In case you forgot, both the M and L trains will be going out of service in the near future. But don’t worry, the MTA will be in Ridgewood on Thursday, Sept. 15, for a community meeting to answer your questions.
Officials from the MTA will give residents a presentation at the Greater Ridgewood Youth Council, located at 59-03 Summerfield St., on the major changes coming to both lines, which are vital means of transportation for Queens and Brooklyn. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
The MTA plans to take the M train off line in two phases. The first phase is scheduled to being by summer 2017 when the entire segment of the line between Metropolitan Avenue and Myrtle Avenue-Broadway will be closed as crews take down and replace a bridge over the freight rail tracks between the Fresh Pond Road and Metropolitan Avenue stations, which is estimated to take about two months.
The second phase involves demolishing and replacing the concrete viaduct that connects the Myrtle Avenue Line to the Broadway Line. This work is expected to last 10 months, and should be completed by summer 2018.
The M train work is necessary so that line can handle an increase in service and passengers when the L train is out of commission between Brooklyn and Manhattan starting January 2019.
When it comes to the L train, there was much debate on how to handle repairing the extensive damage nearly 100 years of use and Superstorm Sandy did to the line’s Canarsie Tube in 2012. Now that the MTA announced they would go forward with a complete shutdown of the tube from January 2019 to July 2020, they can focus on fixing the tunnel as quick as possible.
The MTA needs to replace 14,400 feet of tracks and over 30,000 feet of the concrete duct bank which houses and protects communication, power and signal cables, among other necessary repairs. The project will also make station upgrades at the Bedford Avenue and 1st Avenue stations.
