Brief L Train Shutdown Reveals Dark, Dark Future of the M Train

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Commuting from North Brooklyn to Mid-Manhattan via the holly-jolly M train is not always ideal. For one, the M, pokey as she is, does not often attempt to arrive in any kind of timely fashion. And depending on where one lives (namely, along the northernmost stretch of the G line), and where one works (namely, Midtown), a ride to or from work on the M, ever the meanderer, can be horribly roundabout. In fact, the M is the only NYC subway line to cross twice through the same borough via two separate, unconnected tracks — meaning, in practice, that if you fall asleep on any M train traveling in either direction, you'll end up in Queens. A fate no New Yorker would wish on another, especially near that witching hour at which the M ceases to run entirely for the evening.

But any sane Brooklyn-to-Manhattan commuter with a feasible choice between taking the M and the L at rush hour will tell you: Give me the M, or give me death.

Statistically, the most recent city records show the M runs at 90 percent passenger capacity during the a.m. commute. The L, on the other hand, pushed past 100 percent capacity long ago.

More anecdotally, though, it's been our experience that while boarding an M car at rush hour can be taken in stride as a slightly jarring (yet overall character-building) urban obstacle, trying to board an L car at rush hour is like trying to dry-birth oneself from a miniature pony in the same heave as her three-headed colt, straight into an overstuffed Tupperware of bonsai kittens. Without spilling one's coffee.

Come 2019, as we've all learned by now, the tunnel carrying the L beneath the East River will shut down for at least a year-and-a-half while city crews repair saltwater damage from Superstorm Sandy.

Many an alternate transit option has been proposed for L train riders put out by the shutdown. Yet they all seem to have one thing in common: the M train.

An unwanted preview of the mayhem ahead for the M played out on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016, when — in an almost exact replica of the 2019 shutdown — something caught fire inside the L train tunnel beneath the East River around 9:30 a.m., causing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) halt all train service between Brooklyn and Manhattan while crews assessed and repaired the damage. (As of this writing, around 6:30 p.m., service was still at a standstill.)

While city crews poked around in regions of the Canarsie Tube untouched for Lord knows how many years, the New York City subway system's entire midsection turned into a dysfunctional ant farm filled with grumpy humans.

This human, for one, watched in fear Thursday morning as a horde of Bedford stop refugees, pecking in vain at their smartphone screens, spilled onto the G train at Lorimer — just as city transit officials had advised — then continued to grow in number, via various connectors, as the train approached Queens.

By the time we'd all reached the M train platform at Court Square, voila: The L was the M and the M was the L.

In conclusion: Riding the M train into Manhattan sucked an almost unprecedented amount Thursday morning — perhaps almost as much as it will suck in 2019.

On a less sucky note, Ryan Gosling and B.J. Novak's hipster love child was also spotted hating his life on the M train this morning. Check this guy out: