L Train Shutdown

September 14, 2016

City’s new, five-year transportation plan looks to bike lanes in wake of L train shutdown

The city's newly released, five-year transportation plan is all about the bikes. As part of his larger Vision Zero initiative, the Mayor announced yesterday that he'll roll out 75 miles of new bike lanes by the end of this year, which includes 18 miles of protected lanes, reports Gothamist. They'll be dispersed throughout the five boroughs, but centered in areas where the highest number of cyclist and pedestrian fatalities occur.
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July 25, 2016

MTA Announces Details on L Train Shutdown To Begin in 2019

The MTA plans to announce today that the long-dreaded L train shutdown for repairs needed on the Canarsie tunnel that runs beneath the East River will commence in 2019 and take the line out of service from Manhattan to the Bedford Avenue station in Brooklyn for 18 months, as reported by the New York Times. The 18-month option was the expected choice, the alternative being a partial three-year shutdown that would give about one in five passengers service to Manhattan (20 percent of current service). The agency needs to do major repairs on damage done by the 2012 superstorm Sandy, and while the tunnel is “not in grave danger of collapse,” according to the MTA, it can’t go untreated. As 6sqft previously reported, night and weekend service is off the table because of the amount of work that needs to be done, and building a third tube would be time- and cost-prohibitive.
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July 15, 2016

Looming L Train Shutdown Already Causing Williamsburg Condo Prices to Dip, Says Expert

Since word broke that the L Train would be shutting down for upwards of a year, many have been wondering just how this would affect real estate prices in the immediate term. Well it looks we may finally be getting a taste. As DNA Info first reports, The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) released their quarterly findings this week, and REBNY found that although the number of condos sales were up in Williamsburg by 43 percent this last quarter over the same time last year, the average sales price dropped a considerable 13 percent to $937,000. To put this further into perspective, for Brooklyn as a whole, REBNY recorded a nine percent rise to $923,000 over the same period; Manhattan condos by comparison grew by 21 percent to an average $2.843M.
is there anything really to this?
July 6, 2016

LES Residents Propose Turning Lowline Site Into a Bus Depot During L Train Shutdown

There's been no lack of ideas for how to deal with the impending L train shutdown, from realistic proposals like the East River Skyway to some more out-there concepts like a giant inflatable tunnel. The latest suggestion was presented at a recent public meeting between the MTA and Manhattan's Community Board 3. DNAinfo reports that local residents discussed taking the old underground trolley station at Delancey and Essex Streets (the same site that's been long proposed for the Lowline) and turning it into a transportation hub for the B39 bus that operates between Williamsburg and the Lower East Side.
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June 15, 2016

Design Teams Propose Inflatable Tunnel, New Train Lines As Solutions to L Train Shutdown

Among the proposals gaining steam to mitigate the imminent L train shutdown are the East River Skyway, an aerial gondola system that would run along the Brooklyn waterfront and into Manhattan, and a car-free 14th Street. But the Van Alen Institute wanted to open the brainstorming to the wider public. As part of their "L Train Shutdown Charrette," this past Sunday, six interdisciplinary design teams who were selected as finalists presented their creative and fanciful proposals, including everything from a floating inflatable tunnel to an all-access transportation pass called Lemonade Line. The winning design "Transient Transit – Revitalizing Industrial Infrastructure" comes from Kohn Pedersen Fox and Happold Engineering, who propose utilizing Newtown Creek for a water shuttle and the LIRR freight tracks for passenger service.
More on the winner and some of the notable honorable mentions
May 6, 2016

L Train Shutdown: MTA Will Decide in Three Months Which Way to Make Riders Suffer

The MTA announced at a town hall meeting Thursday night that they would "decide in the next three months at most" on the final details for the planned Canarsie Tunnel work to repair damage caused by Hurricane Sandy that would halt L train service west of Bedford Avenue, according to DNAinfo. The agency is considering two options: shutting down service for that portion of the line completely for 18 months, or having partial service that would give only "one in five passengers service to Manhattan" (or 20 percent of current service) and last up to three years.
Find out more about your hellish subway-less nightmare choices
January 29, 2016

Interactive Graph Compares L Train Commute Times and Rents With Other NYC Neighborhoods

We're hearing lots of anguish and anxiety over the possibility of an L subway shutdown for repairs for as long as a year or more, and we've taken a look at some possible solutions. Now, we've asked the real estate data geeks at NeighborhoodX to go a little deeper beneath the grumbling to find out just how much convenience can be had along that thin grey line, and how it stacks up against other neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. So which other neighborhoods offer commute times similar to the L train stops—and—just as important when choosing a neighborhood–how do their rents compare? And if you're living along the L, in light of the shutdown, what neighborhood alternatives do you have in the city that provide a similar commute?
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January 20, 2016

Are Shuttle Buses a Viable Alternative to the L Train During a Shutdown?

The MTA’s announcement of possible plans to close the L train for months or even years at a time to repair the Hurricane Sandy-damaged Canarsie Tunnel has businesses scrambling and commuters (the train has 300,000 riders on the average weekday) fearful. Data mapping company CartoDB offers a bit of “location intelligence” to better understand the consequences of a shutdown for people living in Brooklyn and, more importantly, what some realistic alternatives to the L train might be. For example, shuttle buses: "If the shuttle bus takes 20 minutes, we are able to calculate the best choices for riders along the L needing to get to Manhattan. Should they go all the way to Lorimer and take the shuttle bus or should they transfer earlier at Myrtle-Wyckoff to the M train or at Broadway Junction to the A?"
Will shuttle buses save the day?