The L train is back!
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority restored subway service to North Brooklyn’s lifeline at 3 pm on Thursday, ending the most arduous week and a half many Williamsburg and Bushwick rail-riders have ever experienced.
Commuters were thrilled to hear the L is stopping between Broadway Junction and Bedford Avenue and ferrying straphangers to Manhattan after a lengthy closure following Hurricane Sandy.
“I’m almost happier about this than Obama’s reelection,” said Comic Book Legal Defense Fund executive director Charles Brownstein, who lives off the Graham Avenue stop. “Almost.”
The heavily trafficked section of the L line was one of the last parts of the subway system to return after transit officials halted all trains as Sandy rolled in, marking the agency’s second-ever preemptive system-wide shutdown.
With the L out of commission and the G train only returning Wednesday morning, North Brooklyn straphangers spent the week crowding onto jam-packed J and M trains to reach Manhattan.
Some even walked to Queens to take the 7 train to Manhattan.
MTA officials said it took so long to restore service to the L because the storm flooded the 3,400-foot tube under the East River with 15 feet of water.
Williamsburg businesses are celebrating the L train’s return, saying they lost thousands of dollars while the line was out of commission.
“When it’s this many days in a row, it really hurts,” said Nicole Williams, co-owner of Five Stride Skate Shop on Graham Avenue.
