Flatbush Avenue–bound 2 and 5 trains will bypass Prospect-Lefferts Gardens’s Winthrop Street station for four months starting March 18, according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority shot callers, and locals who rely on the hub are not happy about it.
“That’s not good,” said Haywood Hogans, who commutes from the station to her job. “That’s going to make the commute very bad for a lot of people.”
Authority bigwigs are suspending service in order to make repairs at the station, but a rep for the state-run agency did not immediately reply when asked what specific fixes will be made, or how much the job will cost.
The station on Nostrand Avenue is the closest hub for patients travelling to local health-care facilities Kings County Hospital and SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and it is also used by many parents, teachers, and young students of nearby schools MS 2 and PS 92.
Transit-agency workers posted fliers throughout the station alerting straphangers to the looming service change, but the news still came as a surprise to some commuters when this newspaper visited the hub on March 14.
“I use this stop every single day, and this is the first time I’m hearing about it,” said Andrea Edwards, who attends a church near Winthrop Street station.
Commuters who typically catch 2 and 5 trains heading towards Flatbush Avenue at the station can instead catch an Emmons Avenue–bound B44 bus during the service suspension. And Flatbush Aveune–bound riders looking to hop off at Winthrop Street can take subways one stop further to Church Avenue, and double back aboard a Manhattan-bound train, which will continue to stop at the hub throughout the repairs.
