No. 7 line work a mess for riders

Say goodbye to weekend service on the No. 7 train for six consecutive weeks, the MTA told riders two weeks ago, but for many, the full realization did not set in until this weekend, when the first suspension went into effect and lasted through President’s Day.
“It’s quite an inconvenience the train service is out. You have buses, but having the buses is not the same as having the trains, and waiting for the buses in the freezing weather of February and March will not be good,” said Woodside resident David Suarez.
Suarez, who started his own company Phoenix Consulting Strategies, said he relies on the train on the weekends for work and leisure.
“I pretty much get around by train seven-days-per-week,” Suarez said, explaining that this past weekend he opted for taxis to get to and from Manhattan on Saturday night.
Next weekend, he plans to either take the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) from the Woodside station at 61st Street and Roosevelt Avenue or the shuttle buses provided by the MTA to run the No. 7’s route. The TA estimated that shuttle buses - driven by employees working overtime - are deployed every few minutes to pick up passengers along the No. 7 line’s route.
“You have people who live more than 10 blocks over, they are not going to want to make that trip to the LIRR,” he said. “With a cab or the railroad, you end up spending more money out of pocket.”
For the next five weekends - including St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday, March 17 - the No. 7 train will not be running from the Roosevelt Avenue station at 61st Street to Times Square. The suspensions will go into effect at midnight on Friday night and last until 5 a.m. the following Monday morning. The Transit Authority (TA), which handles construction for the MTA, is reconfiguring tracks along the route, installing a new switch at the 33rd Street-Rawson Street stop, and new signals along the line.
Riders are advised to hop on the E F R or Y trains from the 74th Street station, or take the shuttle buses to the Queens Plaza station for the E R or V or the Queensboro Plaza station for the N or W train if heading into Manhattan from Queens. When heading into Queens, passengers should take the E. F, N, or R.
Local politicians, including Councilmember Eric Gioia, have blasted the MTA for scheduling the service suspensions during the bitterly cold winter months.
“When the 7 train is out, people in Queens suffer,” Gioia said. “When you’re getting paid by the hour, and you have to take a cab into Manhattan, you’ve spent half your day working just to pay for transportation.”
During the past three years, the No. 7 train has been shut about 30 times for construction, and in 2003, the line was shut for seven consecutive weekends.
When asked if repairs conducted over the next few weekends would be the bulk of work needed on the subway line, a TA spokesperson said that the current string of service suspensions would not be the last.
“There is still a lot of work to do on the No. 7 line,” said TA spokesperson Charles Seaton.