Should the F Train Run Express in Brooklyn?
It can take more than an hour to ride the F from Midwood to Midtown. If there are delays? Fuggedaboutit. Do you think express service would be a win-win? Or just unnecessary MTA tinkering? City Council Member David Greenfield — representing Borough Park, Midwood and Bensonhurst — is campaigning for express service along the F line in…
It can take more than an hour to ride the F from Midwood to Midtown. If there are delays? Fuggedaboutit.
Do you think express service would be a win-win? Or just unnecessary MTA tinkering?
City Council Member David Greenfield — representing Borough Park, Midwood and Bensonhurst — is campaigning for express service along the F line in Brooklyn.
He’s teamed up with state Senator Simcha Felder and Council Member Mark Treyger to officially ask the MTA for the change, according to the Brooklyn Eagle.
The F train once used to run express to stops at Bergen Street, Church Avenue, Ditmas Avenue, Kings Highway, West 8th Street and Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue.
But in the 1970s, budget cuts and complaints of Manhattan delays caused F express service to be cut in Brooklyn. Greenfield blames some of the loss on the expansion of the G train service, according to the Eagle.
Reintroducing express F trains in Brooklyn has been an ongoing conversation for years. Back in 2007, then–Council Member Bill de Blasio was quoted as saying, “I keep looking at the express track and wondering why it isn’t being used. We have to move this as quickly as humanly possible.”
Michael Bloomberg supported an express F train is his 2009 mayoral campaign.
In 2014, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and a group of local politicians sent a letter to the MTA requesting an express F.
It’s pretty clear that an express F has some substantial support in the borough. But what do you think?
[h/t: Brooklyn Eagle]
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The reason it’s linked to the G is because, when the G used to terminate at Smith-9th, it used the middle tracks to turn around, making express F service impossible. However, the G has terminated at Church Av for a few years now, and that isn’t changing.
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But, F Express is still stupid because it would lead to drastically reduced frequencies for riders both north and south of Church Ave (as the total number of F trains is not adjustable, any changes must come from tweaking which trains are express and which are local).
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The only hope for an F express was the V train, and when that was taken away and its space on 6th Avenue turned to the M, an F express died.
Subway pundits like 2ndavesagas have been discussing it on twitter.
This can’t be implemented without cutting service at Carroll, Smith and 9th, 4th ave, 15th st, and Ft Hamilton. Those are populous and politically connected stops.
So no, this won’t happen.
I haven’t lived off the F train for nearly 10 years. But when I did, it was constantly infuriating to know that it was set up for express service (presumably stopping at 7th Ave, too), but that it wasn’t operating. Blaming the loss of F express service on the G expansion seems to me to be completely nonsensical though, since that happened in the last 10 years, and the F hasn’t run express since the 70’s. Also, both trains’ service has managed to improve considerably in the same period. The G expansion is a good thing, and there’s no reason it and an F express service have to be mutually exclusive.