Keeping momentum. That’s always the key to a successful public awareness campaign, and right now, that’s what Gary Reilly and the rest of us pushing for F express service are trying to do.

After delivering the petition to the MTA and receiving a favorable response from the Authority’s board, Reilly has tirelessly worked to keep this plan in the news. We have to keep applying pressure to the MTA to see this wish become a reality. This week, Reilly’s efforts ended up in a neighborhood spotlight on Carroll Gardens in The City section of the Sunday Times. Jake Mooney profiled Reilly:

Mr. Reilly said his petition comes at the perfect time, with the population of several neighborhoods swelling along the F line and the city seeking improvements in mass transit to accompany the mayor’s “congestion pricing” proposal to reduce traffic. The unused tracks, Mr. Reilly said, represent an untapped resource. “It would cost billions of dollars to build those express tracks today,” he said, “and they’re sitting there doing nothing.”

But there are good reasons for that inactivity, said Deirdre Parker, a spokeswoman for the transportation authority. Restoration of F service is being held up for at least four years by work to repair facilities near the Bergen Street subway station that were damaged in a 1999 fire, and by work on the Culver Viaduct, the railroad bridge over the Gowanus Canal.

Mr. de Blasio, however, would like to see the authority restore express service while those projects are going on, or at least set a clear timeline for restoration. “Is there no other way but to wait for everything to be done?” he said. “If it was more of a priority, could they find a way to work around it?”

Therein lies the part we must stress. As Gary has repeatedly pointed out, those express would cost billions of dollars to build, and yet they sit empty and unused. The MTA has, at its disposal, express tracks it could use to ferry thousands of straphangers to and from Brooklyn. But they remain empty.

While I understand the argument about the fire and the Culver Viaduct work, I have seen F trains run express this spring as crews work on the local tracks. There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with the signals at Bergen St.

The petition now has nearly 3000 signatures. If you haven’t signed on to it yet, do so now. And let’s keep pressuring the MTA to bring this plan to fruition. We want express and local service along the Culver Line in Brooklyn. It’s time.

For the last few weeks, Brooklyn residents have been pushing hard for express service on the F tracks in the city’s most populous borough. Thanks to the efforts of Gary Reilly, the MTA board has expressed support for the plan, and last week’s press conference was a resounding success.

Part of the plan calls for redeeming the V line. For now, the V train, running for just 17 hours Monday-Friday, is a lonely train. Running local from Forest Hills, the train terminates at the Second Ave. station as the F travels onward to Coney Island. As an added benefit to V train riders, since this train doesn’t go anywhere in Queens or Manhattan that other trains don’t, it allows for either a neglected ride or a spacious ride, depending upon your viewpoint.

Earlier this week, the Daily News noted that, in an age in which NYC pols are decrying over-crowded trains, the empty V trains provide welcome relief to straphangers looking for some space. In a 300-word article that three reporters wrote (!), the News noted:

It’s the V train, an unloved but uncrowded route launched in 2001 that is only half full even at rush hour – making it the least crowded of the subway’s 22 lines, NYC Transit statistics show…”You’re not like a sardine,” said Tom Nguyen, 34, who noted he almost always gets to sit back and relax on the V. “Of all the Queens lines, I think the V is the best.”

Not everyone agrees. Critics predicted no one would ride the local V when it was created in December 2001 to relieve overcrowding on the express E and F trains along Queens Blvd. Transit officials tried hard to popularize the route; it didn’t work. “I think it’s worthless,” commuter Victoria Carlucci said. “The stops are not helpful stops.”

So for every rider like Nguyen, there are others who cannot stand the V line. It, for some unknown reason, symbolizes the problems with the MTA: It’s a rush hour-only line that charts familiar territory. Who needs another one of those, right? In fact, over on the subway message board Subchat, invective against the V train exploded when this article hit the Internet on Monday.

And that is where our F train petition comes into play. With the F train petition, the F would run express during the times the V runs from Jay St./Borough Hall out to Church Ave. (or possibly Kings Highway). The V would no longer be a lonely train; instead, it would ferry thousands of commuters through Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Kensington and Borough Park. While those riding in Queens would probably still enjoy their empty and spacious train cars, people riding in Brooklyn would finally have more room than they do on the F with its cattle-car-like conditions.

So once again, we all can see how our F express plan would help make use of an under-utilized subway line in New York City. It’s time to make this plan reality.