More Disruptions Promised For 7 Train
By DOMENICK RAFTER
The more you use something, the more likely it is that it will break or wear out and need repair. It happens with household appliances, cars, computers, and according to the MTA, subway lines.
After years of anguish over repeated closures and service changes along the 7 train, Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) and MTA officials held a town hall meeting Jan. 11 at Sunnyside Community Services to explain the reasons why the 7 has had so many disruptions- and is expecting so many more. The 7 will be off line west of Queensboro Plaza for 11 consecutive weekends starting this weekend through April 2. Besides the weekend closures, Court Square station will be closed at all times for 10 weeks starting Jan. 21 for rehabilitation.
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| Subway riders wait for a 7 train at the 74th Street station platform. |
“Why 11 weeks, why now, why in the dead of winter, why is it so important and why is it taking so long?” Van Bramer asked.
The MTA’s reasoning for the constant closures stemmed from one simple point- it is one of the busiest lines in the system.
The 7 line runs nearly 600 trains and carries more than 425,000 people on any given weekend. According to Demetrius Crichlow, the 7 train’s deputy general manager, there are 26 trains running per hour during rush hour- or one every 2.1 minutes. The line serves the two busiest subway stations in the city; 42nd Street/Times Square and Grand Central, and the two busiest stations in Queens; Flushing-Main Street and 74th Street/Broadway/Jackson Heights. Even off-peak, the 7 train is a busy line. Many residents living along it are immigrants who work early and late shifts and use it all hours of the night. Between April and September, it is heavily utilized for Mets games and runs frequent service during the US Open.
But it was never designed to serve so many commuters. The line has three tracks between Flushing and Queensboro Plaza, the center track serves the express trains. But between Queensboro Plaza and Times Square, the line only has two tracks and the century-old Steinway tube, which carries the 7 train under the East River, is not able to allow work to be done while the trains are running. The tunnel is too narrow to allow a person and a train to be in the tube at the same time safely. That means any work done on the tube- and there is plenty of it- must be done without trains running through it.
“The Steinway tube is a unique tube,” said Lois Tendler, MTA’s Vice President of Government and Community Relations. “When we do work in the tube, we must close it down for it to be safe.”
Sixty-three percent of the signal system in the tube is not modernized. An entirely new system, the Communications Based Train Control, which the MTA said will allow countdown clocks and more frequent service, is being installed and that installation will require closure of the tunnel this winter and more disruptions are guaranteed until its completion, scheduled in 2018.
So why all the delays in previous years? MTA officials at the town hall said the closures and delays were due to “preparation” work and repair work on the existing system. In 2011- Phase I of the Steinway tube overhaul is what shut down service so often. The MTA cleaned the rail bed, cleaned 4,200 feet of track on the Manhattan-bound side and 4,400 feet on the Queens-bound side, laid 8,000 new track plates and installed 8,000 feet of fiber optic cable and installed new switches and power components. As part of Phase II, which begins this year, all signals in the Steinway tube will be modernized, the tube will be made larger to allow for future repairs to occur while trains are running, the track between Court Square and Queensboro Plaza will be replaced and work will continue on the 7 train’s expansion from Times Square to West 34th Street and 10th Avenue.
Attendees at the town hall took the opportunity to sound off on the effects the 7 train disruptions have had on their lives and communities.
Karen Dimit, chairwoman of the LIC Arts Open said the disruption hurt the growing arts community in Long Island City by cutting off its only subway route into Manhattan during weekend events. A Hunters Point resident asked why shuttle bus service, which connects Hunters Point to transfer points at Court Square and Queensboro Plaza could not just be routed through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel into Manhattan. Van Bramer admitted that he had allocated $250,000 for direct bus service between Long Island City and Manhattan, rather than shuttle buses that end at Queensboro Plaza, but it was rejected by the MTA.
Reach Reporter Domenick Rafter at drafter@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400 Ext. 125.