The L Train's Got it All. What about the G?

The L train is a slick machine—whooshing into its twenty-four stations on a regularly announced schedule. Automated, it relies on prism sensors and Automatic Train Operators, or ATOs, which are as proto-futuristic as they sound. There is even an L station—Myrtle-Wyckoff—with a grandiose skylight edged in mosaic tiling. In its depths, multiple flat screens broadcast the exact location of each train, like the MTA version of Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map. It’s an example of the best work MTA dollars have gone to.
Last Thursday, L-line manager Greg Lombardi gave local journalists a tour of the L-line’s snazzy efficiencies. All the way from the Canarsie station, where employees were bent over a dock of computers that monitor bunch-ups, down to Bedford, where bright white stickers had been pasted over dirty tiles, Lombardi touted the efficiencies he’s been able to implement thanks to a capital improvement program on the heavily-trafficked line.
Still, Lombardi and other MTA officials believe there are many more improvements they would like to try out on the L. But right now, they’re facing a capital improvements budget of zero dollars. “You’ve seen the potential in the technology to move forward.” Lombardi said. “Are we going to move forward with technology like this?” he asked. “Or do we want to go back to the ’70s, when we had broken trains, track fires?”
Yes, the L has room to improve. But some, including Greenpoint’s State Senator Martin Dilan, wonder why some lines seem to reap more benefits than others. Dilan, who chairs the Transportation Committee, has been campaigning to improve the G line—labeled the “forgotten stepchild” of the transit authority by riders and Assemblymen alike. Despite a population growth of G riders from 9.3 million in 1998 to 12.6 million in 2008, the G saw service cuts while the L benefited from this latest capital program. This week, as Albany weighs schemes to repair the MTA’s deficit—now grown to $1.5 billion—Dilan is paying attention to inequities. “The Senate’s MTA reform package includes measures to assure greater transparency in the formation of future capital programs,” Senator Dilan wrote in a statement. “It is this transparency that will give greater weight to issues such as equitable funding and service among and between the 12-county service area.”

So how unbalanced is funding for various lines? The most recent survey of the “State of the Subway” conducted by commuter advocates the Straphangers Campaign, rated the L train “Best Overall” and “most reliable” but found the G had the highest number of breakdowns and was rated “the dirtiest line”—with 31% of its cars found to have moderate or heavy dirt levels, ten times more than the cleanest line. While the L-train was found to come more often than the average line—every 3.3 minutes, as opposed to every 5.3 minutes—the G wait time was more than a minute above average during rush hours.
L-line riders’ only complaint was of overcrowding. Counter-intuitively, that problem is also the reason for the line’s excellence. Funding, says MTA Spokesman Kevin Ortiz, is “basically predicated on the volume of individuals, ridership, the number of stations and the headway between trains.” The more riders, the greater the frequency of trains.
Because riders migrate to live near subway lines with good, reliable reputations, the fact that funding is based on the number of users is a conundrum. A strong subway line makes surrounding real-estate more valuable and would seem to increase ridership. But, says Ortiz, “That’s a hypothetical. That just depends on the individual.” Still, the G would seem to not be a draw for prospective Greenpoint residents—in fact it often works as a direct deterrent—while improvements to the L will most likely raise ridership even further. “Basically we try to improve each our lines, each of our stations,” Ortiz said. But their budget is far from unlimited; budget-balancing solutions have been labeled “draconian” by lawmakers.
Because they don’t have the money to do everything that must be done, the MTA seems to be focusing on overcrowded lines. “If you think overcrowding is an issue now that needs to be addressed, in the future there will be four-million more riders,” said spokesman Ortiz, citing an MTA-sponsored sustainability study. On the L, more capital funding would go to installing ATO’s, or Automatic Train Operators on eight trains that currently run without them. With the operating systems, the trains could run more efficiently which would better control bunching and make service more regular. However, the figure Ortiz cited will be distributed throughout the five boroughs—and is not a population growth of solely L-riders.
And there is an upside to overcrowding. The L train’s popularity is largely responsible for a certain glamour the line has acquired in the press. The “L-train set” has become an oft-used euphemism for thirty-something “hipsters” while a cursory sweep of craiglist shows the line seems to net more “missed connections” than any other—a fact highlighted by line manager Lombardi as he stood in the station at Myrtle-Wyckoff. On the G, perhaps, it’s always going to be harder to feel the love.