A broken switch motor on the subway tracks under midtown Manhattan waylaid commuters Monday morning on the first day of the F & M train swap.
In what one source referred to as “terrible luck,” the motor operating a switch at the 5th Ave. – 53rd St. Station failed overnight, just hours before the beginning of new routes on the F and the M lines.
The new service pattern, meant to simplify and speed up subway traffic between Manhattan and Queens, swaps the East River crossings for the two trains on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
During those times, M trains now cross the East River through the 63rd St. tunnel, making stops at 21st. St.-Queensbridge, Roosevelt Island, Lexington Ave.-63rd St. and 57th St before rejoining the F at Rockefeller Center for the remainder of the Sixth Avenue line’s run.
F trains — which used to transit the 63rd St. tunnel — now cross via the 53rd St. tunnel, sharing tracks with the E train and making stops at Court Square and Queens Plaza in Queens, as well as Fifth Ave. and Lexington Ave. in Manhattan.
The reroute — which reverts on nights and weekends — keeps peak-service trains from having to cross over each other’s route at a complicated set of switch tracks under Long Island City known as the 36th St. interlocking.
NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said Monday that the swap will rid straphangers of a problem they’ve had “for years.”
“You’re waiting at Queens Plaza and you’re waiting for that E train, and all of a sudden that M local cuts in front of you and you’re waiting — that will be a thing of the past,” he told reporters at Roosevelt Island.
The dead switch at 53rd St. should serve to split the F from the E and send it downtown along the Sixth Avenue line. But Monday’s Manhattan meltdown meant F trains had to take the scenic route and follow the E down the borough’s west side, until it could rejoin the M at the West 4th St. Station.
Work crews were still in the process of repairing the switch Monday afternoon, with the MTA expressing hope the lines would return to (their new) normal in time for the evening rush.
