Residents of the greater Ridgewood area are wondering about how next summer’s reconstruction of the M line will impact their ability to travel around town.
The M train is the primary mode of public transportation into Brooklyn and Manhattan for the residents of Community Board 5 (CB 5) area. The MTA will close the entire Myrtle Avenue Line between Bushwick and Middle Village for reconstruction for two months in the summer of 2017, replacing train service through the area with shuttle buses.
“The M train is a lifeline for neighborhoods like Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood and Glendale, where this is the only subway option available to them,” said Toby Sheppard Bloch, a member of Riders Alliance and CB 5. “When the M shuts down, the MTA needs to have alternate solutions for riders in place. This reflects the lack of capital investments by the state and the crisis that our transportation network is facing.”
Phase 1 of the plan will close off the entire section of the M line between Metropolitan Avenue and Myrtle Avenue-Broadway for two months in order to replace the bridge that goes over the Long Island Rail Road’s (LIRR) Montauk Line between Fresh Pond Road and Metropolitan Avenue.
“July 1, [2017, the MTA hopes] to have shovels in the ground and we will have no service by train between Metropolitan Avenue and Myrtle [Avenue]-Broadway,” said John Maier during Tuesday night’s CB 5 Transportation and Public Transit Services Committees joint meeting. “Once the new bridge is put in place and everything is up and running, there will be a shuttle operating basically between Metropolitan and Myrtle-Wyckoff.”
This shuttle will be two, six-car train sets that will be traveling back and forth on each side of the platform since they cannot get back onto the main line until Phase 2 is complete. It will operate during the second phase of the project as the MTA reconstructs the viaduct connecting the M line with the J/Z lines in Bushwick. That project is expected to take 10 months.
Maier also went into greater detail about the use of the Fresh Pond train yard where MTA train cars are stored.
“They are going to have to build a small inspection station there so that they can do safety inspections for the cars,” he said. “They have assured us that they are going to put in plenty of backup cars just in case something goes wrong with their units.”
During the full outage of the line, the MTA wants to run an express shuttle bus along Metropolitan Avenue to compensate for the lack of train service. This will conflict with the planned replacement of the bridge deck of the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge over the LIRR at Fresh Pond Road, causing even more travel problems for CB 5 residents
The MTA’s lack of outreach about first the L train shutdown and now the M train plan with the communities has caused concern with elected officials.
“The announcement that the M train will be shut down came without the proper community engagement,” said Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley. “Far too many of my constituents depend on the M train service and the MTA needs to put a better plan into place – one that actively involves local residents and causes the least amount of disruption.”
