The F line, much maligned and often overcrowded, is near and dear to my heart. I live nearby the stop at 7th Ave. in Brooklyn and often find myself relying on it for travel to and from home and parts of Brooklyn or Manhattan. A few years ago, securing F express service became a cause célèbre for me and a few Brooklyn transit advocates.

During our discussions about F express service, the MTA informed us that the option would not be available until after the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation is finished in 2013. We were prepared to wait, but our efforts aroused the attention of a State Senator from the area. With complaints mounting about the F service, Daniel Squadron asked the MTA to perform a comprehensive study of the 27-mile F long. The agency released report — available here as a PDF — on Friday, and it is a rather critical of the current conditions along the second longest subway line in the city.

Citing the fact that parts of the line are 90 years old, the report notes how prone to delays and problems the F is. “Reliability of the F, as on all other lines in the subway, is affected by infrastructure condition, maintenance and renewal; in the case of the F, the need to renew key assets in the coming years is becoming critical, due to their age and condition. As assets age, they become more prone to breakdown, thus adversely affecting reliability,” it reads. Simply put, the F line is falling apart.

The report features a lot of technical MTA-speak. It delves into a discussion on merges and diverges, shared trackage and component replacement plans. It discusses the mean distance between car failures and talks about who the F rolling stock features five different classes of cars — many of which are slated for retirement in 2010. It analyzes controllable on-time performance and absolute on-time performance. It examines ridership numbers and a passenger environment service.

In the end, though, the report boils down to a few main conclusions: The F is a patchwork line made out of parts of varying ages and varying quality. Its oldest sections — between Ditmas Ave. and Ave. X — are 90; its youngest piece — South of W. 8th St. to Coney Island — is just five years old. Because of these discrepancies, the F line is overtaxed and in need of maintenance, oversight and investment.

The report, however, doesn’t make too many out-of-the-box recommendations. In fact, many of the suggestions are in the process of being implemented and capital investment projects are already underway. It urges the following and notes the implementation timeline:

• Reorganizing line management, to provide greater accountability over multiple disciplines (July 2009).
• Establishing a task force of senior managers to review F line operations and develop strategies for improvements (Fall 2009).
• Reviewing the schedules and service design of the F to assess potential operational and service changes, including modifications to Queens/Manhattan service (underway) and express service in Brooklyn (to be undertaken prior to the completion in 2013 of the ongoing Culver Viaduct project).
• Undertaking a train load analysis to provide line management with critical information for evening out train loads (underway).
• Assigning more reliable cars to the F (July 2009), reducing the number of separate car classes operating on the F from 5 to 2 (July 2009), assigning a dedicated car maintenance manager to the F (September 2009), and continuing to place new cars into F service (underway).
• Modifying delay management strategies to reduce reliance on skipping stations (July 2009).
• Renewing aging infrastructure, including, but not limited to, reconstructing the Culver Viaduct (underway), rehabilitating key stations like Jay Street (underway), and modernizing critical components of the signal system (planned for the 2010-14 Capital Program).
• Developing strategies to reduce the impact of maintenance and infrastructure renewal work on operations (underway), including coordinating previously separate maintenance activities, establishing a “Scheduled Maintenance System” for signal repairs and heavy maintenance gangs for track repairs, and installing track barriers during long-term projects to reduce the need to slow down when passing work zones.

New York City Transit President Howard Roberts noted that many of the projects are already in place. “While we are already in the midst of several capital projects aimed at improving service for F Line riders, there are measures underway that will move our customers closer to the type of service that they pay for and that they deserve,” said Roberts.

To me, this report doesn’t say anything new. The MTA knows the F is a problem, and the authority already had measures in place to fix those problems. Why did they fulfill Squadron’s request for a report? How much did it cost them? Would we see similar results if this investigation were repeated on, say, the J or the R line? Is adding another layer of management going to solve these problem?

Transit should certainly be praised for a critical self-examination, but Straphanger Joe and Jane could just as easily evaluate the F line. We know it’s a subpar line. Now, we have to see if a report produced at the behest of a State Senator can improve these poor conditions.