What if the G train were actually useful for Brooklyn commuters working in Manhattan?
A proposal by cartographer Andrew Lynch recently laid out a plan that would extend the G train into Manhattan and create two loops: one through Downtown called the "GD" and another through Midtown called the "GM."
With the GD and GM, G train riders would bid goodbye to transfers to the A or C trains at Hoyt Schermerhorn, to the L at Lorimer St.-Metropolitan Av., or to the E, M, or 7 at Court Square-23rd St, which are currently very congested during commuter hours.
If the GD train were to loop through lower Manhattan, the MTA would have to build an expensive new tunnel under the East River between the Broadway station in Williamsburg and Essex St.-Delancey St. on the Lower East Side.
Credit: Andrew Lynch
On the Brooklyn side of the tunnel, Lynch recommends that two new stations be built at Borinquen Place and Berry Street in Williamsburg. Once in lower Manhattan, the GD train would first run alongside the J and Z trains, then the R train on its way back to Brooklyn.
Back in Brooklyn, it would ride a new connection constructed between the DeKalb Avenue station on the R line and the Clinton-Washington Ave. stop on the current G line.
Lynch's prospective downtown loop would reduce congestion at Hoyt-Schermerhorn and Lorimer St.-Metropolitan Av. stations, where G train riders coming up from Bed-Stuy now transfer to Manhattan-bound lines. Riders from uptown Manhattan would no longer have to cram into L trains to cross the East River.
A midtown loop would require the G train tunnel to split on its way up to Long Island City before the 21 St.-Van Alst station, with one track hooking up to the 53rd St. tunnel serving E and M trains.
The GM train would then take riders down the same tunnels on Eighth Avenue as the A, C, and E trains, until West 4th Street where it would switch onto the Houston Street tracks used by the F train. Those tracks would be extended east to a new station, Clinton St.-Avenue C., to connect to the new East River tunnel.
This second loop would serve straphangers making their way from Greenpoint to Manhattan and vice versa.
Adding two loop lines would also halve the wait time for G train riders, Lynch writes; the G train runs about at about seven-minute intervals right now, but with the additional infrastructure, Bed-Stuy and Greenpoint residents could see trains every four minutes.
Right now the MTA has its hands full building the Second Avenue Subway along the eastern side of Manhattan and repairing deteriorating stations, but we hope it takes Lynch's recommendations under advisement.
