To help move New Yorkers around during the looming L train shutdown, the MTA will provide temporary ferry service on two 240-passenger vessels.
The larger ferries will provide “up to 61 percent more capacity than originally planned” during the L train shutdown slated to begin in April 2019.
NY Waterway will operate the ferries, which will be “separate and distinct” from NYC Ferry and will not affect its routes.
During the L train shutdown, the ferries will run express from a temporary landing at North 6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to the existing NYC Ferry landing at Stuyvesant Cove (East 20th St. and FDR Drive) in Manhattan.
A third ferry will be fully staffed and ready if needed during the L train shutdown, which will enable about 2,000 riders to cross the river every hour in each direction.
“We only expect a small portion of our customers to choose a ferry over the subway or bus, but we’re keeping our promise to listen to your feedback and if any aspect of our alternate service plan needs tweaking, then we will do that,” MTA NYC Transit President Andy Byford said.
During the L train shutdown, the MTA and NYC DOT plan to increase subway and bus service, add HOV restrictions on the Williamsburg Bridge, make 14th Street a dedicated busway and expand Citi Bike as alternatives for the 275,000 straphangers who take the L train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.
For the 15-month L train shutdown, the L train will only run in Brooklyn between Bedford Avenue and Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway. Service to Manhattan will halt to rehabilitate the Canarsie Tunnel under the East River, which was severely damaged during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
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Here’s the L train shutdown ferry service schedule
The temporary ferries running during the L train shutdown will cost $2.75, the same as a MetroCard swipe, and passengers will have free transfers to other MTA NYCT services to and from the ferry.
The ferry schedule is:
6-7 a.m. — every 15 minutes
7-10 a.m. — every 7 1/2 minutes
10 a.m.-5 p.m. — every 10 minutes
5-8 p.m. — every 7 1/2 minutes
8 p.m.-midnight — every 10 minutes
On weekends and holidays, it will run every 15 minutes from 6-10 a.m., every 10 minutes from 10 a.m. to midnight and every 15 minutes from midnight to 2 a.m.
