Harrison Leong via Wikimedia Commons
Some Upper West Siders will want to glance a little more carefully at their commuting schedule starting Monday.
The MTA announced this week that weekday rush-hour service adjustments on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 lines will take effect Monday, May 18. While the 4 and 5 don’t run through the Upper West Side, the 2 and 3 are central to plenty of neighborhood commutes — and both lines are being reshuffled.
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The MTA says the goal is to better align service with ridership patterns, shifting some trips earlier or later in the day, adding service during busier hours, and pulling trains from quieter ones. The agency says the adjustments are cost neutral, were approved by the MTA Board back in January, and were built on ridership and on-time performance data aimed at cutting delays for the roughly 1.2 million daily customers across all four lines.Here’s what UWS riders should know.
On the northbound 2, additional trips are being added during the 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 5 p.m. hours, with one trip removed from the 5 a.m. hour, one from the 9 a.m. hour, and two from the 6 p.m. hour. The practical effect is more frequent uptown trains during peak commuting windows and slightly longer average gaps in the early evening.
The 3 line sees changes in both directions. Northbound trips are being added during the 7 a.m., 7 p.m., and 9 p.m. hours, with trips removed from the 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. hours. Southbound 3 service gains trips in the 5 a.m., 7 a.m., 6 p.m., and 7 p.m. hours, while losing trips during the 8 a.m., 9 a.m., and 4 p.m. hours.
There’s also a late-night tweak worth flagging. Starting Monday, five southbound 2 trains running between roughly 11:15 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. will be rerouted to the local track between Times Square-42 Street and Chambers Street. According to the MTA’s staff summary on the changes, the move is meant to keep 3 trains terminating at 34 Street-Penn Station from delaying 2 trains on the downtown express track during that window.
For the complete trip-by-trip breakdown — including the 4 and 5 adjustments — the MTA’s staff summary lays out every adjustment.
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