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From an exhausting start to Friday night to a disconcerting ambivalence on Saturday, the slowdown of Train L seemed to keep pace on Sunday, with 20-minute gaps generally behaving between them and customers after the initial shock.
The smooth sailing of Sunday could be attributed to the decline in attendance, characteristic of the last day of the weekend. But the MTA has clearly defined a goal: they hope to reduce the number of passengers to a level below normal during these 15 to 18 months of tunnel repair work by encouraging users to use alternative routes.
In Manhattan, the M14 bus is the current alternative to the L train. On Sunday afternoon, buses were spaced about three minutes to the 8th Avenue / 14th Street stop.
A bus driver, Matt FX, told Gothamist that his wallet thanked him for taking the $ 2.75 bus. He admitted, a little reluctantly, that he spent $ 100 to $ 200 this weekend with Ubers, just to avoid the L-train.
"Twenty minutes is the threshold for me," said Matt FX, who lives in Bushwick but grew up in the West Village.
He remembered having sometimes taken the luxury train to Brooklyn and realized that the train was running normally every 20 or 30 minutes.
"There are a lot of trains that take forever," he said, as the bus approached 1st Avenue. "It sucks that the L is about to join them."
The M14 crossed 14th Street from 8th Avenue to 1st Avenue in about 16 minutes. The sluggish traffic on Sunday afternoon offers a glimpse of how buses will travel when 14th Street officially becomes a bus route in June.
MTA workers stood at the entrances to Station L, guiding commuters to their fastest route. Commuters heading west were invited to save time by taking the M14 bus.
At 1st Avenue and 14th Street, @MTA the workers tell the runners in the west that it makes more sense to take the M14 than the L.
A worker was away yesterday when she said runners were more stressed. Today, they recognize her, smile, salute. This helps that Sunday = less traffic. #WeTheCommuters pic.twitter.com/w9Kj709tqR
– Shumita Basu (@shubasu) April 28, 2019
On the platform of the 1st Avenue station, some runners said that even though they had been caught off guard by the misplaced situation of Friday, they were largely in the process of adapting to the changes.
Zachary Sherry, who lives in Bed-Stuy and takes the L every day, said he was late for his work in the retail business this morning.
"Today was my" try once " [day]Sherry said, explaining that the delay means losing one's salary. "I'll manage, I'll find out. I think I'll probably just go to train M, because I've heard that it's a better route. "
Getting off at Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, looks a bit like a war zone, because of the ongoing renovations to the station. A dozen MTA workers patrolled the platform, some of them writing useful instructions in a megaphone to keep people moving.
A transit staff member, dressed in a fluorescent orange vest, helped a woman carry her stroller up the stairs to Bedford. The employee was Sarah Meyer, Customer Relations Manager, New York City Transit.
"Our main goal is to make sure everyone knows that there is a replacement service," Meyer told Gothamist, saying he has spent about 18 hours on the metro since Friday.
When asked what led to the inaccurate countdown In the stations and on the MTA application Saturday, Meyer explained that it was the first time that NYCT was dealing with a schedule in which trains were intentionally withheld, meaning that the hours of 39, arrival and departure are not the same.
"In Union Square, Bedford and Lorimer, sheds have been built to keep the operation on one lane," she said, now that trains in both directions share a single lane. "So we had to modify some of our automated software and ads to take these blockages into account in a way that had never been done before."
Meyer said that there were a few stops left in Union Square and Lorimer that could take a few minutes, but the agency will assess their accuracy over the next week and make changes if necessary.
As for Sunday, Meyer said the service seemed to be running smoothly. For her, she said people are moving away from train L and heading to other train routes and lines. She estimated that Line M had seen its service increase by 50% this weekend alone; MTA spokesman Max Young later confirmed that Meyer's estimate was accurate.
The introduction of two "Williamsburg Link" bus lines is a change of service to encourage L users to take off and take the nearby G-J-M trains. They are free and more like shuttles. They are scheduled every 3 minutes during the day, on weekends. Sunday afternoon, they were almost empty. A bus operator told Gothamist that he had made 4 loops around his route and that he had very few passengers.
The MTA provides 2 new "Williamsburg Link" shuttle routes. They are free and intended to make runners from one alternative to another (L-G-J-M).
I've put some of them up and have mostly seen tourists headed by the MTA staff. A pilot told me that he had made 4 loops, almost no runners. #WeTheCommuters pic.twitter.com/eH8V1y58nZ
– Shumita Basu (@shubasu) April 28, 2019
Overall, the Sunday L-train riders seemed to score fairly evenly. Many commuters talked about how helpful the MTA staff at each station were. (The MTA says 200 workers distributed information this weekend.) Most said they found the resort's countdowns were mostly accurate, and no one said they had to wait for more than 20 minutes.
Robert Barnes, who runs a music studio in Williamsburg, described the solution as less damaging. Runners accustomed to waiting up to 10 minutes for an L-type train will now need to double that time just to be safe. Which did not bother Barnes.
"They extended [wait times] by ten minutes. Ten minutes! S exclaimed Barnes. "I mean, how could anyone be angry at this in New York?"
Update: This message has been updated to reflect the MTA's confirmation that the M line has recorded a 50% increase in passengers and that 200 workers have disseminated information on the economic downturn this weekend. .
Shumita Basu is a host, producer and reporter in the newsroom. You can follow her on Twitter @shubasu.
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