G (New York City Subway service)

History

The original Brooklyn–Queens Crosstown Local service began on August 19, 1933, as a shuttle between Queens Plaza on the IND Queens Boulevard Line and Nassau Avenue. This service was designated GG because the IND used double letters to indicate local service. Starting on April 24, 1937, GG trains were extended to Forest Hills–71st Avenue during rush hours, serving as the Queens Boulevard local while E trains ran express west of Continental Avenue. The entire IND Crosstown Line was completed on July 1, 1937, including the connection to the IND Culver Line. GG service ran at all times between Forest Hills–71st Avenue and Church Avenue. Soon after, it was cut back to Smith–Ninth Streets.

The 1939 World's Fair was served by GG trains, some of which were marked as S Special, via the short lived IND World's Fair Line to Horace Harding Boulevard. Trains were extended to the World's Fair Station at all times during the fair, supplemented by PM hour E trains. The fair closed on October 28, 1940, and GG service was truncated back to Forest Hills–71st Avenue.

On July 1, 1968, service was again extended to Church Avenue during rush hours due to the F train operating as an express on the IND Culver Line. This service pattern ended on August 30, 1976, due to budget cuts and complaints from many customers at local stations on the IND Culver Line wanting direct access to Manhattan. Afterwards the GG was cut back to Smith–Ninth Streets.

On August 27, 1977, GG service was cut back to Queens Plaza during late nights, being replaced by the F.

Beginning on May 6, 1985, use of double letters to indicate local service was discontinued, so the GG was relabeled G.

On May 24, 1987, the N and R services switched terminals in Queens. As part of the reroute plan, Queens Plaza became the northern terminal for the G train on evenings, weekends and late nights.

Beginning on September 30, 1990, G service was extended to 179th Street during late nights to replace the F, which terminated at 21st Street–Queensbridge.

Beginning on March 23, 1997, due to construction on the connector between the IND 63rd Street Line and the IND Queens Boulevard Line, G trains terminated at Court Square on evenings, nights and weekends. Beginning on August 31, 1997, late night service was cut back from 179th Street to Court Square as a result of the F running local east of Queens Plaza.

On December 16, 2001, the 63rd Street Connector opened and Court Square became the northern terminal for the G train during weekdays. Service along the IND Queens Boulevard Line was replaced by the new V train. G service was extended to Forest Hills–71st Avenue all other times. The G was to be cut back there at all times to make room for the new V train when the connection opened, but due to rider opposition, it was cut back only weekdays until 8:30 pm, and extended to Forest Hills–71st Avenue all other times (the reverse of the previous pattern).

On July 5, 2009, the G was once again extended south at all times to Church Avenue. This was required for overhaul of the Culver Viaduct, which caused the express tracks at Smith–Ninth Streets and Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street—used to switch G trains between tracks after they terminated at Smith–Ninth Streets—to be temporarily taken out of service. This had two side benefits: five F stations were served by more frequent service when the G was extended to these stations, and the Church Avenue terminal had four tracks to store terminating G trains (as opposed to only one storage track at Smith–9th Streets), thus reducing delays on both services. On July 19, 2012, this extension became permanent, as per an MTA announcement.

Due to the MTA financial crisis, the G was to be cut back from Forest Hills–71st Avenue to Court Square at all times beginning June 27, 2010. However, due to planned track repairs during the times the G normally ran on the IND Queens Boulevard Line, it began terminating at Court Square on April 19. In addition, train headways were reduced, which inconvenienced about 201,000 weekly commuters.

Flood waters from Hurricane Sandy caused significant damage to the Greenpoint Tubes under the Newtown Creek. Although the G went back in service days after the hurricane, permanent repairs needed to be done to the tube. To allow for these repairs, G service ran to Nassau Avenue only for twelve weekends between July and December 2013 and all times between July 25 and September 2, 2014.

Controversies

The G suffers from a wide range of issues that has resulted in complaints by people living along the route. Historically, it has only connected Brooklyn and Queens, resulting in many people thinking of the G as the subway system's "outcast" and the "unwanted drunk uncle everyone has." One reporter wrote of the G, "[Riders] need it because it goes where no other train does, but they hate that they need it." Compounding to the G's "outcast" reputation, some of the G's stations along the Crosstown Line are in bad shape. Since 2001, however, a series of service cuts and missing connections to other lines has worsened public opinion of the G.

Since December 2001, the G's northern terminus has been cut back from Forest Hills to Court Square during the weekdays, and since June 2010, this service pattern has applied 24/7. This service pattern not only puts more ridership pressure on the E route (which was already one of the system's busiest before 2001), but also required G trains' lengths to be shortened by about one-third, from 450 feet (140 m) to 300 feet (91 m). In addition, between 2001 and 2010, weekend service along the G to Forest Hills had been intermittent, with frequent cutbacks to service due to construction. The 2010 route reduction actually increased service frequency on the remainder of the route. Finally, the G has few transfers to other lines, with missing transfer points to the J M trains at Broadway and the 2 3 4 5 B Q D N R trains at Fulton Street, as well as a lack of an ADA-accessible transfer to the 7 <7> trains at Court Square.

63rd Street Connector service reductions

When the connector to the IND 63rd Street Line from the IND Queens Boulevard Line was completed in December 2001, it not only introduced the new V service, but also allowed up to nine additional trains to and from Manhattan on the Queens Boulevard Line during peak hours. However, to make room for the V train on Queens Boulevard, the G had to terminate at Court Square on weekdays. The reroute of the G was part of the original plans of the 63rd Street tunnel and connector, going back to the late 1960s. The service plan was designed to redistribute Queens-bound passenger loads on the crowded IND Queens Boulevard Line (under 53rd Street in Manhattan) and better service and transfer opportunities as the V train allowed direct access to 53rd Street and the IND Sixth Avenue Line for Queens Boulevard Local customers. The New York Times prematurely described the service plan as "complex and heavily criticized" because it put more crowding on the E train.

In response to complaints from G riders at public hearings about losing a major transfer point to Manhattan-bound trains at Queens Plaza, the MTA agreed to a number of compromises, including installing a moving sidewalk in the passageway between Court Square and 23rd Street–Ely Avenue (now served by the E M trains) on the Queens Boulevard Line. In addition, a free out-of-system MetroCard transfer to 45th Road–Court House Square on the IRT Flushing Line was created at those two stations. This special transfer was discontinued when construction of an in-system transfer at the corner of 23rd Street and 45th Road that opened on June 3, 2011, which made only the Flushing Line station ADA-accessible; in the future, the Crosstown Line will become accessible.

The MTA also agreed to extend the G to Forest Hills–71st Avenue during evenings and weekends (when the V was not running), and run more trains on that route. There was a four-hour period where the G, R, and V, as well as the Queens Boulevard line's express services, the E and the F, were all supposedly running at once since the V stopped running at midnight and the G was extended to 71st Avenue at 8:00 p.m. The authority "had spent several hundred thousand dollars on tests, trying to figure out a way to keep the G train running past Court Square and farther into Queens on weekdays, but because of the addition of the V train, which shared space along the Queens Boulevard Line with the trains already there (the E, F and R trains), G trains could not fit during the daytime, when service is heaviest."

However, due to construction on the Queens Boulevard Line, the G train frequently terminated at Court Square even at times when the published timetable said it ran to 71st Avenue. Some riders were suspicious that the service disruptions were "simply a de facto way to implement the original plan of halving G train service." The original plans called for the G terminate at Court Square at all times; that plan was shelved in 2001 in the face of community opposition, but the MTA decided to implement it in 2010. An MTA spokesman said, "It's not personal…. If you want to keep the system up to date, you need to make sure the track and switching are all in good repair."

Community groups such as Save the G! and the Riders Alliance have been frequent activists for improvements of G service. Save the G! regularly lobbied the MTA for more G train service since the original cutbacks when the V was introduced in 2001. They made the restoration of service to the Queens Boulevard Line at all times an issue in the 2002 New York gubernatorial race, but the transit authority said, "Unfortunately, putting the G back to full service is just not an option, given our track capacity—and that's not likely to change."

Changes to train length

To increase service and reduce waiting time due to the 63rd Street Connector cutbacks, the G would need more trains, but there were not enough cars available in the system. The solution was to reduce the length of trains in order to increase service frequency. Historically, the G line had run 8 60-foot (18 m) car trains or 6 75-foot (23 m) car trains; both were shorter than the typical 600-foot (180 m) length of B Division trains because ridership was deemed too low to justify running full-length G trains in frequent intervals. Under the 2001 plan, trains were shortened from six 75-foot (23 m) cars to four, sticking all the leftover cars together to make the extra trains for the G, and the additional trains needed for V service. Thus, G service now operates 300-foot (91 m) trains, half the length of normal B Division standards. It also operates One Person Train Operation (OPTO) service during late nights and weekends.

This, however, meant there would be more riders packed into smaller trains, and led some passengers to miss trains because they were standing at the wrong part of the platform. In the past, there have been signs indicating where the train stops at some stations, in addition to the "4" and "6" markers next to the tracks used by train operators as stop points. Still, the overall lack of visual identifiers of train stop points on the platforms, the differing stop points during different times of day, and the location of staircases, transfer passageways and platform benches have been cited as a cause of passengers missing trains or being bunched into single cars. Beginning in 2013, additional signs were installed along G train platforms. In 2014, several improvements were implemented due to an infusion of extra funding, with G trains to be lengthened in 2019 (see below).

Non-free transfers

Save the G!, the Riders Alliance, and other organizations have also lobbied for the creation of new free out-of-system transfers to nearby stations. The most prominent is between Broadway on the Crosstown Line and either Hewes Street or Lorimer Street on the BMT Jamaica Line, which are both about three blocks away; this transfer has been previously proposed. In 2005, an MTA spokesperson stated, "We have no intention of making that a permanent free transfer." This sentiment was repeated in 2013, with the MTA citing the loss of around $770,000 in revenue if the transfer were to become free. Temporary free transfers have been provided in the past, including one to Lorimer Street in 1999 due to suspended service over the Williamsburg Bridge on the J M Z trains, and again during the Summer 2014 G service suspension north of Nassau Avenue. The temporary Lorimer Street–Broadway transfer is due to be reinstated for 18 months beginning in January 2019, when the BMT Canarsie Line tunnels under the East River are closed for construction related to the Fix and Fortify program initiated by the MTA after Hurricane Sandy.

A second transfer, from Fulton Street to the busy Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center complex in Downtown Brooklyn, was rejected by the MTA due to the long walking distance between the two stations, as well as the fact that there is a transfer to Manhattan-bound A C trains at Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets.

Improvements

Most stations along the IND Crosstown Line were built with multiple exits to the street. Over the years, many lower-use exits were closed (as they were in other parts of the subway), as the city was concerned that they were a magnet for criminals; this resulted in G trains along the Crosstown Line needing to stop at the locations closest to the exits. However, in July 2005, in response to community pressure, the MTA agreed to re-open the South Portland Avenue exit of the Fulton Street station. The New York Times described it as a "minor victory" for "a maligned line." In 2019, the Court Square station will get several new stairways to accommodate increased ridership from L train riders during the reconstruction of the BMT Canarsie Line tunnels under the East River, which is scheduled to start in January 2019.

The G train's southern extension to Church Avenue, implemented in 2009 and confirmed permanently in 2012, has also been an improvement, as it reduced the need for riders from Park Slope and Kensington to make multiple train transfers to get to northern Brooklyn and Queens.

State Senators Daniel Squadron and Martin Malave Dilan requested a "Review of the G Line" since the route had been maligned by riders because of its unreliability. The review, conducted in 2013, recommended a few service implements for the G. On June 9, 2014, a budget surplus in the MTA caused these improvements to be implemented. These improvements included an increase in the number of trains per hour, from six trains per hour to 7.5 trains per hour during evening rush hour; uniform stopping locations for trains, whereas previously, trains stopped at different places along the platform at different times of the day; public service announcement systems on platforms along the IND Crosstown Line; relocated benches; and new CCTV systems installed for OPTO. Such improvements eliminated the infamous "G train sprint," wherein riders ran for G trains that stopped at the other end of the platforms. The G is expected to get full length trains to accommodate displaced L train riders in 2019. This is made possible because the delivery of new R179 subway cars consists to other routes makes it possible for older fleet from these other routes to be passed onto the G.

Since 2010, ridership on the G has rose 17%, with approximately 150,000 riders per weekday in 2015. It is the route with the fastest growing ridership base in the entire system. These improvements will also have the side benefit of being able to accommodate the growing ridership base in gentrified neighborhoods along the G, like Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Long Island City. This is due in part because the G's weekday frequencies have become more dependable as a result of its 2013 review. However, weekend service was still lacking, according to some riders.

Service pattern

The following table shows the lines used by the G:

Stations

For a more detailed station listing, see the articles on the lines listed above.

In popular culture

The G train is shown in the TV series Girls, as the show's main character, Hannah, lives in Greenpoint (near a stop along the G) and sometimes uses the route. In 2014, a replica of the G train at a party celebrating the show went viral on Instagram.