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Next April, the dreaded L train shutdown is set to arrive. For 15 months, the MTA will cease service on the line between Bedford Avenue and Manhattan as crews make crucial repairs to the Canarsie Tunnel, a connection beneath the East River that suffered damage from saltwater after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The closure will affect hundreds of thousands of straphangers, and though the MTA released a plan to mitigate its impact this past winter, local groups do not think that it goes far enough.
On Tuesday, almost exactly one year before the shutdown is scheduled to begin, a collection of advocacy groups filed a lawsuit against the MTA and the city’s Department of Transportation with the goal of stopping the construction until an environmental review is completed. The plaintiffs are made up of a collection of groups that include Greenwich Village and Chelsea block associations, and it is spearheaded by West Village resident and activist lawyer Arthur Schwartz, according to Curbed.
The current mitigation plan includes increased service on G, J, M and Z trains, adding high-occupancy vehicle lanes to the Williamsburg Bridge and making Manhattan’s 14th Street corridor bus-only during rush hour. But, as the Times has pointed out, the MTA will need to deploy 70 buses every hour over the Williamsburg Bridge to keep up with current ridership, and advocates are calling for cars to be banned in affected areas throughout the day rather than just during peak periods.
If other recent lawsuits filed against the MTA are any indication, this suit will likely have little teeth. It does, however, amplify the conversation being had by transit advocates and city officials across the city about the impending shutdown.
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