L (New York City Subway Service) - History

History

The L service, being a local train, was originally the LL. From 1928 to 1967, the same service was assigned the BMT number 16.

In 1924, part of the eventual 14th Street – Canarsie Line opened, called the "14th Street – Eastern District Line" (commonly the "14th Street–Eastern Line"), and carried the number 16. This was extended east, and in 1928 it was joined to the existing Canarsie Line east of Broadway Junction. Since that time, the 14th Street–Canarsie Line service has operated as it is today, except for an extension from Sixth Avenue to Eighth Avenue, which opened in 1931 to connect to the new Eighth Avenue Subway.

On November 26, 1967, with the opening of the Chrystie Street Connection, the BMT Eastern District lines were given letters; the 16 became the LL. When double letters were dropped on May 5, 1985, the LL became the L, and it still has that designation.

Before the 14th Street – Eastern and Canarsie Lines were connected, the Canarsie part of the line already had a number, 14, running from lower Manhattan via the Broadway Elevated and called the Canarsie Line. When the 14th Street – Eastern Line was connected in 1928, this was renamed to the Broadway (Brooklyn) Line, but continued to operate to Canarsie. In 1967, the 14 Canarsie service was given the label JJ (though the 14 itself was designated KK, continuing east from Broadway Junction towards Jamaica). Canarsie service to lower Manhattan was discontinued in 1968.

Annual ridership for the L service:
1994 . . . 16,968,025
1996 . . . 18,107,243
1998 . . . 21,196,693
2000 . . . 26,155,806
2005 . . . 30,452,319

Time between scheduled trains:

Morning and evening rush hours: 4 mins.

Midday: 6-8 mins.

Overnight: 20-25 mins.

Five busiest stations in 2005:

• (1) First Avenue, Manhattan
• (2) Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
• (3) Canarsie – Rockaway Parkway, Canarsie, Brooklyn
• (4) DeKalb Avenue, Bushwick, Brooklyn
• (5) Graham Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Ridership on the L train has increased dramatically since 2000. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's $443 million fleet of subway cars on the L service was introduced in 2002, but by 2006 was already too small to handle growing ridership. The Transit Authority had projected that 212 Kawasaki-made R143 subway cars would be enough to accommodate ridership demands for years to come, but ridership has risen higher than expected.

The Canarsie Line tracks have been undergoing an extensive retrofit over to CBTC, a system that will transfer control of the trains to a computer on board, as opposed to the current system, where the trains are manually operated by a human operator. This is set to be completed in April 2012. While the retrofit has resulted in nearly two years of service changes and station closings, this system will eventually allow trains to run closer together, and enable in-station displays to note the exact time until the next train arrives. The line also used OPTO (one person train operation) beginning in June 2005, but a combination of public outcry due to perceived safety issues, which increased after the July 2005 London tube bombings, heavy lobbying by the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), as well as an arbitration ruling that MTA had breached its contract with TWU caused the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to end OPTO the following September.

In addition, the MTA's successful implementation of train-arrival message boards on the L train have also been the first in the system.