For the first time since 2014, the beleaguered G train is getting major upgrades: Between June 28 and September 2, the line will close in stretches while the MTA replaces crumbling 1930s-era signal switches with the lightning-fast CBTC system that's turned the L and 7 lines into the 21st-century transit we deserve.
At recent community meetings in Greenpoint and Bed-Stuy about mitigation plans, the MTA and the Department of Transportation have told New Yorkers who rely on the G that they should expect a summer of only mild inconvenience. But those residents say they are instead bracing for a summer of hell, with snarled traffic rendering shuttle buses nearly useless at peak hours. And the transit advocates among them are incensed that the MTA and DOT are not using the shutdown to upgrade bike and bus infrastructure, as they did—to great success—during the 2019 shutdown of the L line.
"It simply will be worse service, and [transit officials] are trying to give themselves excuses not to go further," said Brent Bovenzi, who lives in Greenpoint and co-chairs the North Brooklyn chapter of Transportation Alternatives. "No one's satisfied with this mitigation, and there's already such a low trust with the MTA, which is why we are asking for them to show they are listening by making real changes."
The DOT did not respond on the record to detailed questions about residents' concerns, instead saying in a statement, "NYC DOT is working in collaboration with the MTA to make G train riders' experience as seamless as possible during this temporary shutdown. We proposed a combination of permanent and temporary treatments to enhance mobility and we are confident these strategies will help mitigate challenges as the MTA makes these critical transit upgrades."
Their existing plan consists of a few strategies designed to meet the MTA's promise of shuttle buses arriving every one to four minutes on weekdays and three to five minutes on weekends. In Queens and North Brooklyn, the MTA expects a handful of temporary turn restrictions to reduce car traffic on Manhattan Avenue by 50 percent. Several parking spaces near corners will be removed (again, temporarily) to allow buses to turn more easily. In Bed-Stuy, two traffic signals will be permanently reprogrammed to prioritize buses, and several sections of the route will get curbside bus lanes, which may or may not stick around when the G reopens. Along the entirety of the planned shuttle route, a sprinkle of permanent loading zones will discourage double parking, which transit officials cite as the main culprit behind slow buses. To keep drivers in line, the B62 will get automated ticketing cameras.
Residents question whether these plans understand the streetscape in question, as well as why many of the minimal changes are temporary. "Shuttle buses are great, but in order to ensure that the buses move, we need [permanent] bus lanes throughout the route," said Laura Shepherd, who sits on Community Board 2 in Queens.
In March, CB2 passed a resolution asking the MTA for such busways along Jackson Avenue and the Pulaski Bridge in anticipation of the shutdown. "[The MTA and DOT] told us they didn't have time to plan and implement that in Queens, and that since the shutdown would only affect Queens for eight weeks, they don't feel it's necessary," Shepherd said.
The plans also include no improvements to bike infrastructure, despite the fact that no G service will likely mean more cyclists. "The bike lanes on this route are unprotected—people park in them, and you have to ride out into traffic, which is really dangerous," said Sonia Putzel, who attended the Bed-Stuy town hall and lives off the Myrtle-Willoughby G stop. Putzel told Hell Gate that she was struck several years ago by a cargo van whose driver drifted into an unprotected bike lane on the same route that cyclists will use during the G closure. "Bikers are really treated as frivolous or an afterthought, when there are a lot of people who need to bike in Brooklyn," she added. When asked at the Greenpoint town hall about protected bike lanes, transit officials said they would "look into it," but added that the community outreach process for cycling infrastructure is too lengthy to undertake for the closure.
Not that they would need to do more outreach in North Brooklyn: Residents have made clear that they still want McGuinness Boulevard, which will host a portion of the shuttle bus route, put on a road diet, a plan scuttled by the Adams administration earlier this year after meddling by business interests and replaced with the novel and anemic offering of unprotected, nighttime-only bike lanes. "One thing that really could have helped here is the City following through on the McGuinness Boulevard redesign it promised my community a year ago," said Greenpoint Assemblymember Emily Gallagher. "Safe, protected bike lanes along this key north-south corridor would mean more people riding across the Pulaski instead of waiting for a shuttle bus. Instead, those cyclists will have to continue competing for precious space on Manhattan Avenue."
Using subway construction to improve permanent transit infrastructure is not new to the MTA. In the two years before the 2019 shutdown of the L train, the DOT installed 25 miles of new protected bike lanes in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. And the transformation of 14th Street into a busway, which was initially pitched as a pilot program, was so effective that on its first day, bus drivers had to slow down to keep to their schedules, and it was subsequently made permanent. A study commissioned by the City on the 14th Street busway found that bus performance improved by 24 percent, ridership increased by 14 percent, and Citi Bike trips went up 94 percent, compared to the previous year.
Yet transit officials have argued that these kinds of changes don't make sense for the G shutdown because, essentially, the L shutdown was worse: The L line has far more riders, and would have been closed for two years had Andrew Cuomo not swooped in to meddle with the timeline. "The success of 14th Street means we now always consider bus priority, but we didn't think it was appropriate [for the G train]," DOT planning director Chris Hrones told the Greenpoint crowd. "This shutdown is temporary, even though it feels like forever for people here."
The "it's too short of a closure" excuse rings hollow to TA's Bovenzi, who pointed out that a 30-day subway closure in Boston (of all places) in 2022 included bus and protected bike lanes that were then made permanent due to their popularity. "I wish [the MTA and DOT] would have the backbone to put these things in, because there's no question we will find out that they're actually pretty good," Bovenzi said. "A sign saying 'no left turns' is ultimately an advisory, whereas infrastructure is there 24/7, which means cars don't have the option to ignore it. And it's less punitive because it doesn't rely on giving people tickets."
Ticketing is a major component of the MTA and DOT's plans. In addition to the automated ticketing cameras that will be installed, a fleet of MTA workers temporarily empowered to issue violations will patrol some intersections for some of the time. The majority of enforcement, however, will come from the NYPD. At the June 6 town hall in Bed-Stuy, residents expressed skepticism that a precinct that refuses to stop allowing cops to park on the sidewalk will bother to enforce traffic changes. Similar distrust emerged at the North Brooklyn meeting, to which Councilmember Lincoln Restler responded that local electeds "are working"—present tense, with just a month to go before the shutdown—"with NYPD to get a staffing commitment." NYPD did not bother to send a representative to that meeting, and in Bed-Stuy, a sole officer lurked silently in the back of the room before leaving less than halfway through.
These requests for more robust infrastructure are scaled back from the lofty dreams voiced when the closure was first announced. At the end of January, Gallagher and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez wrote to the MTA asking for permanent upgrades—full-length trains (at four cars, the G has the shortest trains of any non-shuttle subway line) and an extension of service to Forest Hills, which the G ran to until budget cuts in 2010 curtailed it to its current terminus in Long Island City. Since then, the MTA and DOT officials have repeatedly cited the comparatively low ridership of the G to reject calls for more robust service while dangling a far-off possibility of longer trains. "We have actually designed this new signaling system so that it could accommodate longer trains," MTA head Janno Lieber said on Wednesday. "While today, we haven't reached the point where the ridership warrants that change, we're going to keep looking at it."
That's shoddy reasoning, says Gallagher, given that 40,000 more people ride the G line every day than there are cars on the BQE. "If the BQE was shutting down for six weeks," she said, "City and state agencies would move heaven and earth to get vehicles around."
