Small business owners in Greenpoint say the extensive G train shutdowns reportedly scheduled for the rest of the year would be \u201cdevastating\u201d for their already-tight margins.<\/p>\n
G train service will be completely shut down for ten weekends through 2026, according to local elected officials briefed by the MTA, including three weekends each in June and December. There are overnight weekday closures on the docket too, they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe MTA is doing track work in the summer every single weekend,\u201d said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso at a press conference on Tuesday. \u201cTheir lack of assessment or terrible job of assessing exactly what the issues are with the G train make it so that they come back every single year.\u201d<\/p>\n
After dealing with extensive closures during the summers of 2024 and 2025, locals are frustrated. Though the MTA has always provided shuttle bus replacements during shutdowns, locals say losing the train means losing customers.<\/p>\n
Rachel Despeaux owns Awoke Vintage, which has two locations in Greenpoint, both right off the G train.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Many retail stores in the city, including Awoke, are \u201clucky\u201d if they break even on weekdays and actually make money on weekends, she said. Losing business during the shop\u2019s \u201conly profitable time \u2026 will be beyond a devastating hit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have already weathered the storm of a 10-week shutdown from the MTA, and we were promised that was going to be the end of it, assured that our businesses were a priority, and that\u2019s why this work was being done,\u201d Despeaux said. \u201cThat, obviously, was not the case, and we\u2019re now asked to weather and endure another storm that in this current retail economy, I do not know if that is possible to weather.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The G was shuttered in sections during the summers of 2024<\/a> and 2025<\/a> as the MTA installed Communications-based Train Control. Some CBTC work is still underway, but the upcoming shutdown is due to a different issue, according to MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber.<\/p>\n \u201cIt turns out that tunnel under Newtown Creek between Greenpoint and Long Island City needs a lot more work than was originally thought,\u201d Lieber said at an unrelated press conference on April 28. \u201cThat is the reason why we are having to do extra weekend shutdowns to get the work done.\u201d<\/p>\n Lieber said the issues in the tunnel were indicative of \u201cgenerations of neglect\u201d of transit infrastructure, and that some weekend closures are necessary to get the work done. The MTA has not yet confirmed the shutdown schedule for the rest of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Council Member Lincoln Restler said he and other local pols are frustrated by the MTA\u2019s lack of communication.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re asking for the MTA to take a hard look at the plans ahead and to end the number of weekend closures, limit the work that needs to happen to overnight, and we need them to work with our community to ensure there are real alternatives for when we don\u2019t have the G train,\u201d Restler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n When pressed about the impact on local businesses, Lieber seemed to say he was willing to amend the shutdown somewhat.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll take another look if there are community and especially retail concerns, we\u2019re trying to minimize impact,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the reality is, when you shutdown, you have impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Small business owners in Greenpoint say the extensive G train shutdowns reportedly scheduled for the rest of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,44257,2422,3075,141,9,24,63,142],"class_list":["post-213184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-g-train","tag-greenpoint","tag-lincoln-restler","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-transit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}