Brooklyn

After a few weeks of campaigning and a last-minute push in support of the petition, Gary Reilly’s F Express petition has reached the MTA. Based on Gary’s reports, it sounds like the tide is in our favor; we may yet get our wish for express service on the Culver Line into Brooklyn.

On Wednesday, Reilly took his petition to the MTA’s board meeting, where he was greeted practically with open arms by the board members. Reilly, on his site, wrote about the meeting:

The best moment of the meeting occurred about halfway through. Board Member Andrew B. Albert, whom I’ve never met, took a moment to express support the F&V petition.

Paraphrase:
Albert: I’d like to second what Mr. Reilly said about restoring the F express train in Brooklyn.
Kalikow: Was this something that was always intended when the express was shut for repairs originally?
Albert: Yes it was, but after the horrible fire we had at the Bergen Street station, it was put on the shelf.
Eliot Sander: We’re looking into it …

After the meeting, I had chance to speak briefly with Board Member Norman Seabrook. The bottom line: Our pleas are not falling on deaf ears.

This is, of course, great news, and it was followed this afternoon by a most welcome announcement via e-mail and covered on Kensington (Brooklyn). Three city council members and a group of community activists will meet on Thursday afternoon at Church Ave., a potential express stop on the F line, to discuss our plan. The event details are as follows:

Brooklyn Expresses: F-Train Frustration
WHO: Council Members Bill de Blasio, Simcha Felder, and Domenic Recchia; Community Activists
WHAT: Rally to Support Petition to Restore Express Service on Brooklyn’s F line
WHEN: 2 pm, Thursday, June 28, 2007
WHERE: Church Avenue Station; Church Avenue and McDonald Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

So let’s do this. All public transportation advocates who want to see improved subway service who don’t have prior commitments this afternoon should support this plan. We can make it happen sooner. These are exciting times for Brooklyn subway riders angling for better service.

After the jump, the full text of the press release.

We’re coming down to the wire on the F Express/V local petition. Gary Reilly of Brooklyn Streets created the petition a few weeks back. I analyzed his plan two weeks ago and reiterated my support yesterday.

Well, now we’re coming down the wire. Gary, as he writes here, is delivering the petition to the MTA board in person tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. during their meeting, and we want you to sign it before then. Gary writes:

The desire for change is palpable; I put a petition for better service on the F&V online, and nearly 2500 people signed on in under two weeks! People want better transit options. We need dedicated streams of funding for transit, and a re-imagining of the system that looks at the historical inefficiencies left behind by the disjointed history of subway construction and brings the system to a level of service better than any city in the world.

Demand it! I’ll be delivering the petition to the MTA Board tomorrow morning at 9:30 sharp. The meeting is open to public comment, but you must arrive by 9:00 to sign up.

So go forth, subway riders, and demand better service. The petition, currently at 2453 signatures now that I’ve added my name to it, can be found here. Let’s crack 2500 before Gary brings it to the MTA tomorrow.

Those F express tracks sit unused, and Brooklyn residents want to see that changed.

When last I checked in on the petition to promote F service along the unused express tracks on Brooklyn’s Culver line, the movement, while presenting a very feasible plan, had yet to gain steam. Well, the last nine days have seen a whirlwind of attention, and what began as a response to a my dig at the F train has turned into a full-fledged movement.

Gary Reilly’s efforts to draw attention to an under-served and overused line have been written up in The Brooklyn Eagle, New York Metro and most thoroughly in The Brooklyn Paper. The Downtown Brooklyn Parternship, in their statement supporting Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion tax, voiced their call for F express service as well.

So the movement is growing. Newspapers and business associations are hoping on this bandwagon. So far, over 2000 residents have added their names to the petition as well. But the MTA is stonewalling. The Authority keeps insisting that they cannot restore express service to the F line until the work on the Culver Viaduct at 9th St. is completed in 2012. The Brooklyn Paper has more:

New York City Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said this week that the agency can’t consider restoring express service — which existed as recently as the early 1980s — until 2012, when a planned reconstruction of the elevated track between the Fourth Avenue and Smith and Ninth Street stations will be complete.

He said that “express service would not be possible” until then because track work associated with the job will require the G train to run to Church Avenue on the F route, taking up the track that would be available for the South Brooklyn fast lane. “New York City Transit will review the feasibility of F-line express service [when that project is complete],” he said, adding that the final decision will be based on need.

Meanwhile, Bill DeBlasio, a member of the City Council, says that the MTA is “looking into other ways to do F express” so that we don’t have to wait another five years for this much-needed service to arrive.

As The Brooklyn Paper noted, some transit studies have shown that the F express service would save up to 20 minutes for many commuters. It would increase train service to rapidly growing areas to the city on a subway line that is currently maxed out during rush hour. It’s time for Brooklyn to get this express service.

Next week, at the MTA meeting focusing on capital improvement projects, members at the forefront of this F express movement plan to bring this plan to the MTA. So the more support they have, the better the proposal will sound to the ears of those making the decision about the train service. Add your name to the petition, and let’s keep the movement going. This is a plan that will benefit everyone.

Unused express tracks on Brooklyn’s Culver Line offer a tantalizing glimpse of what could be in Brooklyn. (Track map courtesy of NYC Subway)

Ah, the F train, aptly named after the words coming out of its riders’ mouths in Brooklyn as another stuffed train pulls up to the 7th Ave. stop in Park Slope in the morning. Or maybe it is named after what people say as they wait and wait and wait for the train to show up at night.

The F line though hides a dirty little secret: The capabilities exist, track-wise, for express service through Brooklyn. Now, on the heels of my post yesterday about the G train, one Brooklyn resident (and blogger) has taken up the call to arms. Gary from Brooklyn Streets, Carroll Gardens has started a petition to call on the MTA to add express F train service in Brooklyn and extend the V train from 2nd Ave. in Manhattan to part (or all) of Brooklyn. (The petition, if that’s your thing, is here.)

Gary believes that if, as I do, the congestion fee will increase subway ridership, crowded lines such as the F will become even more packed with commuters. The MTA should therefore do all it can to alleviate the crush.

I can’t argue with that logic, and in fact, I know that some of you have repeatedly said they would also shoulder fare hikes if the money went to increased service in the system. I’m all on board for that plan, but I think the F express/V extension plan faces some hurdles.