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Read the press release here.

You Told Us: Full L Train Shutdown Favored by DNAinfo Readers

By Gwynne Hogan | May 16, 2016 4:39pm
 The Canarsie Tunnel flooded during Hurricane Sandy and needs to be repaired, according to the MTA.
The Canarsie Tunnel flooded during Hurricane Sandy and needs to be repaired, according to the MTA.
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MTA

WILLIAMSBURG — Our readers have spoken. 

A full 18-month L train shutdown, touted by the MTA as the "get in, get done, get out approach," is the best timeline for repairs, according to data DNAinfo New York collected over the past week.

Seventy-five percent of the nearly 1000 DNAinfo readers who responded to our L train survey would rather have a full shutdown than a partial one, according to the unscientific poll.

That option for repairing the Canarsie Tunnel, which connects Manhattan and Brooklyn along the L train line, would mean no service between Bedford and 8th Avenue for about 18 months.ltrainsurvey1

In a Twitter poll, a full shutdown also beat out a partial one, though by a slightly lesser margin.

Twenty-five percent of our online survey participants, about 231 people, said they'd prefer a partial shutdown.

In that scenario, the MTA would close one side of the tunnel at a time, allowing limited service for about three years.

During the partial shutdown, there would be no service between Lorimer and Bedford avenues. Shuttle buses would run between the two stops and trains between Bedford and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan would run every 12 to 15 minutes.

Only about a fifth of the riders could use the train to get between Manhattan and Brooklyn during those three years.

The MTA is weighing these two options and will decide in the next two to three months which plan to go with. Before then, the agency plans on visiting all community boards along the train line, taking in community feedback. 

Repair work won't begin until 2019.

ltrainsurvey3

About half of the people who took our survey use the L train every day, they said. And about 70 percent of them favored a full L train shutdown.

Riders lived all along the L line, though they were concentrated at three stops: Bedford Avenue (24 percent of those who answered the survey), followed by Lorimer Street (11 percent) and then Graham Avenue (8 percent).

Most riders said they'd switch to other train lines during the shutdown, instead of alternate modes of transportation like buses, ferries or bikes. The MTA plans on bulking up service on the M, J and G train lines in order to absorb L train riders.ltrainsurvey2

Several riders said they planned to use taxis, Uber and Lyft to get to and from Manhattan. 

Lastly, five of our readers said they would relocated out of the neighborhood to live closer to another train line.