Updates: L Train Tunnel to Shut Down for 18 Months Starting in 2019

By MARK OSBORNE and JOHN V. SANTORE

NEW YORK CITY, NY — Hundreds of thousands of commuters in Brooklyn and Manhattan will need to find an alternate transportation option when 2019 rolls around.

The L train will shut down entirely for 18 months between its Eighth Avenue station in Manhattan and its Bedford Avenue station in Brooklyn starting in 2019. The MTA confirmed the news in a Monday morning press release.

The closure will allow the city to repair significant damage to the Canarsie Tunnel caused by Hurricane Sandy, at a cost of about $800 million.

"While the MTA always looks to avoid service disruptions, there is no question that repairs to the Canarsie Tunnel are critical and cannot be avoided or delayed," MTA Chairman and CEO Thomas F. Prendergast said in a statement. "We are committed to working with the community...as we develop ways to add service to help minimize the impacts of the closure."

The MTA had been debating two separate plans to deal with the needed repairs: either fully shutting down the Canarsie Tunnel for 18 months, or partially shutting it down for three years, while one track remained open under the East River.

In May, Veronique Hakim, the president of NYC Transit for the MTA, said that 80 percent of L train riders would be inconvenienced in a similar way by either approach, though the full shut down would get the job done in half the time.

In April, the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit composed of urban-planning experts, supported the full shut down. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and public transit advocacy organization Riders Alliance endorsed that approach, too, after Riders Alliance conducted a survey in which 77 percent of 350 respondents favored the same.

Similarly, locals who attended a Canarsie forum in late May appeared to overwhelmingly support the full closure.

In a Monday statement, Riders Alliance praised the MTA's decision.

"Even the best option will be painful for riders and for the communities that depend on L train service," said Masha Burina, an organizer with the group. "The MTA and the City should work with riders and with communities along the entire L train to come up with an aggressive plan to provide service when the tunnel is closed for construction."

The L Train has about 400,000 riders per day, according to the MTA. Of those, 225,000 use the L to commute between Brooklyn and Manhattan, the agency says. Another 125,000 use it only within Brooklyn, while 50,000 use it exclusively in Manhattan.

While the Canarsie Tunnel is closed, service between the Bedford Avenue station in Williamsburg and the Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway station in Canarsie (just south of Brownsville) will remain close to normal, the MTA has said.

As far as getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan (and vice-versa), the MTA has already floated a series of ideas that could be pursued. They include:

• Running a ferry from northern Williamsburg to 20th Street in Manhattan
• Increasing capacity on the M, G, A and C lines
• Running a shuttle bus from Bedford Avenue to Marcy Avenue, and then over the Williamsburg Bridge to Delancey Street in Manhattan
• And operating shuttle buses up and down 14th street in Manhattan

MTA officials have said that after the work on the L line is complete, four more trains will be able to run between Manhattan and Brooklyn per hour.

The L train would be the second line shut down for a substantial period due to the storm. The R train was closed between Court Street in Brooklyn and Whitehall Street-South Ferry for over a year beginning in 2013 with repairs to the Montague Tunnel finishing in September 2014. But in that case, riders could transfer fairly easily to either the 2, 3 or 4, 5 in order to cross into Lower Manhattan.

Photo Credit: Eliza Rubin/Patch