QUEENS, N.Y. — Riders on the Lefferts end of the A line in southern Queens are switching to buses this week. Since early Saturday, Nov. 7, no A trains have run past the Rockaway Boulevard station to the end of the line at Ozone Park–Lefferts Boulevard, and trains are due back at 5 a.m. Monday, Nov. 16.
Three stops lose train service during the shutdown: Ozone Park–Lefferts Boulevard, 111th Street and 104th Street. A trains that would normally end at Lefferts are being sent instead to Howard Beach–JFK Airport, where riders can connect to the AirTrain. Service on the rest of the line, including the Far Rockaway branch and trips into Manhattan, continues.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is running free shuttle buses between Rockaway Boulevard and Lefferts Boulevard around the clock. The agency says buses come every 3 to 5 minutes at rush hour and about every 10 minutes at other times. The overnight Lefferts shuttle train to Euclid Avenue is also suspended. Regular Q112, Q8 and Q41 buses are another option at normal fares, though none of those three routes runs overnight.
Crews are using the nine days to tear out and replace ties, rails, third rail and switches on the Liberty Avenue line so it can move to a modern signal system known as Communications-Based Train Control. The MTA calls it the largest signal and track replacement project in its history, and says the work will retire the oldest signal equipment left in the subway, some of it from the 1930s.
Drivers should expect street changes too. Liberty Avenue is closed to through traffic in the work area, and so are 99th and 100th streets between 103rd Avenue and Rockaway Boulevard. Northbound Liberty Avenue traffic is being sent to 103rd Avenue between 98th and 104th streets, and southbound traffic is going to Rockaway Boulevard between 101st and 96th streets.
This is the first of several planned outages for the signal project, and the MTA says more weekend and overnight work will continue through 2027.
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Filed under: New York NY Traffic News
