Queens/Brooklyn,
NY, July 25, 2014 – As part of the recovery from Superstorm Sandy,
parts of New York’s subway system was closed to rail traffic to speed repairs
so trains could run again. Beginning Friday, July 25th, a second
tunnel, the Greenpoint Tunnel of the IND’s ‘G’ line, will be taken out of
service to apply major fixes to damaged tunnel walls. For five weeks, riders
using the Court Square, 21St-Van Alst, Greenpoint Avenue and Nassau
Avenue stations will need bus connections to go between Queens Plaza and Nassau
Avenue. 125,000 riders use the G train daily and 30,000 of them are directly
affected by the station outages.
This work is not
suited to weekend closures and requires full 24/7 access to get the work
completed effectively. The MTA’s Fix and Fortify Sandy Recovery Work is the protocol to combat
the destruction for the tube that connects Long Island City, Queens with the
Greenpoint section of Brooklyn until September 2.
The tunnel was
ruined when 3 million gallons of salt water flooded the tunnel at the height of
the storm. Tracks and equipment were totally submerged, and the tunnel’s
pump controls, electrical, communications, fan control and signal equipment all
incurred serious damage. Power cables immersed in salt water corroded
from the inside, while corrosion on rails and fasteners increased the potential
for delay-causing failures. The controls for ventilation, lighting and
communication systems were all destroyed and have yet to be restored to their
level of pre-Sandy reliability.
NYC Transit President Carmen Bianco
said in a prepared statement, “Our goal is to complete this work as quickly and
efficiently as possible while exposing our customers to as little inconvenience
as we possibly can by using the more lightly-traveled summer weeks to make
repairs. To that end, we are providing an extraordinary amount of
information to help our customers navigate around this vital work.”
Commuters are being offered a $4 ferry
service ride from the India Street Pier in Greenpoint to Manhattan as a
supplement to the bus substitution.
Photo caption: NYCT's IND 'G' Crosstown local line in Queens with R-68 type equipment. Court Sq/21St-Van Alst/Greenpoint Ave. will be closed for 5 weeks to repair the damage in the Greenpoint Tunnel between Brookyn and Queens caused by Superstorm Sandy.
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