4 JUNE 29, 2017 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
M train ‘Summer of Hell’ starts this weekend
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
RPOZARYCKI@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@ROBBPOZ
If you think the “Summer of Hell” affects
only Penn Station and Long Island
Rail Road commuters, think again.
Ridgewood, Glendale and Middle Village
residents are about to experience
some train pain themselves starting
this weekend. As of 12:01 a.m. Saturday
morning, July 1, the M line will be closed
between Metropolitan Avenue and
Myrtle Avenue-Broadway in Bushwick
for two full months (the M trains will
operate instead between Broadway
Junction in Brooklyn and Forest Hills).
It’s the start of a $163 million reconstruction
project on the Myrtle
Avenue Line that won’t be back to full
strength for nearly a full year. Some
60,000 customers use the M train between
Middle Village and Bushwick
every day, and all of them — if they
haven’t already done so — will need to
fi gure out another way to get around.
Like a boulder thrown into a small
pond, the M line’s closure will cause
a major ripple eff ect across the area
that will impact even those who normally
do not rely on the train line to
get around. The most serious eff ect
will be an expected surge of traffi c on
Metropolitan Avenue — the four-lane
strip through Ridgewood, Maspeth
and Middle Village that’s normally
congested on days when the M train
is running well.
TWO BRIDGES,
ONE BIG HEADACHE
The MTA will add to Metropolitan
Avenue two shuttle bus routes replacing
M train service over the next two
months. One of the routes will stop at
all M train stations between Middle
Village-Metropolitan Avenue and
Myrtle Avenue-Broadway, while the
other route will be an express between
Middle Village and Marcy Avenue in
Williamsburg. The express shuttle
bus will make just one stop — at the
Jeff erson Street L train station on the
Ridgewood/Bushwick border.
Complicating matters is the ongoing
reconstruction of a bridge carrying
Metropolitan Avenue and Fresh
Pond Road on the Ridgewood/Middle
Village border over the LIRR Montauk
branch. Over the last few months, the
project has reduced traffi c on Metropolitan
Avenue to one lane in each
direction between Fresh Pond Road
and 62nd Street. These lanes are on
the south side of the bridge, with the
north side cordoned off by a concrete
barrier for reconstruction.
But the city’s Department of Transportation
(DOT), in an update on the project
that QNS obtained on June 23, announced
that it would restore two lanes of traffi c
in each direction along Metropolitan
Avenue for July and August.
At the same time, the MTA will demolish
and rebuild a bridge carrying
the M line over the LIRR Montauk
branch located just south of the Middle
Village-Metropolitan Avenue station.
This phase of the M line project, which
is expected to be done by Sept. 1, was
specifi cally scheduled for the summer
so it wouldn’t aff ect students commuting
to and from nearby Christ the King
Regional High School every day.
THE NEW NORMAL
Things, however, won’t be back to
normal for M train riders in September.
The MTA will then turn its attention
to demolishing and rebuilding a
concrete viaduct that links the Myrtle
Avenue Line to the J/Z line over Broadway
in Bushwick. As a result, the MTA
will introduce a shuttle train that will
operate between Middle Village-Metropolitan
Avenue and Myrtle-Wyckoff
Avenues, where riders will need to
transfer to the L train.
The rest of the M line will be closed
between Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues and
Myrtle Avenue-Broadway for another
eight months while the viaduct is rebuilt.
Thousands of residents in Glendale,
Middle Village, Ridgewood and surrounding
communities rely on the M
train to get to and from work every
day. On a good day, it’s about a halfhour
train ride from Middle Village
to Essex Street in Lower Manhattan.
Commuters can take the M train
shuttle buses to connect to the J or M
trains in Brooklyn — or, as Community
Board 5 District Manager Gary Giordano
believes, can instead opt to travel to
subways in other parts of Queens.
“I think you’re going to see a signifi
cant number of people who rely
on the M train going toward Queens
Boulevard,” Giordano said in a phone
interview. That means an increase in
ridership on local bus lines connecting
to the E, F, M or R trains along
Queens Boulevard.
Giordano said he’s spoken with
MTA representatives about bolstering
local bus service on these other routes,
and the MTA has indicated it would
make such an eff ort. He also noted that
the board expressed similar concerns
about congestion on the Q55 route
along Myrtle Avenue, which connects
riders to the Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues
station for L and M train service.
Visit www.qns.com for more information
about the M train shutdown.
WHAT
YOU NEED
TO KNOW…
• Service on the M line between
Middle Village and Bushwick
will be suspended for 2 months
beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday,
July 1, in order to replace a
rail bridge.
• The M line will operate on
weekdays between Broadway
Junction in Brooklyn and Forest
Hills; on weekends and late
nights, it will operate between
Broadway Junction and Essex
Street in Manhattan.
• The MTA will provide a shuttle
bus stopping at all closed M
train stations between Middle
Village-Metropolitan Avenue
and Myrtle Avenue-Broadway.
• On weekdays, the MTA will
provide an express shuttle bus
between Middle Village-Metropolitan
Avenue and the Marcy
Avenue station on the J/Z and M
lines in Williamsburg. This bus
will make one stop in between:
at the Jeff erson Street L train
station on the Ridgewood/
Bushwick border.
• On or about Sept. 1, the MTA
will restore shuttle service
to the M line between Middle
Village-Metropolitan Avenue
and Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues
(where L train service is available).
The rest of the M line
between Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues
and Myrtle Avenue-Broadway
will be closed another 8
months for viaduct repairs.
Photo courtesy of MTA
The bridge that carries the M train over the LIRR Montauk Branch line in
Middle Village is 100 years old and will be replaced
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
An M train at the Middle Village-Metropolitan Avenue station
