Representatives from 50 local businesses in Greenpoint are asking the MTA to revise its plans to shut down the G train this summer for critical tunnel repairs.
In a letter sent Monday to the MTA’s board, 55 owners representing 50 small businesses in Brooklyn’s northernmost neighborhood called on the governing body to reschedule the work, which would leave Greenpoint without any subway service for nine weekends out of the year.
The MTA has said it plans to shut down G train service between the Bedford-Nostrand Ave. station and the Court Square station for three weekends in June, two weekends in August, one weekend in September and three weekends in December.
As previously reported by the Daily News, some Greenpoint merchants say the service outages — coming after long G train shutdowns in 2025 and 2024 — will hurt their bottom lines.
“We all want better-performing trains and understand the necessity of this work, but this progress cannot come at the cost of our livelihoods,” the letter reads. “We urge the MTA to shift to weekday overnight closures and cancel the planned weekend closures, particularly in June and December.”
People in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, rally against proposed G train subway shutdowns on Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (John McCarten / NYC Council Media Unit)
Those months — which contain Pride week, several World Cup matches and Christmas — are “some of the busiest weeks of the year,” the shop owners wrote. “Without functional train service on weekends, many of our businesses may not survive to 2027.”
The G train — the only major subway line connecting Queens and Brooklyn without passing through Manhattan — has faced sporadic shutdowns over the past two years as MTA crews work to modernize its signaling system.
That work is ongoing. But this year’s proposed weekend shutdowns would allow the transit agency to fix a discovery made during the re-signaling work — water leaking into the Greenpoint Tube, the tunnel that carries the G train under Newtown Creek.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber has said the work is necessary.
“It turns out that tunnel under Newtown Creek between Greenpoint and Long Island City needs a lot more work than was originally thought,” Lieber told reporters last month.
“That’s the reason why we are having to do extra weekend shutdowns,” he said. “This is the reality of the generations of neglect of the MTA’s core infrastructure.”
People in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, rally against proposed G train subway shutdowns on Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (John McCarten / NYC Council Media Unit)
In response to the letter, an MTA spokesperson confirmed late Tuesday that a service outage that had been scheduled for June 12-15 had been rescheduled for July 10-13.
But City Councilmember Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) who represents Greenpoint, told The News that swapping weekends wouldn’t be enough for his constituents.
“It’s an incredibly disappointing outcome,” Restler said of the one-weekend shift. “We’ll continue to push back.”