If you were hoping for a summer of seamless transport to and/or from North Brooklyn, the G train, an ever-reliable source of discord and chaos cutting through the belly of the borough, should probably be avoided.
That’s especially decent guidance in June, when the MTA plans to shut down service north of the Bedford-Nostrand stop for all four weekends of the month. But according to transit officials, June’s just a taste of the hell the service work on the line is promising to raise this summer. The MTA will also be pulling the plug on G train service for two weekends in August, one weekend in September, and an additional three weekends in December, per City Councilman Lincoln Restler, whose district—covering Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Vinegar Hill, and parts of Downtown Brooklyn—stands to be hit particularly hard by the service suspensions. “They’ve announced 10 more weekend closures through the end of this year, which would get us up to 19 weekend closures overall in 2026. That’s nearly 40% of weekends without G train service,” Restler said, after MTA officials briefed local reps on the planned shutdowns last week.
For many of us, it’s a flashback to a not-so-distant past. Namely, last summer and the summer before that (and, frankly, almost every summer in recent memory before them), which saw extensive service-related shutdowns for the G. The agency blamed contractors for last year’s disruptions, and claim the mission this year, according to Gothamist, is to continue the work of modernizing signals in the Newtown Creek tunnel connecting Long Island City and Greenpoint, as well as adding 5G connections, which require sign-off from the federal government. “We’re trying to minimize impact, but the reality is when you shut down, you have impacts,” said MTA chair Janno Lieber. “We’re going to work with the electeds in the community to try to do it at the optimal time, but there’s no perfect time,” Lieber added with no hints as to when the MTA began planning maintenance, how much it would cost the city, or whether the agency expects to actually complete the work needed to bring the lines up to date. In 2024, when the MTA initially announced maintenance to the line, it estimated the signal project would be completed by 2027. However, the agency’s own consultant claimed last year the work wouldn’t be completed until July 2029.
That’s the long way of saying it’s time to properly acquaint yourself with Citibike or the bus system if you intend on heading north of Lafayette Avenue over the next few months.
The post The G Train, Too Functional for Too Long, is Going to Raise Some Hell Again This Summer appeared first on BKMAG.
