L Train Across East River Could Shut Down for Years

Image via the New York Transit Museum

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — An extensive repair job on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s Canarsie Tube, which carries the L Train beneath the East River, could require that the L between Williamsburg in Brooklyn and the East Village in Manhattan be shut down for years, sources familiar with the project told Gothamist Wednesday.

The Canarsie Tube was one of nine underwater train tunnels damaged by salty and corrosive ocean waters during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

So far, only one of those has been repaired: the R Train’s Montague Tube.

That job was relatively painless. It took a little over a year, came in well under budget, and only really impacted the A and the C.

Shutting down the L Train’s Canarsie tube in order to bring it back up to standard — a worst-case scenario that could last around three years, sources told Gothamist — would have significantly more far-reaching impacts.

Under that plan, Manhattan-bound L service would reportedly terminate at the insanely busy Bedford stop in Williamsburg.

More than 300,000 passengers board the L Train each day — a 98 percent increase since 1998, according to government figures. The R, on the other hand, carries under 100,000 riders.

“Trains and platforms are often bursting at the seams with overcrowding,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) recently said of the L.

According to Gothamist, the MTA is also considering a less nightmarish plan of shutting down the Canarsie Tube’s Brooklyn-bound tunnel and Manhattan-bound tunnel on a staggered schedule, so the L can at least run in one direction at all times.

Via the Gothamist report:

To get L train riders where they need to go, the MTA is planning on increasing M train service, adding two cars to G trains, and running a system of shuttle buses; the sources say that the tunnel work is slated to begin in late 2017. A bid outline for the tunnel repairs that was made public last year stated that the work would cost “OVER $50 million” and that the contract would last 40 months. The Montague Tube cost the MTA $250 million. Tunnel repairs are covered by Sandy relief funds from the federal government.

Patch has reached out to MTA officials for more details on the various scenarios they’re considering.

Update: In an interview with the New York Times, Richard Barone, director of transportation programs at the Regional Plan Association, called the Canarsie Tube project ”the most complicated of all the work they have had to do post-Sandy in terms of the disruptiveness.”

MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz sent the following statement to Patch.

“The Canarsie Tube presents serious challenges due to the lack of redundancy. That is why we are weighing several options in order to mitigate the impact to the 225,000 customers who travel through the Canarsie Tube daily. We’ll look at these options with various schedules for work and will develop a service plan accordingly. This is vital work that has to been done to make repairs to a set of tubes that saw in excess of 7 million gallons of salt water enter as a result of Superstorm Sandy.”