… and definitely by the 15th Street-Prospect Park station. What good would an F-express do? There is no overcrowding on the F-train past Church Avenue… and of the people who signed the online petition, how many live that far south in Brooklyn anyway?
Why not just run “more frequent” F-trains? There. Problem solved. No need to create a billion $$ capital project.