MTA's FASTRACK affects Queens at 10pm all week, make appropriate travel adjustments

Image source: Adam E. Moreira on Wikimedia Commons

We mentioned FASTRACK in December, and how it will be coming to affect Queens – actual construction won’t be happening in Queens, but your ability to get into the city will be affected by construction that is shutting lines down in the city. Not sure what this whole FASTRACK business is? For the practical among us who are interested in the bottom line, it means no N,Q or R service in Manhattan from 10pm to 5am starting tonight and ending the morning of Saturday, February 2. Here’s a longer and more extensive explanation from the MTA:

The FASTRACK maintenance program completely suspends train service over a segment of a subway line, to give our workers uninterrupted access to tracks, signals, cables, lighting, third rail components, and platform edges.

During a FASTRACK shutdown, our employees inspect hundreds of signals and switches, repair and replace track rails and cross ties, clean track floors, perform elevator and escalator repair work, repair water damage, clear drains, and clean stations. We also clear the track-bed of a significant amount of debris. We repaint areas untouched in years, because they are not reachable during normal train operation. We clean lighting fixtures, change bulbs, and repair platform edges. We also perform high-intensity station cleaning providing a visible improvement to the station environment and your commute. Subway delays on lines which have undergone FASTRACK maintenance have been reduced by 4.4% thereby providing you with more reliable service.

Here are more details about the lines affected between the hours of 10pm and 5am:

• N trains run in Queens and Brooklyn only (so, in Queens, the N will operate like a shuttle between Ditmars Blvd and Queensboro Plaza – catch the 7 there to get into the city)
• Q trains are rerouted via the D (6th Ave) in Manhattan to/from the 57 St F station
• R service ends early in Manhattan and Queens (so as to accommodate construction in the city)

There is a lot more information on the FASTRACK N R Q page, so head there to find out info that applies to your particular travel needs. Basically if you need to travel into the city, do it early, or use another train apart from the N/Q/R. And also remember – 7 train service is suspended again this weekend! Crazy train schedules.

FASTRACK NRQ [MTA]
MTA’s FASTRACK program arrives in Queens in 2013 [QNYC]
Details on the suspended weekend 7 train service from Queensboro Plaza into the city, winter 2013 [QNYC]