For the last two months, the MTA has been shutting down select subway lines around Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn for consecutive weeknights between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. to perform much-needed maintenance work—and without a doubt, MTA is damn proud of their FASTRACK program. Next week, the A, C, E line between 59 St-Columbus Circle and Jay St-MetroTech will be the lucky recipient of the MTA's critical inspection program (check out all the service change suggestions below). And by next year, northern Manhattan and the outer boroughs will likely get to join in on all the fun too.
According to the Daily News, because of the success of the program thus far, the MTA plans to expand and begin periodic consecutive weeknight shutdowns of subway lines between midtown and 125th St. next year. “The plan is to use 2012 as a period to learn what went right, what went wrong and what we have to improve, and use that as a base when expanding to northern Manhattan and the outer boroughs,” NYC Transit President Tom Prendergast told them.
He hopes that by 2015, they can start bringing FASTRACK to the outer boroughs. But an MTA spokesman told us that the agency is actually trying to expand it even sooner: "Fastrack will expand to the Outer Boroughs before 2015, actually as soon as next year. The program is still being studied and fine-tuned." Because what everyone is really looking forward to is the L train being shut down a few more nights of the week.
