Park Slope train stop Joel Zimmer

Transit riders, rejoice! After months of bitter battle, the MTA’s $29 billion capital improvement plan was officially approved Wednesday in a unanimous vote by the MTA’s board, reported the New York Times.

Here’s what the plan means for Brooklyn.

A bridge will connect the Livonia Avenue L and Junius Street 3 stations
Duh. The two above-ground stations in Brownsville are just a block apart. It was ridiculous for them to have not been connected in the first place — one of those relics from back when the lines were run by separate companies. The new $30 million pedestrian path will welcome riders into the 21st century.

A $5 million study will consider extending the Utica Avenue subway line
When the mayor proposed extending the 3 line beneath Utica Avenue in April, he called the strip “one of the densest areas in the city not directly served by the subway.” Now the MTA will spend $5 million gathering data to see just what kind of impact extending the 3 train through Flatbush could have. Our prediction: lots.

The area is one of the few in Brooklyn to suffer a decrease in housing values over the past decade. It is served by the B46 bus.

An extension would hook up parts of Wingate, East Flatbush, Remsen Village and Flatlands, among others. In Remsen Village, property values declined 27 percent from 2004 to 2014, according to PropertyShark.

Without a doubt, extending subway service would be a huge boon to the residents. For better or worse, it would also increase housing prices and spur development and retail in the area.

b46-bus-map-mta

New subway cars for the R, A and F lines — and other capital improvements
Brooklynites will also get to ride on the MTA’s new subway cars along the R, A and F lines. Also, much-needed track maintenance, storm safeguards and other station improvements should (eventually) cut down on delays and service changes for all New Yorkers.

After the contentious back-and-forth between Albany and City Hall over funding the plan, we’re just glad it’s made it this far. Next, it’ll be up for approval by the Capital Program Review Board for New York state — including folks representing the governor, the mayor, the Assembly speaker, and the Senate majority leader.

[Source: NYT | Photo: Joel Zimmer]

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What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. To make it technically feasible, yes more trains are needed, because if you convert some portion of the existing F locals into F express, you wind up with very infrequent *both* services…everyone loses except a few people in Coney Island. Except it’s not possible to run more F trains because of capacity constraints on the Queens portion of the line (shared with the E, which is more popular, and any additional F trains must replace existing E trains). So, if you can’t add F trains, then you must consider using an additional service. You can’t make the G the only local, as that was how it was run historically, and the fury over no direct service to Manhattan from the local stops north of Church is what scuttled the express the first time around in the 70s. So, if not the G, what? The idea would have been to extend the V into Brooklyn, but with the success of the re-routed M, the V is never coming back.

    Anyway, long story short, it’s not happening, for two main reasons: First, ridership at Bergen, Carroll, Smith-9th, 4th Av, 15th St, and Ft. Hamilton far outweighs ridership south of Church. Secondly, the only way to placate local *and* express stations is by having an additional Manhattan-bound service, which is impossible (and even then, now you’re over-serving the line).