7 Train Is Skipping Comic Con This Weekend, Sorry

Oh, were you planning on going to Comic Con this weekend? Were you planning on commuting there from your home in North Brooklyn or Queens, via the 7 of course, because what other line will ferry you directly to the Javits Center? Were you looking forward to watching the costumes and characters parade through the cars? Well, that's too bad, because the 7 (or the MTA) has apparently decided it's outgrown comic books—excuse me, graphic novels—or something, and will be staying home this year. Even if it means you have to, too!

That's right: Starting at 12:15 a.m. on Saturday, until 4:30 a.m. on Monday, service on the 7 line will be suspended between Queensboro Plaza and 34 St-Hudson Yards, i.e., between Queens and the hulking Manhattan conference complex where Comic Con takes place. E, N, R, W, and S trains will step in to take its place, along with free shuttle buses. The MTA cites "signal modernization" as the main reason for this inconvenience, although the Hudson Yards station only opened in 2015.

Asked what gives, the MTA suggested this was not an arbitrarily vindictive attempt to scuttle your plans, but rather, part of necessary signal work that extends along the entire line. It's allegedly for the greater good, people.

"We are in the final stretches of deploying new, modern Communications Based Train Control signals on the 7 line —which is absolutely essential to delivering more reliable and more frequent service on the 7 line for years and years to come," MTA Communications Director Jon Weinstein said in a statement, nodding to the "robust alternative service" that will be provided for those of you looking to attend Comic Con and other midtown events this weekend. These will reportedly include "shuttle buses from Times Square to Hudson Yards/Javits Center and additional buses on standby from a nearby depot that can be deployed as needed."

"We'll be actively and aggressively communicating service alternatives across all of our social media and announcement channels," Weinstein said. "The 7 line is on the precipice of a major, game-changing signalization upgrade for hundreds of thousands of daily riders, 2019 Comic Con attendees, and basically everyone—this weekend's work is key to that effort."

As a bonus, the L train begins a full month of weekend-long shutdowns on 11:30 p.m. Friday. So if you were thinking about zipping into Manhattan from Bushwick and taking the A/C/E up to 34th Street, forget it, or begin plotting your course to the J/Z. I for one see no reason to expect that the buses the MTA drives in to replace trains on this very crowded commuter corridor will prove in any way sufficient to pick up the slack because when have they ever, but hey I would love to be wrong.

Because these past two weeks have been marked by especially low lows and I think it might be nice if we could all forget reality for a few days, gazing upon some wonderfully elaborate cosplay getups rather than the red sweaty faces of outraged man babies splashed across all our screens. I think it might be nice to take a break, overload your brain on a million different fantasy narratives at once, but I guess the MTA isn't about to make it easy for us.