BUSHWICK — There will be no express trains along the J and Z line between Manhattan and Broadway Junction for 10 months while the MTA makes repairs to two section of the M train beginning next year, officials said.
J trains, which normally skip several stops during peak hours, and Z trains that always skip Hewes, Lorimer and Flushing, will be making all the stops along the Broadway corridor for a 10-month period beginning in the summer of 2017, according to the MTA.
MTA reps announced details of the service changes during a sparsely attended town hall meeting in Bushwick on Thursday night.
The MTA has to rebuild two sections of the M train line, the "Bushwick Cut," a concrete viaduct that connects the J and Z trains to the M line near Myrtle Broadway, and a metal bridge between the Fresh Pond Road and Middle Village.
Repair work will begin next summer, and dozens of residents will have to leave their homes during the work, the agency says. The MTA has promised to pay for them to live elsewhere during the work.
After two months, the bridge will be finished and shuttle train service will resume between Myrtle-Wycoff and Middle Village for the rest of the eight months the MTA needs to complete the Bushwick Cut.
Once that repair work is done around May 2018, North Brooklyn commuters will have a few months of calm before the L train storm begins.
Starting in early 2019, most L train service will be shut down to and from Manhattan for repair work to the tunnel that passes under the East River, though service in the rest of Brooklyn will remain nearly normal during that time.
During the L train shutdown, riders who live near Manhattan should expect to tack on roughly 15 to 20 minutes to their daily commutes, said Peter Cafiero, chief of operations and planning at New York City Transit. The farther out you live the less your commute will lengthen because you have easier access to alternative train lines, he added.
"Clearly it's going to take longer for people to travel to Manhattan depending on where you're going," he said. "It's certainly going to have an impact."
Repair work will last either 18 months or three years depending on whether the MTA decides to fully shut down the tunnel or partially close it one tube at a time.
The MTA expects to decide on a plan by the end of summer.
