Are you an R-train rider who works or commutes earlier or later than most? Do you burn the midnight oil professionally and/or recreationally? Prepare from some transportational changes next week when the MTA’s FASTRACK repair program makes an appearance out here in the Ridge.
- Monday through Thursday, both next week and the week after (July 27-30 and August 3-6, 2015), there will be no late evening/overnight R-train service in Bay Ridge (10pm – 5am)
- Seriously, people: no trains
- Free shuttle buses will connect Bay Ridge’s four subway stations to the N train at 59th Street. The N train will operate on its normal overnight service.
Anecdotally, there are people that swear that shuttle buses are more reliable than the poorer-performing trains they replace. These people are fully detached from reality and should be avoided, or possibly institutionalized. Bus travel is the worst. Always the worst.
So basically, if there’s any way you can be back in the neighborhood by 10pm, do it.
The MTA recently completed a two-week FASTRACK program in the Manhattan section of the N, Q, and R-lines. The Authority would like you to know that it cleaned over six miles of track, removed over 12 tons of scrap debris, replaced rails, track plates, and tie blocks, cleaned 28,000 square feet of station area and painted nearly 15,000 square feet.
It would be nice to see some of these efforts directly translated into service improvements, wouldn’t it? And the R-train is in some desperate need of some help.
The year-over-year on-time record has taken a massive hit: to less than 59 percent on-time from just less than 87 percent. It would lend credence to the suggestion that service during the Montague Tunnel reconstruction was actually more reliable than normal service. And we’re sure no one wants to go back to having an R train that doesn’t connect with downtown Manhattan, but what was the point of replacing all that equipment if service was going to tank anyway?
It could be a lot worse, and it is, on the 2, 4, 5, and 6 lines, where trains arrive on-time less than 45 percent of the time.
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When there is shuttle bus service to bay ridge it is MUCH faster than the R train. You can take an express train to 59th and there is always, in my experience, a shuttle bus waiting there (versus waiting who knows how long for an R at 59th). And the shuttle buses don’t make a ton of stops because they only pick up at 59th and 90 percent of the people are getting off at 86th.