Over the past five years, as I’ve written about various attitudes toward the New York City subway system, I’ve often said that the city could not thrive without its transit network. We are more prone toward dwelling on the negatives and griping about delayed trains or crowded commutes than we are to sit back and appreciate what we have. Every now and then, though, a story somewhere drives home that point, and this week, Crain’s New York hosts such a tale.
The story from Crain’s isn’t exactly one of praise for the MTA. In fact, it focuses on just the opposite: After a fall of shuttle buses and service diversions, Williamsburg business owners are fed up with MTA weekends because the lack of trains is having a serious impact on their respective bottom lines. Adrianne Pasquarelli has the story:
William Norton spent the days leading up to the crucial Black Friday shopping weekend taping up flyers and composing an email blast to the 7,000 patrons of Peachfrog, his Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based store. But after ringing up 120 transactions that Friday, sales plummeted on Small Business Saturday and again on Sunday—the same days the neighborhood’s primary link with Manhattan, the L train, was shut down for maintenance. “Nobody was here,” said Mr. Norton, who sells an eclectic mix of apparel, shoes and antiques. “I lost 80% of my business, compared with last year.”
Weekend ridership on the L has jumped 141% since 1998, largely because it is the only line serving the heart of increasingly trendy Williamsburg. The problem nowadays is that all too frequently, that lifeline has been cut, inconveniencing residents and battering local businesses. What’s more, even when the L is up and running, the waiting time between trains is long and the cars overcrowded.
Since July, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has completely or partially shut down service on the L on a dozen weekends. The weekend after Black Friday was the worst, though. Merchants reported that business slumped 20% to 80% from last year’s levels. In response, they’ve begun meeting with community leaders and reaching out to local politicians and the MTA to figure out alternatives. “We’re not crazy people,” said Felice Kirby, co-owner of Teddy’s Bar and Grill on North Eighth Street and Berry Avenue. “We know they have work to do, and we want people to get to work on weekdays, but we count, too—there’s an imbalance.”
Slow sales are only half the problem. Without an easy lifeline to Manhattan, employees have found it onerous to commute to work from far-away locales, and residents can’t stray too far afield from the neighborhoods for fear of being left without a ride home.
Pasquarelli, meanwhile, hits upon only half of the problem. While she focuses on the L train’s woes, service changes have sidelined the G as well. The IND Crosstown line has either been running in sections or not at all, and those in Park Slope and Boerum Hill who want to reach Williamsburg on the weekends cannot. On more than one occasion this fall, I’ve had to change weekend plans when subway service changes made a trip to Williamsburg from Park Slope impractical. At times, without the Q, L, G or Manhattan-bound IRT local service, I had no easy transit route north.
So here we see how the subway rules our lives, our city and our economy. Without subway service, business slumps by 60 percent points. Although Williamsburg enjoys a ferry stop, Pasquarelli notes it carried just 5500 passengers last weekend as compared with 38,000 at Bedford Ave. alone on a typical weekend. So as suburban representatives take aim at MTA funding mechanisms, remember that the city cannot survive without its subway, let alone thrive.
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