There are many things we love about the New York City subway system. It is relatively fast, efficient and runs 24-hours a day, 7 days a week! But of all the things we appreciate about our subways, we appreciate our express tracks the most; they allow people to get where they are going faster and mean that some track work can be done without shutting down lines. Plus they confuse the tourists! So when the MTA tells us that one of the great "lost" express lines could be coming back to the city, our day is made. Express F service could one day be restored to Brooklyn!
At a City Council budge hearing today, Aaron Stern, director of New York City Transit’s Office of Management and Budget, mentioned that the MTA is going to do as it has previously promised and will review bringing express service back to the F after the Culver Viaduct rehab finishes at the end of the year. First that rehab gave us extended G service into Brooklyn and now this? Not so fast!
The F has had express service in Brooklyn before, but not since the 1987, when a rush hour express from Kings Highway to Borough Hall was nixed due to track work. Gone, but not forgotten. The thing is, as lovely an idea as this sounds, it has some issues that may make it not the most feasible. First off, because of a limited number of trains in the system, Stern says, "We would be taking the same ridership level and redistributing it to both services." Second, there is the issue of what riders this would serve—many of the F stops in Brooklyn with express train access are not actually the heaviest used ones in the borough. As the MTA itself put it in a 2009 report on the F:
Approximately two-thirds of F riders in Brooklyn are on the northern segment of the Culver Line, between Church Avenue and Bergen Street, and two of the busiest stations on the line - Bergen Street and Carroll Street - are local stops. F express trains would also skip the transfer station to the M and R trains at 4 Av-9 St, which may inconvenience some passengers. Operating the F express and extending the V to Brooklyn as a local would require additional trains and cars; such a service increase would increase operating costs.
And obviously the cash-strapped MTA has to try and make every dollar go as far as possible. So, as much as we wish this was the kind of thing that could just happen, it may still be a while before the F Express comes back. If it ever does, it would make a few New Yorkers' very long commutes that much shorter!