Another Weekend of Subway Chaos Due to Track Work on 4, 5, and 6 Lines

For the second weekend in a row, subway riders taking downtown 4, 5 and 6 line trains will face chaos as the busy Grand Central station stop is skipped from late Friday Aug. 22 until early Monday Aug. 25. It marks the second weekend in a row that the downtown commutes will be disrupted for what the MTA says is badly needed track work.

During the temporary weekend closures, MTA said its crews will perform important capital improvement projects along the Lexington lines that will combine accessibility projects, communication upgrades, under-river tunnel repairs, and work on the current comprehensive rehabilitation of the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn with concrete tie replacement between 42nd Street and 14th Street. The MTA says taking the entire Lexington Avenue Line out of service for two weekends should spare riders from service outages in the future.

Commuters heading south below Grand Central will be forced to take trains other than the 4/5/6 or else journey to the express stop at 14th St. and reverse course heading north.

The repairs including replacing subway ties under the switches between 42nd and 14th St. There will be no 4/6 trains south of Grand Central from 11:30 p.m. on Friday to 5:00 a.m. on Monday during the shut down. If you need the 5 train, it won’t be there for you in Manhattan—a truncated version will be running in the Bronx only.

Heading to the Upper East Side or the Bronx on the Lexington Avenue Line?

The 4 will be running local at those times, joining the 6 to provide more local service north of 42nd street on the East Side. The 4 will connect to the 5 train, which will be a Dyer Avenue Shuttle at East 180th Street in the Bronx.

If you are headed south anywhere between Grand Central and Crown Heights, or New Lots Avenue, the West Side 3 Train will have to be your gateway to Brooklyn.

Should you're traveling only in Manhattan, the N/Q/R will be an option, best caught at Times Square, with a ride from Grand Central on either the 7 train or the Times Square Shuttle(which will be running 24/7 over the two weekends).

The W train from Times Square will be running on Saturdays and Sundays during the day to Whitehall Street; it normally runs during the workweek only.

This work, while annoying to most riders, is important for the structural stability and functionality of the subway system, the MTA said. The seemingly minor concrete tie replacement is a preventative against leaks and corrosion in the ageing subway tunnels, which have seen more climate-related damage in recent years.

For more information, consult www.mta.info