Offers One-Seat Ride To/From Lower Man.
The long-awaited extension of weekend M train shuttle service to Manhattan will debut this June, the Times Newsweekly learned last week.
A Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) spokesperson informed this paper the M train- which runs on weekends between Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village and Myrtle Avenue- Broadway in Bushwick-would run to Essex Street in Manhattan beginning on Sunday, June 8.
“We change subway schedules twice a year-in June and in December-so this is when the most permanent major service changes go into effect,” the MTA spokesperson said in an email.
The MTA is preparing for the extension by replacing a number of switches at the Myrtle Avenueby Broadway station, where the M line links up with the J line. This has resulted “in a series of service suspensions and diversions on portions of the M and the J lines for several weekends,” the spokesperson added.
Over the last several weekends, Jamaica Center-bound J trains skipped stations between Marcy Avenue and Broadway Junction, while M shuttle trains were operating on a 20-minute schedule in both directions.
Last July, the MTA announced the weekend M train extension and a host of other service enhancements which were, at the time, scheduled to be phased in this year. This was the result of additional funding made available to the MTA in its financial plan last year.
Presently, M train riders in Middle Village, Ridgewood, Bushwick and surrounding communities looking to travel to Manhattan would need to transfer to the L train at Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues or the J train at Myrtle Avenue-Broadway.
Once the extension takes effect, four-car M trains will offer customers a one-seat ride between Metropolitan Avenue-Middle Village and Essex Street-Delancey Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
From there, riders heading uptown can transfer to the F train, and commuters heading downtown can switch over to the J train.
According to a report issued last year, it is anticipated that 37,000 riders who use the J and M trains to travel to and from Manhattan each weekend would experience reduced wait times and transfers as a result of the weekend M line extension.
