MTA to F Train Riders: Fewer Trains, More Crowds (We Don’t Care)

Petition Calls On MTA to Meet With Brooklyn Officials

I didn’t think the F train could get worse. I recall a morning last spring, a typical Monday at rush hour, with the platform jam-packed. I waited five minutes and then ten as the crowd swelled, everyone anxious to get to work — mentally preparing excuses for bosses, clients and colleagues.

Twenty minutes later, I gave up and headed upstairs with others — using a car share service, as there were no cabs for the throngs of people needing rides. It ultimately took forty minutes to get to my East Village office, where I would be an hour late for a meeting. Thankfully my new client understood, but for others the consequences were more serious. Namely for a woman I invited to share my car.

She worked at the UN on the Syria desk, and looked visibly upset. The botched commute meant she missed a coordinated call with key Middle East partners who had only a specific window of available communication time. The woman told me she was being forced to leave Carroll Gardens; that while she loved Brooklyn and had moved there from Rio to work at the UN, she simply couldn’t handle the unpredictability of the F train commute.

So when the MTA announced its so-called “F Express” proposal — without conducting any real community engagement — to skip six stations (Bergen, Carroll, Smith/9th, 4th Ave/9th, 15th and Ft. Hamilton Parkway), I again thought of this woman who had been forced to leave Brooklyn.

The bottom line: the MTA proposal harms more riders than it helps. It adds no service to the F line — only long wait times and severe crowding at the fastest-growing stations.

Even the MTA’s own report shows more riders will suffer (52%) than benefit, with commuters at Bergen and Carroll losing more travel time than those at any single express stop will gain. At Bergen, the MTA’s report predicts a nightmarish crowd, with a wait nearly five times longer for commuters trying to exit the Warren stairwell during evening rush hour.

There is an understandable backlash to this proposal — something the MTA might’ve expected and avoided with appropriate community engagement. Worse yet, the MTA is now refusing to meet with policymakers.

This is why State Senator Daniel Squadron and others released a petition, already signed by thousands, calling on the MTA to provide F train service for all.

For those at the MTA who unilaterally made this call, I urge you to think beyond the dozens of neighborhoods the subway will skip. It is wrong to pit Brooklyn residents against one another, and for tax paying citizens who rely on public transit (and keep carbon out of the air/congestion levels down by not driving) to be denied access. It’s not simply about commuting in New York, but living in New York.

As a small business owner who relies on the F train to get from home to work — and to clients around the city and globe — I urge the MTA to meet with the elected officials who represent their riders. Reconsider this ill-conceived plan.