Second Ave. Sagas

For Brooklyn F riders, all’s well that ends a week later

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

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After an intense debate over some Brooklynites’ shock at the looming closure of stations along the F line, the weather has intervened to give the Culver Viaduct rehab a week-long reprieve. As WNYC’s Jim O’Grady reported late yesterday, Transit has decided to postpone the work by a week due to the threat of up to six inches of snow this weekend. Thus, the work on the Culver Viaduct that requires Manhattan-bound trains to bypass Forth Hamilton Parkway, 15th St. and Smith-9th Sts. won’t commence until January 17, and neighbors irate over the late notice have another week to plan.

Meanwhile, O’Grady quizzed Transit officials on the decision to wait until less than a week before work was to begin to hang up signs announcing the platform closures. “We have found that if you put it up too early, people lose sight of it,” agency spokesman Charles Seaton said. “It’s better to keep it fresh in people’s minds.” Seaton did say that signs will go up this weekend and that the authority will make “public announcements in the system.”

Yet, I still believe warnings should have gone up in late December. The Viaduct rehab, talked about since 2007, will inconvenience a lot of F and G train riders throughout 2011. Either way, after the back-and-forth amongst commenters in my earlier post, on FiPS yesterday and on Gothamist, I had to laugh when this seven-day postponement was announced last night.

Comments

6 responses to “For Brooklyn F riders, all’s well that ends a week later”

  1. Edward

    I’ve never seen so many posting on one issue (including SAS and Gothamist). The natives were definitely restless on this one, so I hope the extra week’s notice gives Slopers some peace of mind.

    Reply
  2. Edward

    Guess everybody got all the bile out yesterday–not one lousy posting regarding the postponement?

    Reply
  3. Andrew

    You (and I, and most of your reader base) are very interested in transit. When we see an announcement of a major service change, the date is seared in our minds. We aren’t going to forget.

    But we are not typical. Most subway riders aren’t particularly interested in the trains they ride. If they see a poster in December, either they won’t notice the date and they’ll assume it’s starting right away, or, more likely, they’ll see the date and file it away as “something happening a long time from now.” They’ll be caught off-guard when it finally happens. Also, if there’s unrelated work going on at the time the sign is posted, another sign announcing work that won’t be happening for an entire month will only serve to distract attention from what people actually need to focus on right away.

    Seaton is correct. If the goal is to make sure that as many people as possible are prepared for a service change, there should be a major information blitz a few days, certainly no more than a week, in advance.

    That said, I don’t see why the information couldn’t have been posted on the MTA website in advance. It’s still not listed in the right-hand column on the “Planned Service Changes” page – although the announcement that the G is extended to Church (from 2009!) is still posted.

    I’m still not sure what the big deal is regarding this specific service change. One-way station closures are extremely common (and they’re usually only announced a few days in advance, like this one). We see them now on the Brighton line, in the Rockaways, and at Dyckman. In the past 10 years, we’ve seen them all over the system – on the Pelham line, on the Jamaica line, on the Jerome line, on the Broadway IRT and BMT lines. Most of them last longer than four months. Less common are full station closures, but we’re not seeing any of those here (at least not yet – there is one planned starting in May at Smith-9th). The only significant difference I see here – but I haven’t seen anybody else comment on it! – is that the two stations most directly impacted are not themselves seeing any improvements at all.

    Reply
    1. Alon Levy

      It’s true but misleading that one-way closures are common. They’re common on a systemwide basis, but on a given line segment they happen less than every year. I found it very weird the first time the 1 started to one-way skip stations on the UWS, though fortunately I didn’t need to use any of the skipped stations.

      Reply
      1. Andrew

        Yes, it’s confusing for the people affected the first few times. But if a few days’ notice has been sufficient for all of the closures up until now, why all the whining about a few days’ notice for this one? (And if a few days’ notice wasn’t sufficient for the others, where was the whining then?) This is one of the less disruptive one-way station closures, because riders can backtrack on either of two lines, one of which is very frequent during rush hours. (Compare to the Rockaways, with its infrequent service.)

        Reply
  4. Viaduct shutdown weekend finally arrives :: Second Ave. Sagas

    […] had Brooklynites up in arms, work delayed by a snow storm that didn’t deliver much snow and a local media appearance all before the Culver Viaduct shut […]

    Reply

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