Straphangers who use the M train in Brooklyn and Queens on weekends are in for some transit headaches over the next few weeks. NY1's Jose Martinez filed the following report.
For M train riders in parts of Queens and Brooklyn, the pain begins Friday night.
"It's really annoying, it's really uncomfortable for riders and passengers," said one irked straphanger.
It's the first of 11 weekends when no M trains will run between Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn and the eastern end of the line at Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village, Queens.
"I'm gonna have to take the 54 to the L train and then from the L, hop onto the 6 and get to Grand Central. So it does make my life a little harder," said one M train rider.
But the weekend outages will be a taste of an even bigger disruption. That stretch iof the M line will be completely shut down from July until sometime in the middle of next year.
Some residents and businesses next to a deteriorating section of the line's elevated tracks will relocate at the MTA's expense once the full shutdown begins.
The project includes replacing tracks and some support columns and rebuilding a bridge between the Fresh Pond Road and Metropolitan Avenue stations.
"These structures are a century-years old and they need to be completely rehabbed. In order to do that, we actually can't have any trains on them at all," said MTA Spokeswoman Beth DeFalco.
Riders will have to take shuttle buses or trek to other lines, most especially the L line which connects to M service at the Myrtle-Wycoff station.
"I guess it will be the L for us," concluded one M train rider.
The extensive work along the M line all leads into the MTA's bigger job, which starts in 2019. That's when the L train's East River Tube will be closed for 18 months of repairs.
"The M line will absorb many L riders, so this has to be done first, ahead of that. Because this is a shorter-term planned outage," DeFalco added.
One in which the M comes before the L, with the weekend shutdown starting at 11:45 p.m. Friday.