Home Service Advisories The primaries hit the subways; weekend work hits 15 subway lines

The primaries hit the subways; weekend work hits 15 subway lines

by Benjamin Kabak

Presidential candidates: They’re just like us. As we saw yesterday, Hillary Clinton, at a subway station with notoriously prickly turnstiles, couldn’t get her MetroCard to work. She had to swipe five times, thus turning our aging and outdated fare payment system we’ve come to know and hate into a major campaign issue. In fact, everyone has pledged more federal money for transit.

Just kidding.

Instead, everyone is having a good laugh over a frustrating experience New Yorkers have to live with on a daily basis. Meanwhile, as the primary nears, Bernie Sanders discussed paying his fare with tokens or else just jumping a turnstile. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich have left well enough alone. It seems that our national politicians are as interested in transit as our local ones are. What a dismaying, if entirely expected, turn of events.

The real test would be to see if any of them could navigate the weekend service changes. This week, we have 15 lines with changes. As always these comes to me from the MTA so pay attention to announcements and other signs.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, service is suspended between 14 St and South Ferry. Free shuttle buses operate between Chambers St and South Ferry. Trains skip 18 St, 23 St and 28 St in both directions.


From 5:45 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, April 9 and 10, 242 St-bound trains run express from 215 St to 242 St.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m., Monday, April 11, trains run local in both directions between Chambers St and 34 St-Penn Station.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, service is suspended between Utica Av and New Lots Av. Free shuttle buses make station stops between Utica Av and New Lots Av.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, trains run local in both directions between Chambers St and 34 St-Penn Station.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, downtown trains skip Astor Pl and 103 St.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, service is suspended between New Lots Av/Utica Av and Brooklyn Bridge. 2 3 N Q R trains provide alternate service. Free shuttle buses operate between Utica Av and New Lots Av.


From 4:30 a.m. Saturday, April 9, to 6:30 p.m. Sunday, April 10, service is suspended. 2 and 4 trains and free shuttle buses provide alternate service. Shuttle buses operate between Dyre Av and E 180 St.


From 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday, April 10, service is suspended between E 180 St and Bowling Green. 2 4 trains provide alternate service.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, downtown 6 trains skip Astor Pl and 103 St.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, trains are rerouted via the F in both directions between W 4 St and Jay St-MetroTech.


From 11:45 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., Friday to Sunday, April 8 to 10, and from 11:45 p.m. Sunday, April 10, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, uptown trains run express between 59 St-Columbus Circle and 125 St.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 9, to 5 a.m., Monday, April 11, trains run local in both directions between W 4 St and 59 St-Columbus Circle.


From 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, April 9 and 10, trains are rerouted via the F in both directions between W 4 St and Jay St-MetroTech. Uptown trains run express from 59 St-Columbus Circle to 125 St.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, service is suspended between 59 St-Columbus Circle and Stillwell Av. F N Q R trains and shuttle buses provide alternate service. D trains operate between 205 St and 59 St-Columbus Circle and run express via the A to/from Chambers St, the last stop. Free shuttle buses operate between W 4 St and Grand St.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, trains are rerouted via the F in both directions between 21 St-Queensbridge and W 4 St. Free shuttle buses run between Court Sq-23 St and 21 St-Queensbridge.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 7 a.m. Sunday, April 10, and from 11:45 p.m. Sunday, April 10 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, Manhattan-bound trains run express from Forest Hills-71 Av to 21 St-Queensbridge.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, Manhattan-bound trains skip Briarwood and 75 Av.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, Coney Island-bound trains skip Sutphin Blvd, Briarwood and 75 Av.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, Coney Island-bound trains run express from Smith-9 Sts to Church Av.


From 3:45 a.m. Saturday, April 9, to 10 p.m. Sunday, April 10, Manhattan-bound trains run express from Myrtle Av to Marcy Av.


From 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, April 9, and from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, April 10, Manhattan-bound trains run express from Myrtle Av to Marcy Av.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, trains are rerouted via the D in both directions between Stillwell Av and 36 St. Free shuttle buses and R trains provide alternate service.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 9, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, Astoria-bound trains run local from 36 St to DeKalb Av.


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday and Sunday, April 9 and 10, Manhattan-bound trains run express from 71 Av to Queens Plaza.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, April 8, to 6:30 a.m., Sunday, April 10, and from 11:45 p.m. Sunday, April 10, to 5 a.m. Monday, April 11, 36 St-bound trains stop at 53 St and 45 St.

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19 comments

22r April 9, 2016 - 6:02 pm

There’s no worse feeling than planning to go somewhere far away for dinner on a Saturday night (i.e. taxi would be prohibitively expensive), only to realize at the last minute that the subway line you need just isn’t running where you need it to. And there’s no good alternative lines. And the text-based MTA alerts are complicated and difficult to decipher. At least I’ve learned to check in advance (whereas when I first moved to New York I would just go to the station without checking first and then be disappointed to find the station with reduced service or completely closed.

Seriously… THIS IS RIDICULOUS. People in other global cities don’t have to deal with this.

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adirondacker12800 April 9, 2016 - 7:12 pm

Their subways curl up and go to sleep for the night. They run for 18, 19 hours a day.

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Justin Samuels April 9, 2016 - 9:01 pm

In other cities trains shut down after a certain hour each night and nights are automatically used for repairs. The network has to be maintained on a regular basis.

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JB April 9, 2016 - 9:11 pm

People in other global cities also don’t have 24/7 service. I think that’s a reasonable trade-off, don’t you?

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smotri April 10, 2016 - 5:41 pm

How can this be called 24/7 service if the train you want is not running when it normally should be? It’s disingenuous to call this a 24 hour a day/seven day a week service, what with late night line shutdowns, weekend line shutdowns.

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Chris C April 10, 2016 - 9:18 pm

Where does it say that the MTA promise to run every line 24 hours a day 365 days a year?

In what magic time do you expect maintenance and improvement works to be done??

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AMH April 11, 2016 - 9:28 am

There is no possible way to run every service ‘normally’ all of the time. Think about it.

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22r April 11, 2016 - 3:05 pm

It’s like other global cities got the 2014 BMW 5-Series and we got stuck with the 1971 Ford Pinto…

Chris C April 11, 2016 - 3:17 pm

At some point that BMW is going to need a service and be taken out of action.

Which of the global cities that you (fail to) mention never close any of their lines (or parts of lines) for extended maintenance at weekends?

Brooklynite April 11, 2016 - 4:33 pm

To be fair, Moscow has had one weekend closure that I’ve heard of, and that was several years ago when they were cutting a segment from one line onto a new one. Aside from that I don’t think they have any: their website’s “scheduled repairs” section has an extremely detailed list of all station, mezzanine, and escalator closures throughout the system, but there is no mention of line shutdowns at any point.

Somehow they get everything they need to do done in five hours every night. What are the chances MTA would be able to pull off something similar?

22r April 11, 2016 - 4:56 pm

Sure, sometimes even world-class systems will need to be modified temporarily for repairs, etc. I’ve seen my share of service changes in London, Berlin, Hong Kong… but nothing of the magnitude or complication of the NYC Subway. I’ve spent lots of time in global cities and New York is the only one where when you want to go out on a weekend you have to check online first because you KNOW that something is going to be weird or unpredictably different about the service. And then you have to spend 15 minutes deciphering the way MTA wrote it on their website to understand…

22r April 11, 2016 - 10:10 am

I’d rather have a subway that reliably closes from 1am to 6am every night than a subway that randomly twists itself into knots and cuts off various arms every weekend.

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VLM April 11, 2016 - 10:28 am

The paragon of selfish comments about subway service. Because it requires a bare minimum of thought to sometimes reroute yourself on the weekends, you’d rather close the system for 5 hours every night, inconveniencing thousands of low-wage workers trying to get to and from work. Sounds like a plan!

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22r April 11, 2016 - 10:43 am

Come on, this not just a minor inconvenience – it’s a huge flaw in the whole system. Even looking at a simple photograph that shows the differences in maintenance and physical condition of an NYC Subway station vs. Hong Kong or London speaks volumes about how this problem is much bigger and more complicated than a simple tradeoff between late-night service and weekend entanglements.

Chris C April 11, 2016 - 3:20 pm

You are not obviously aware that Transport for London regularly closes lines or parts of lines over the weekend to do extended maintenance.

Indeed they have even closed parts of lines for a couple of WEEKS where it simply isn’t practical to do the work either overnight or at the weekend.

smotri April 11, 2016 - 11:02 am

It’s not only the weekends. The so-called Fast Track scheme, where they take out entire lines for weeknights in a whole week, directly affects these same low wage workers you profess to care about. Plus the weekends!

Chris C April 11, 2016 - 3:25 pm

you obviously miss the info about bus substitution and that they only ‘fast track’ when there are other subway lines near by so service is maintained. And fasttrack is only used when that is possible.

Also they don’t take out entire lines. They take only a section of the line and you’d know this if you took just a second looking at the MTA website.

Anyone who thinks that the MTA (or any subway operator for that matter) can do maintenance work without closing lines or parts of lines is living in cloud cuckoo land.

meow April 11, 2016 - 2:55 pm

Am I the only one who would gladly trade 24 hour service for a system that actually works correctly for the hours during which the majority of people are actually awake? I’m supposed to endure a weekend stranded in my neighborhood with no train service whatsoever so that drunks can have their 4am subway ride home?

I get that there are shift workers who need access to the system overnight, but the needs of the many versus the few…

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John-2 April 10, 2016 - 9:28 am

Sometimes it’s the clogged heads on the turnstile card readers that are to blame for the problems swiping to enter. Sometimes it’s the clogged heads of the people swiping, who don’t pay attention to which way the arrow’s pointing on their Metro Card. Could have been a little bit of both in Hillary’s case.

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