You must have been thinking the MTA’s impending L train shutdown was not enough? Well, the MTA read your thoughts and decided it was high time to disrupt already erratic and infuriating M train service.
Before the L train shut down apocalypse gets down on us, MTA wants to make sure that the M train is ready for the hordes of displaced L train straphangers. And therefore the M train needs work as well.
“We want to get this work done and make sure the M has no issues of performance when the L work is going on,” MTA Chair Tom Prendergast told the Daily News.
According to the MTA, works on the M train line will be broken into two distinct phases set to begin as early as the summer of 2017. The first is an effort to repair the bridge between the Fresh Pond Rd and Middle Village-Metropolitan Ave stations. That work is only supposed to last two months while student ridership is down.
What comes next is a veritable assault on the 60,000 daily riders of the M train who use one of the seven affected stations. Starting in the summer of 2017, the viaduct between the Myrtle Ave and Central Ave stations will be shut down, essentially cutting Ridgewood off from reliable transit into Manhattan for 10 months.
Sure, there will be a wide selection of slow-running shuttle buses, likely to amplify current problems M train riders face daily, and M train service will run past Myrtle Ave on the J/Z line to Broadway Junction for transfers to the L.
