By Matt Chaban 12/05/12 12:20pm

recovery mode

A good flood? (Getty)

Bill Rudin Is Grateful the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel Flooded—and Maybe You Should Be, Too

Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc across the city, including Lower Manhattan, where flooding into tunnels shut down both subway and vehicular traffic for weeks. In a story looking at flooding in the Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery tunnel, Dana Rubinstein reveals that none other than developer, macher and civic bigwig Bill Rudin actually welcomed the flooding because it protected some of his harborside buildings. Read More

By Matt Chaban 12/04/12 12:12pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Blue steel! (MTA)

Male Model Joe Lhota Sports an H Train Hoody to Support Rockaways Recovery

The “I Survived the Frankenstorm” shirts had already hit street corners and Etsy shops within days of the hurricane battering New York. But here’s some Sandy swag that actually goes toward a good cause. The MTA has created a limited edition line of H train memorabilia, including T-shirts, hoodies, pins and magnets, and all proceeds go to the Graybeards, a Rockaways charity that has been helping out with the superstorm recovery. And who better to model the new line than MTA chief Joe Lhota, hero of the storm. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/19/12 4:16pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Video

The Rockaways, on a roll again. (MTA/Flickr)

The New, Free H-Train Shuttle Is Now Up and Running in the Rockaways

Among the indignities visited on the Rockaways by Hurricane Sandy was the destruction of its sole subway route, the A train. As The Observer first reported, this was not merely a case of flooding, but the very foundations of the Broad Channel crossing washing away, creating months, or longer, of reconstruction work for the MTA.

Still, the agency took the unusual step of trucking a bunch of subway cars out to the Rockaways so it could at least run shuttle service along the peninsula, with a bus in Far Rockaway then ferrying riders to the A train in Howard Beach. The service will be up and running as of 4:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, and Governor Cuomo even announced that it would be free until regular subway service is restored. Free subway service—finally some good news for the Rockaways. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/15/12 8:11am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Video

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Inside the Flooded Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and a New Genre of Ruin Porn

Last night, the MTA posted a video of the cleanup effort going on inside the Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which had reopened just the day before after a monstrous flood.

It is a burgeoning genre, after the MTA gave the L train tubes the same treatment—not every effort got a star turn, just the slow ones, as though to say, “Look, we’re workin’ on it.” That and the jaw-dropping ones, like flooding inside the (still-closed) South Ferry subway station (and the cleanup). Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/13/12 4:34pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

5 Photos

Traffic Returns to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel

The Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Just Reopened—And Already There’s Traffic

Governor Cuomo came to the mouth of the Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel less than an hour ago with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and MTA chief Joe Lhota to announce that one tube of the formerly flooded tunnel would be opening to traffic at 4 o’clock today. Within minutes of his entourage departing,  the cars did indeed begin flowing in. Town cars, Range Rovers, some foreign and domestic sedans, at least two Cadillacs and, of course, numerous cabs.

It was a regular stream of New York City wheels. And as so often happens when such vehicles tend to cluster, there was a back-up. Yes, traffic. Perhaps life is getting back to normal.

“In many ways, for me, this site a metaphor for the entire storm,” Governor Cuomo said, from the awesome power of Mother Nature that first hit the city during Hurricane Sandy to the awesome rebuilding effort the MTA and others undertook. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/09/12 12:19pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

21 Photos

The Great Rockway Subway Shuttle Shuffle

Ferry Service Returns to the Rockaways to Shuttle the Stranded, Along With Flying Subway Cars

Update 4:56 p.m.:Governor Cuomo just announced at an afternoon press conference that the A train shuttle in the Rockaways should be up and running by Sunday. He also announced that the N train along the Sea Line, between 59th Street in Sunset Park and Coney Island, resumed service today.

“The damage to the A line in Jamaica Bay is absolutely unprecedented, and so is the MTA’s response,” MTA Chairman and CEO Joe Lhota said. “Restoring the entire A train will take months, but the MTA is committed to doing it and to providing alternatives to our customers in the meantime.”

Original post: The Rockaways have been devastated by Hurricane Sandy, and that is not just the homes, but the infrastructure, the very fabric of the peninsula. But the city and the MTA have been working nonstop to return life to normal, and that goes for mass transit as well.

The MTA has been working all week to truck subway cars out to the Rockaways from a trestle in Brooklyn so that a shuttle service might be set up between Beach 116th Street and Mott Avenue/Far Rockaway. “We’re going to do what we can to get the Rockaways back to normal,” MTA chief Joe Lhota told reporters over the weekend, when the MTA was putting together its shuttle plan.

The shuttle became a necessity after Hurricane Sandy caused severe damage to the Broad Channel crossing, all but destroying the A train connection between Howard Beach and the Rockaways. The shuttle will help subway riders commute within the Rockaways, but they will still be forced to take a shuttle bus in Far Rockaway to connect to the A train in Queens to get into other parts of the city.

A better option for commuters might be a new ferry service the Bloomberg administration is launching. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/07/12 12:57pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Video

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The MTA Is Busy Cleaning Up the L Line, and It’s Got the Video to Prove It

Enough already with the North Brooklyn bellyaching!

That seems to be the message of the MTA, which restored G trains service earlier this morning. Everyone is eagerly awaiting the resumption of the L train between Eighth Avenue and Broadway Junction, everyone meaning the unwashed masses of the city’s hipsters. The L line, which was pumped out yesterday, had the worst flooding of any subway tunnel, according to the MTA,   now, to prove just how tirelessly the agency is working to get the L back up and running, here’s a video to show the work going on. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/05/12 9:09pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Train drain on the L-line. (MTA/Fickr)

G-Train Pumped Dry But Repairs Remain, L-Line Still All Wet, A-Train Returns to Inwood

Update, 11/6 11:42 a.m.: The MTA just announced that the L-train tube under 14th Street has been pumped out and “damage is currently being assessed.”

Original post: Since we have become your defacto North Brooklyn subway depot—just take a look at the Popular Stories box right now—here is the latest from those skinny-pants filled lines. According to the MTA’s evening service advisory, the Newtown Creek tunnel on the G-train has been pumped out while pumping work remains for the L.

As we previously reported, no tunnel saw more flooding than the L, which is among the reasons the MTA left it until the end of its recovery operations to pump out, because the more water, the longer it takes. Among the reasons the 4/5/6 and 2/3 were up and running so quickly is they needed minimal pumping. They also carry more people, making them, arguably a greater priority. Just don’t tell that to the people living in North Brooklyn. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/05/12 10:24am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

The line for the B62, about the only G-train life line. (Heidi Metcalfe/Twitter)

MTA: ‘Getting the G and L Running Again Is Our Highest Priority’

The people of North Brooklyn can be an entitled bunch (as a local, this reporter can personally testify to this). After all, the lights, even the Internet stayed on through most of the storm, and property damage was minimal, even for those condos cum punching bags on the waterfront. Still, standing outside in the freezing cold while one packed B62 after another blows by your stop is not a very comforting feeling. Forget getting to work, what about the hypothermia concerns the mayor has been preaching?

But fear not, now that the MTA has gotten to all the other subway lines—which to be totally fair had less flooding and/or carried more riders into the city—the L and the G are now its primary recovery focus, according to MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg. Read More