14th Street Tunnel shutdown
The tunnel carries the BMT Canarsie Line (serving the L train) under the East River in New York City, connecting the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, and is used by an average of 225,000 passengers per weekday.
To accommodate displaced passengers, new or expanded bus, subway, and ferry service was to be added, and a 14th Street busway would have been implemented.
The shutdown plan was criticized by riders who use the L train and people living along or near 14th Street in Manhattan, as it would have had adverse effects on other subway routes and on vehicular traffic.
[1] In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused severe damage to New York City, and many subway tunnels were inundated with floodwater.
A year after the storm, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which operates the New York City Subway, said that Hurricane Sandy "was unprecedented in terms of the amount of damage that we were seeing throughout the system.
[7]: 13 During the shutdown, workers would replace damaged communications, power and signal wires, third rails and tracks, duct banks, pump rooms, circuit breaker houses, tunnel lighting, concrete lining, and fire protection systems.
"[17] The MTA named Judlau Contracting and TC Electric as the project's contractors on April 3, 2017, at which time the duration of the shutdown was shortened to 15 months.
[19]: 41 as well as a $15 million bonus for completing the project on time; the MTA also stipulated that the companies would need to pay a fine of $410,000 for each day that work is delayed past the 15-month deadline.
[23]: 12 In mid-2016, the MTA devised preliminary mitigation plans, which proposed additional shuttle bus, ferry, and subway service.
[25] In December 2017, the MTA and the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) released a more concrete mitigation plan, based on projections that 80% of riders would transfer to other subway services to get to Manhattan, while 15% would use buses.
[26] An HOV restriction on the Williamsburg Bridge during rush hours would allow it to accommodate three Select Bus Service (SBS) routes between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
[30] On December 14, 2017, members of the New York City Council held a hearing in which they asked the MTA head and NYCDOT Commissioner over the shutdown.
[33] In June 2018, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the MTA agreed to install elevators at the Sixth Avenue station and conduct an environmental impact study on the Canarsie Tunnel rehabilitation's effects.
The Toronto experiment allowed ordinary vehicles to continue to briefly use King Street, provided they turned off at the next stoplight.
[38] In July 2018, the MTA and NYCDOT announced that the M14 Select Bus Service route would be implemented by January 6, 2019, three months before the tunnel was set to shut down.
[13]: 39 [40][41] Sidewalks on nearby streets would be widened, and temporary pedestrian plazas would be designated, to accommodate the new Select Bus Service routes.
In turn, the NYCEDC was to contract the temporary shuttle ferry's operation out to NY Waterway as per the results of a request for proposals.
The Curbed writer stated that one service disruption on the J, M, and Z trains would have a ripple effect on displaced Canarsie Tube riders.
[60][65] A similar plan had been considered in 2014, but rejected due to the extent of silica exposure that this option entailed, and another report in 2015 had concluded that a weekend-only shutdown might be unsafe.
[76] Following the conference, New York City Transit Authority head Andy Byford stated that the Williamsburg Bridge's HOV lanes and the shuttle ferry were no longer needed.
[77] The contract with Judlau would also have to be renegotiated and put before the board for a vote, as the contractor had already started the process of procuring materials for a full shutdown.
[78][79] However, the MTA's website indicated that many of the mitigation measures, including station improvements, accessibility renovations, and L train frequency enhancements, would continue.
[1] After the conference, Cuomo also stated that he wanted to "blow up" the MTA and restructure its entire operating hierarchy because the agency was inefficient.
[84][85] Under the new plan, the free out-of-system transfers would be kept, except for between 21st Street and Hunters Point Avenue in Queens, and would only be instituted during weekends and late nights.
[86] In the months prior to the proposed closure, the MTA suspended L service between Broadway Junction and Eighth Avenue during the weekends in preparation for the partial shutdown.
[66] Following the January 2019 announcement that the shutdown would instead be a partial closure, Cuomo and the MTA board unveiled some new details about the project.
[64]: 12 Fiber-optic and lidar sensors would be installed to allow MTA workers to more easily track imminent failures in the benchwalls.
[101][102] By September 2019, Cuomo announced that the shutdown work was progressing ahead of schedule and was set to be completed in April 2020.
[105][106][107] The expedited completion date was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, which sharply reduced ridership in the final weeks of the project.
[99] After the plans were changed to a partial shutdown, a report published in early 2020 showed that median housing rents in Williamsburg increased significantly compared to late 2018.
- Colored thick lines represent alternate routes to the L train across the East River and in Manhattan.
- Solid black lines represent route segments indirectly affected by the implementation of alternate route patterns.
- Thin gray lines represent route segments unaffected by the shutdown.
- The segment of the L train that would have remained open is represented by a thick, solid gray line.
- The segment of the L train that would have been temporarily closed is represented by a thick, dashed gray line.
