OPINION: Neglected Northeast Brooklyn needs a transit fix

April 27, 2018 By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle

In this file photo, commuters wait as an L train arrives at the Broadway Junction subway transfer hub in East New York. While the L train’s tunnel connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan will be closed entirely for 18 months, most of the media coverage has focused on the closure’s impact on the trendy neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Bushwick, not on its impact on L-train riders who live in East New York and Canarsie. AP file photo by Mark Lennihan

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In all of the articles published during the past few years about the looming shutdown of the L train’s tunnel from Brooklyn to Manhattan starting in April 2019, few writers have mentioned that the L will continue to run from Bedford Avenue east to Canarsie-Rockaway Parkway or what the shutdown’s impact will be on riders at that end of the line.

One article after another talks about the impact the shutdown will have on Williamsburg and Bushwick riders, with a heavy emphasis on its effect on real estate prices in those areas. But Brownsville and East New York riders have been largely unmentioned, with some notable exceptions such as “Brooklyn’s Poorest Neighborhood Braces for L Train Shutdown” from Vice and “East New Yorkers: L Train Shutdown Will Affect Us, Too” from Brownsville Patch.

This mirrors the city’s overall neglect of Northeast Brooklyn. Two of the three poorest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Brownsville and East New York, are in this general area (the third is Coney Island). In Brownsville, according to Crain’s, “Just 38.9 percent of students scored at or above grade level in math, and 31.2 percent in reading on statewide tests in 2012. The respective citywide numbers were 60 percent and 46.9 percent.”

This relative neglect often extends to the condition of the mass transit lines that go through these communities as well. Among the most dramatic problems are the still-unrealized free transfer between Junius Street and Livonia Avenue, just a block from each other, and the deplorable condition of the Long Island Rail Road’s (LIRR’s) East New York station

For years, the MTA said there weren’t enough riders to justify a transfer between Livonia, on the L train, and Livonia Avenue, on the 3 train. Then, in 2015, a “walking transfer,” in which riders have to leave the station and walk between the two but still aren’t charged for an extra fare, was approved by the MTA board. However, it won’t take effect until 2019, since it is depending on federal tunnel-repair money it can’t spend until next year. Although the transit agency has also allocated $45 million for a walkway between the two stations, a timeline hasn’t yet been set.

The LIRR’s East New York station is within walking distance of the subway system’s Broadway East New York-Broadway Junction complex, serving the A, C, L, J and Z trains. But according to the most recent figures, the rail station only has 709 riders daily, compared to 28,230 at the Atlantic Avenue terminal.

There is no direct passageway from subway to railway here, and the All Available Doors blog says station users’ experience “is often one of unease and discomfort. Trash is strewn across the dimly lit, damp and smelly corridor, multiple signs are defaced and ripped throughout the station … There is an abundance of peeling paint and rust.”

Users of the station apparently feel the same way. On Foursquare, Mike Ponci wrote, “Hide behind a pillar or in the stairwell until your train arrives,” Andrea Brown wrote, “This train station looks like the route the Warriors took to get back to Coney Island,” and David B. wrote, “I was here when it was real rapey at 1 in the afternoon.” It’s difficult to believe that officials would stand for a similar situation at the LIRR’s Atlantic Avenue terminal.

As far as the subway lines that go through Brownsville, East New York and Canarsie, they seem to be a mixed bag. As far as the aforementioned L train is concerned, in 2016 Straphangers Campaign rated it third-best subway line in the city. However, Yelp reviews show that there are still plenty of problems. Brooklyn resident Alyssa P. said, “It is reliable in the sense that you can always count on service to be disrupted and `train traffic ahead.’ Yesterday the mob of people waiting extended as far as the steps of the station, almost to the turnstiles.” Another Brooklyn resident, John D., said, “When it works, it works very well. When it fails, it fails spectacularly … During any period of inclement weather lasting more than a day or two, the train is delayed along its elevated portion of track.”

We’ve also mentioned the 3 train’s elevated portion east of Utica Avenue. MTA last year finished work on the Sutter Avenue-Rutland Road and Junius Street stations, part of an overall rehabilitation of the line that has included newly rehabilitated platforms, light poles, mezzanine walls and doors and new windows.

Still, the line is still sometimes taken out of service — for example, the weekend before this article was written, it was replaced by shuttle buses. “An elevator is needed at the Sutter Avenue-Rutland Road station,” one nearby resident adds. “There are many older people in the area, and they can’t climb the steps.”

Northeast of both of the L and the 3, you have the J and Z lines, which run over the same tracks. The Straphangers Campaign, in 2016, rated them together as No. 6 out of 20, saying they “arrive with average regularity” and are less crowded than the average line, but are less clean than most trains on the average and break down more frequently than other lines.

On Yelp, however, the train only garnered three out of five stars. William L. of Springfield Gardens wrote, “The J seems to make a million stops between Jamaica and Manhattan.” Stacey M. from Manhattan wrote, “in the eight months I’ve relied on the J train to get me to and from work, it has arrived on time under 10 times” And Monica T wrote, “I’ve been at Broadway Junction many times where you’d see a good three L trains for every one J train that entered the station.”

Northeast Brooklyn is certainly not the only community in the borough that has mass transit problems. The Eagle has often detailed complaints about the R train in Bay Ridge and Sunset Park. However, Brownsville and East New York have the added burdens of being both economically disadvantaged and being far from the seats of power (whether City Hall or Borough Hall).

The only way out of this situation, it seems to me, is for Brownsville, East New York, Cypress Hills and Canarsie residents, businesspeople and politicians to bring these conditions to the public eye as often as possible and to raise these issues constantly with the governor, the MTA board and the mayor.