L train service will be interrupted over the course of three upcoming weekends
Image by Jason Eppink via Flickr
The rehabilitation of the Canarsie Tunnel is on track to wrap up months ahead of schedule and restore full L train service by April—roughly one year after the revised “slowdown” started—but service will get a little worse before it gets better. As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) prepares to finish their work, partial L outages will impact service during three weekends in January, February, and March.
The MTA will require full access to tracks and stations to make progress on station rehabilitation and accessibility improvements, and work to connect power between the tracks and three new substations, which will ultimately help power more L trains.
To accommodate the crews, there will be no L service in Brooklyn between Lorimer Street and Broadway Junction the weekends of January 17-20 and February 14-18 (a long weekend due to the President’s Day holiday). Service interruptions will extend to Manhattan on the weekend of March 20-23, when there will be no service from 8 Avenue to Broadway Junction. Free shuttle buses will run between the stations during the closures.
The L rehabilitation project includes extensive work on the century-old Canarsie Tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan that was severely damaged by Superstorm Sandy. In addition, new power infrastructure and station improvement projects are planned to increase capacity and accessibility at stations along the L line.
The original construction plan from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority called for the subway line to totally shut down for 15 months during the repairs. A few months before work was set to begin, Gov. Andrew Cuomo stepped in with a new plan that avoided a full shutdown of L train service.
Find the latest L train service changes here.
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