MTA will boost service on 7 subway lines during L train shutdown

The agency is planning for an additional 1,000 roundtrips every week during the shutdown

In efforts to mitigate the impact of the forthcoming L train shutdown, the MTA has announcement plans to boost subway service by more than 1,000 additional roundtrips every week, across seven subway lines, during the 15-month period.

The agency will roll out an extra 198 roundtrips each weekday and an additional 94 weekend roundtrips, "pushing fleet, signal and track capacity to existing limits where feasible," says New York City Transit. The G line will bear much of the brunt of those additional trips and is expected to pump out an additional 66 roundtrips during the week and an extra 24 on weekends. The M train will also be carrying a heavy load, with an additional 62 roundtrips on weekdays and extended overnight service. Other lines that will run additional trips include the A, E, F, J, R, and the Z. The R line will see a decrease in its number of weekday roundtrips to make way for an increase in M train service.

"We will be adding more than a thousand roundtrips each week and pushing our resources to capacity, which is also why you're seeing so much preventative maintenance and repair work on all these lines already–-we are making these lines as reliable as possible for these new service levels starting in 2019," said NYCT president Andy Byford.

While the idea of additional roundtrips on several different subway lines sounds like the logical thing to do, one might wonder if the aging, delay-plagued system can take on an even heavier work load. The reality is, it probably can't.

• Is the NYC subway ready for the L train shutdown? [Curbed]