Express F Train Service To Kick-off In Brooklyn In 2017, Leaving Local Riders To Wait Longer For Service
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It’s official, the F train will start running express service in Brooklyn for the first time since 1987!
According to a letter to the Council from New York City Transit president Veronique Hakim obtained by the NY Daily News, officials plan to start running some F trains express in both directions during morning and evening rush hours in the fall of 2017.
Express F service will run between Jay Street-MetroTech and Church Avenue stations, stopping once along the way at the Seventh Avenue station. The MTA estimates this will cut down travel times by 6.2 minutes, with the average express rider saving about three minutes on their commutes.
F line service is said to be one of the longest commutes in the MTA subway system — from Neptune Avenue to Broadway-Lafayette Street takes approximately 43 minutes.
“I’ve been taking the F train my entire life, and when I say it’s one of the most excruciating, slow trains in New York, it’s not an exaggeration,” Councilman David Greenfield (D-Brooklyn), who has pushed to make the express F happen wrote in a letter. He added the train can take as long as an hour and a half to crawl from Coney Island to parts of Manhattan.
On the flip side, the six stations that express trains will pass by, MTA estimates that riders will have to wait a little longer, an additional one or two minutes, for a local F train.
The MTA split the amount of express and local trains completely in half. Seven F trains will run express while another seven run local. The MTA says it can’t add more trains to shorten the local riders due to track capacity limitations.
According to reports the new express service would only benefit 48 percent, less than half, of F train riders. Yet the MTA believes that is enough to move forward.
