M Train Riders See Silver Lining
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While millions of New Yorkers are still grappling with the MTA's elimination of 38 bus routes and two subway lines, a group of lucky riders in Brooklyn and Queens say the budget crisis has actually made their ride smoother. NY1's John Mancini filed the following report.Who says service cuts can't make you happy? Call them the few, the proud, and the giddy -- the riders of the M.
"I live in Ridgewood, Queens, I work here in Greenwich Village. And basically now for the first time I have a one-seat ride to work. It's taken probably 10 to 15 minutes off of my commute. I used to have to take the M to the F, which you could never get on at rush hour. So I'd have to take it down to Chambers Street and get on the 6. It took forever," said M train rider Christopher Crowe.
Millions of other New Yorkers feel like it's taking them forever to get around this summer. But changes wrought by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's service cuts actually have made things easier for a select group in Brooklyn and Queens. The new M took over the old V route in Manhattan and is now a direct ride to the Village and Midtown. Those trips had meant at least one change for riders from Middle Village to Williamsburg.
"So it's just one way, and one way back. Which I think is very efficient and it saves time. And I think it's been wonderful," said M train rider Lisa Guzman.
Such unbridled joy may not have been what first came to mind at the MTA when millions in state funding disappeared. But the agency takes happiness where it can get it. So planners used the dire moment to reshape the M into a more efficient line. Now it's one more reason hot neighborhoods like South Williamsburg and Bushwick will probably get hotter.
But not everyone's happy about making the ride into Midtown more convenient. They say the pressure on rents will only grow, and those rents are already too high.
"People who can't afford to pay these rents will have to be moving out of the area. I mean because you are going to bring more of a crowd that can afford to pay this, and then the poor people that are here can't afford to pay what they are paying now," said Bushwick resident Ariel Lopez.
Fear of the price of the hipster advance also reaches into Queens, which, until now, is an unsettled frontier for cool.
"My rent has already gone up a little bit. I hope it doesn't go up too much," Crowe said.