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Crowds? Large, but not mutinous. The levels of boredom at the inaugural weekend of the L train slowdown? Present, but predictable.
The first two nights of the plan were therefore designed to avoid the feared apocalypse of train L: a partial stop of the metro line that carries 400,000 passengers every day of the week. Repair work, which began on Friday, will significantly reduce the number of trains running at night and on weekends, while the main Brooklyn-Manhattan line tunnel is undergoing overhaul to repair the damage. caused by Hurricane Sandy during the next 15 to 18 months.
Work should stop Monday at 5 am, but the impact on the morning run remains an open question.
Despite the catastrophic predictions of long lines of turnstiles, closed entrances, and dangerously crowded platforms, the first L train rehab weekend was the same as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could have hoped for.
The crowds grew and then dissipated. The problems of Friday night were smoothed Saturday. Trains ran regularly and usually arrived every 20 minutes, as promised, leaving shy optimism to worried users.
"Trains work. It's not that bad, "said Melissa Lindstrom, 46, who caught a train to Brooklyn from Union Square on Saturday night.
M.T.A. played an important role in canceling the complete stopping of the transit line – a much more disturbing initial plan. An 11th hour Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's proposal to close each tube of the tunnel and limit work to nights and weekends was hastily adopted in January.
The bait and switch left even the most annoyed runners of this weekend, grateful for avoiding this alternative.
"This is obviously a major drawback," said Trell Chandler, 25, a Bushwick-based graduate student. "A complete stop would have been worse. So it's better.
"But I'm still annoyed."
The worst impact of the slowdown came Friday night. Trains have fallen behind scheduled arrival times, leaving crowded docks and runners late and angry. The tension was particularly strong in Manhattan, while the belt straps made the return trip to Brooklyn.
Matthew Ming, 35, was trying to cross the river from a crowded Union Square station, where very large crowds attended rush hours on Friday night. The arrival clocks did not work, many trains were late or were held in the stations to let other trains.
Work trains also clogged tunnels, compounding congestion and headaches.
"It's the worst train in the world," Ming said. "There is always a problem. Now I have to wait 45 minutes. They said train delays are 20 minutes. They lie."
However, M.T.A. The officials seemed pleasantly surprised that the opening night of the slowdown went off without a major hitch. Andy Byford, president of New York City Transit, a branch of the authority that runs the subway and buses, said Friday that he was "satisfied" with the deployment, and expected that scheduling problems and arrival times are resolved by Saturday. For the most part, he was right.
"I thank New Yorkers for their patience and good humor as they get used to the revised service," he said in a statement Sunday.
It was the first weekend of what will be an extended hiatus for the regular service of the L train. The struggles remain and they are not all linked to the train: during the planning, Transit officials have expressed concern that repairs in tunnels will produce dangerous levels of silica dust, a mineral in the air that can cause lung cancer. M.T.A.A. since then, said he was confident that the job would not pose any risk, but he did not appease all the concerns of the runners.
It remains to be seen how the runners will handle the long term adjustment. The repairs are expected to last nearly a year and a half, but only one M.T.A. An employee at Bedford Station said this weekend what many riders thought: These things never stay on schedule.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed to the report.
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