Hypnotic Animated Video Shows How L Train Slowdown Will 'Work'

Back in January, when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he was cancelling the L train shutdown in favor of a new plan developed by academics and prompted by a rogue lapel-tugger, the forecast from the man in charge of the MTA was bullish. "Long story short, with this design it would not be necessary to close the L train tunnel at all," Cuomo told reporters. "There would need to be some night and weekend closures of only one tube, so service would still work."

But less than four days out from the start of the slowdown, it's become increasingly clear that the governor's view of service that works may be a bit different than yours. According to the MTA, that promised workable service may entail waiting 40 minutes for an L train, because they're only running three per hour and "at certain times, it may be too crowded to board the first train." It may involve taking one of the slowest buses in the city through traffic-clogged streets without any effort from the Mayor's Office to reduce that congestion.

At its very best, service that works looks like an intricate ballet of precisely-timed arrivals and departures that can be brought to its knees at any moment by a misplaced trash train.

The animation above comes courtesy of the MTA's Twitter account, which for the last two days has been offering detailed threads complete with similarly mesmerizing, panic-inducing visualizations. They may be the authority's most honest assessment to date of some of the realities soon-to-be visited upon L train riders.

"The L will run on nights and weekends, but it will be much less frequent and more crowded," the authority wrote on Twitter yesterday—an apparent departure from their previous insistence that nighttime service would be hardly impacted.

It's also possible that they're underselling it, considering the MTA's own internal documents warned that, without a significant mitigation plan, the new slowdown would create massive delays and “on board crowding greater than anything ever experienced on the NYC subway system on a sustained basis."

With the goal of addressing this potential crowding, the MTA says they are increasing service on the M, 7, and G trains on weeknights and weekends (though plans to elongate the G are no longer going forward, so it's a bit of a wash on that line). Here's what that looks like in GIF-form:

For some New Yorkers, the service that works best will not be on the subway at all. According to the MTA, some riders should "consider that buses might actually be your best bet to get across town in Manhattan and to connect you to the G train or our enhanced M train service in Williamsburg."

New bus options include the "Williamsburg Link," which will continuously run between L, G, and J/M/Z stops, as well as added service on the M14 bus routes (set to become a Select Bus Service route...eventually). But that beefed up M14 service will no longer benefit from the busway promised under the old plan, which would've brought vehicular restrictions to 14th Street from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.

As transit advocates have repeatedly pointed out, that means the "best option" for many New Yorkers will soon be a bus that travels at about the speed as a dawdling child.

Without the busway, says Danny Pearlstein of the Riders Alliance, "it will be faster to crawl across Manhattan than to take a bus stuck in snarled evening and weekend traffic."

"Thousands of frustrated L riders who can't fit on the train during the slowdown need a direct, fast, frequent, and reliable alternate transit service," he added. "The alternative to a 14th Street busway is gridlock across Manhattan each and every weekend and evening, potentially for years."

Or, as Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams puts it: "Good luck, everyone!"

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