As the Culver Viaduct controversy swirled last week, the local Brooklyn media profiled the upcoming work and brouhaha over those who were unaware of the F train shutdowns. On Friday afternoon, reporter Lauren Moraski interviewed me from the Smith/9th Sts. station to discuss the work and Brooklynites’ reactions to it. The story aired earlier this week on Brooklyn Review on the Brooklyn Independent TV station, and I’ve embedded the clip above.
Regular readers of SAS know the story by heart by now, but Moraski managed to track down a few more commuters who were surprised by the station closures. One wants to see a shuttle bus that, due to MTA budgetary problems, won’t run while others will just have to hoof it to Carroll St. While riders all along the F line in Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Kensington will suffer, Red Hook residents drew the short end of the straw. With limited subway service and no added bus lines, it’s going to be a long year for those who rely on the F for their commutes.
7 comments
I can’t see the video (probably a problem at my end), so you may address some of my points.
But Smith-9th isn’t going to be closed until May. Until then, it will have G service in both directions and F service on the southbound platform. Nobody needs to hoof it to Carroll St.
Even once the station is closed, the B61 from Red Hook continues to the 4th Avenue station. And from Smith-9th itself, the B57 runs to Carroll. Why do there need to be shuttle buses?
Why is this a bigger deal than the Brighton or Dyckman platform shutdowns, which have been going on for a year per platform, or than the Rockaway platform shutdowns, where service is very infrequent, and waiting for that second train to backtrack can take a full 20 minutes? The full Pelham line station closures haven’t had shuttle buses either.
The big deal is that the closure is in Park Slope, where the amount of whinning bloggers and self-involved hipsters is higher than in areas like Dykman and Pelham Bay. In other parts of the city, New Yorkers do what they’ve always done–they deal with it without crying to mommy about the nasty MTA people taking away their choo-choo.
The big deal to those who don’t carry some nasty grudge against people in Brooklyn is that it’s impacting two stations that aren’t seeing any improvement at all. Nothing is happening at Fort Hamilton and 15th St. but because of the way the system was built, there’s no way to run trains through those stations during the viaduct work. Mostly, it’s a case, as I said last week, of people who didn’t pay attention earlier in the process.
Also, bus service through Red Hook is sparse. I can see why residents might not be in love with that idea.
I haven’t seen that point raised anywhere, except in one of my comments on this blog.
Do you think Rockaway residents had any more advance notice than Windsor Terrace residents? I assure you, they did not.
What does this have to do with bus service through Red Hook? The same B61 that goes to Smith-9th continues across 9th to the next two F stations. Red Hook residents won’t even have to make an extra transfer.
It’s annoying, and that’s why people are complaining. Not to mention this all goes down the same month fares increase almost 10%…
No grudge against people in Brooklyn Ben; I lived there many years myself. My gruge is against whinners in general, and those in The Slope have grown up using the Internet as a tool to bitch and moan about everything. I’ve lived in every boro but the Bronx, and have been riding the subway for 40 years now, so I’ve seen my share of construction delays and shuttle buses. But I and many other NYers who grew up here understand that the system is 100+ years old in spots and that construction is necessary, whether it affects my station directly or not. If this construction where happening in Flushing or Pelham Bay, there’d by about 2 comments on SAS as opposed to the 150+ comments seen on SAS, Gothamist and other blogs. Whenever something happens to Park Slope, W’msburg or Greenpoint, all of a sudden it’s the end of the world and the complaints pile up.
Fair enough. You’re certainly not wrong about that. Moral outrage over nothing runs high in Park Slope.