Brooklyn News, Brooklyn NY Local Business

One of the longest subway lines in the New York City Subway system – which passes through Brooklyn en route to Manhattan and Queens – is being targeted for a major management and service reliability overhaul, according to a report issued by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The (F) train – the second longest line in the system at 27 miles from Coney Island to Jamaica, Queens via 6th Avenue in Manhattan – has seen signficant issues with on-time performance; the report noted that schedules have not been updated to reflect increased ridership and new operating patterns with the opening of the 63rd Street connector in Queens.

On-time performance on the (F) – 50.8 percent in July 2009 – is well below the average of New York City Transit Authority system-wide average of 74.4 percent.  The report noted that the length of the line and the complexity of the routing as the primary reasons for it’s poor performance.

The report also noted that in a 17 week period between March and June 2009, an average of 14.6 “slow orders” or other planned service diversions per week – a total of 248 orders.  The orders covered routine maintenance and upgrades of the aging infrastructure which the (F) operates over.

Service in Brooklyn operates over the Culver Line between Coney Island and York Street station in Downtown Brooklyn.  The report noted that elected officials, straphangers, and community activists are advocating express service on the (F) via the Culver Line,  TA officials note that the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation project takes out at least two of the four available tracks and is schedules to continue though 2013.  (F) express service through the borough last operated in 1987.

Another issue with the (F) line is the equipment used on the line.  There are five classes of subway cars used on the line, with the oldest class dating back to the 1960’s.  On average, (F) trains averaged 146,115 miles between failures, worse than the system-wide average of 185,485 miles between failures.  However, most of the older rail cars have been replaced by the newer “R-160″ class of subway cars, which lead to an improvement in “mean distance between failure”.

As part of it’s strategy, the TA is implementing the following strategies:

• The appointment of a general manager for the (F) line, a concept that was introduced on the TA’s numbered lines and was expanded to the lettered lines in July.
• Redesign of the (F) schedules, including a survey of running times along the line, analyzing the 63rd Street Corridor service plan through Queens, an evaluation of (F) express service in Brooklyn, and an assessment of how overnight service is impacted by maintenance and capital work.
• Management of car-loads along the line.
• Improvement of the car fleet performance, which is being addressed with the retirement of the older subway cars introduction of the R-160 cars.
• Delay management strategies would be implented; at present, some Coney Island-bound trains skip stations during the evenings as a response to delays.
• Addressing the aging infrastructure and delays due to work along the tracks.

The entire report is available at the MTA web site.