{"id":309212,"date":"2026-07-29T21:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/309212\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T21:52:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:52:21","slug":"mta-aims-to-speed-up-service-reduce-rider-delays-by-clearing-bottlenecks-in-brooklyn-subways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/309212\/","title":{"rendered":"MTA aims to speed up service, reduce rider delays by clearing \u2018bottlenecks\u2019 in Brooklyn subways"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MTA plans to unclog two of the most vexing points where subway trains get delayed due to multiple lines converging or other structural constraints in the system, it announced in a new report<\/a> out Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The report both highlights projects the agency is already undertaking to address two of the major chokepoints, known as bottlenecks, and identifies 25 others that it can work to eliminate in the future. Bottlenecks \u2014 arising from issues with interlockings, terminals, track configuration, and legacy signal systems \u2014 can cause delays that ripple throughout the system and trigger the familar \u201cwe are delayed due to train traffic ahead of us\u201d announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese bottlenecks create delays, even on good days, when everything is running according to plan,\u201d said Liam O\u2019Connell, a senior planner at the MTA, during the agency\u2019s July board meeting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll know these delays when you\u2019re waiting on a train somewhere and you hear an announcement like, \u2018we\u2019re waiting on a train to cross in front of us\u2019 or the \u2018train across the platform will be leaving first,’\u201d he continued. \u201cThese small holdups mean that your travel time on the train is inconsistent from day-to-day and also that the waiting time for riders at all of the stations further down the line is inconsistent with the schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s findings build upon the MTA\u2019s recent operational changes to the F and M lines<\/a>, which involved swapping their routes between Manhattan and Queens late last year. The change led to a 4% decrease in running times and fewer conflicting merges at the Queens Plaza station, agency officials reported on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks at the Roosevelt Island Station are for the first time in a long time having trains that don\u2019t arrive completely packed in the station in the a.m. peak,\u201d said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber during the same meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"MTAThe MTA introduced new R211 trains on the D line at the Coney Island-Stillwell Av station. Wednesday, July 1, 2026.Marc A. Hermann \/ MTA<\/p>\n

The two projects already underway aim to clear bottlenecks on the B, D, N, R, and Q trains in the area between the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge and the DeKalb Av station; and on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 trains east of the Franklin Av station, according to the report. Both are funded by the MTA\u2019s current 2025-2029 Capital Program.<\/p>\n

The issue at DeKalb Av arises from an interlocking where the B, D, N, and Q trains cross paths after coming over the Manhattan Bridge. The merging of the B and D trains to join with the Q and N trains, respectively, can cause delays, as one train must wait for another to cross in front of it.<\/p>\n

Those delays can quickly cascade.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThese merges at DeKalb \u2026 are what create the delays that you might remember if you are descending the Manhattan Bridge,\u201d O\u2019Connell said. \u201cYou\u2019re on a D train, say, stopped, waiting for an N train on the other side of the bridge to pass to get to the switch in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell said that tower operators individually route each train through the interlocking due to their use of nearly a century-old signals, which can further compound delays.\n<\/p>\n

The same problem occurs with Manhattan-bound trains as well, according to the report.\n<\/p>\n

The MTA is working to clear the bottleneck by installing its modern Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) signal system on the B and D lines between DeKalb Av and 47-50 Sts-Rockefeller Ctr. It is planning to award a contract for the work by the end of this year.<\/p>\n

The new technology will help clear the issue by allowing trains to run faster and closer together through the interlocking. Its installation will also give the agency the chance to replace aging switches in the interlocking, which will could help trains go through at higher speeds.<\/p>\n

The 2, 3, 4, and 5 trains face a similar bottleneck at the Nostrand Junction interlocking just past the Franklin Av station, where the 2 and 5 trains and 3 and 4 trains split into different branches headed for Flatbush Av and New Lots Av, respectively. Because the 5 train currently must cross from the express to local tracks, it ends up on the same track as the 2 and 3 trains for about 150 feet, sparking cascading delays.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is that crossing movement of trains at Nostrand Junction that contributes to that bottleneck,\u201d O\u2019Connell said.\n<\/p>\n

The MTA plans to fix this by updating the switches in the interlocking and realigning the trains that run through it. Instead of the current configuration, the plan would clear the way for the 5 and the 3 trains to swap places, with the former running along Eastern Parkway with the 4 train and the latter going down Flatbush with the 2 train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MTA plans to unclog two of the most vexing points where subway trains get delayed due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[33817,44254,43789,35763,116981,98,100,99,12189,116982,116983,116984,116985,39683,141,44259,9,24,116986,63,45581,44260,116987],"class_list":["post-309212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-2-train","tag-3-train","tag-4-train","tag-5-train","tag-b-train","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-d-train","tag-dekalb-av-station","tag-franklin-av-station","tag-interlocking","tag-liam-oconnell","tag-manhattan-bridge","tag-mta","tag-n-train","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nostrand-junction","tag-nyc","tag-q-train","tag-r-train","tag-subway-bottlencks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309212","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=309212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}