It’s worse than a Pabst Blue Ribbon shortage!
Hipsters on both sides of the East River are heartbroken over the ongoing outage of the L line, which was damaged so extensively during Hurricane Sandy, officials have no clue when it will be completely restored.
The lack of service between Manhattan and northern Brooklyn has put a serious dent on the social scene in the artsy L train enclaves, which are packed with coffee shops, pricey dive bars, and upscale consignment shops, locals say.
“Bedford [Avenue] is pretty slow when the train’s not on,” said a glum Malori McLaughlin, a Bushwick bartender and L train regular.
The MTA has said restoring complete service on the L is one of its top priorities, but it’s unclear when it will be able to start running the trains into Manhattan again.
The L is currently operating only from Canarsie to Broadway Junction, skipping all of Bushwick and Williamsburg.
The 14th Street tunnel — which brings the L train to and from Manhattan under the East River — was severely flooded in the storm.
Signals were damaged and much of the electronics corroded from being exposed to sea water.
The MTA has started running test trains, which is usually a sign that service restoration is imminent.
But the tracks that the L runs on were severely rusted in the floods, so it could take much longer than normal to clear them.
Over 3,580 people have signed a petition asking the MTA to bring shuttle bus service to the L train route.
Northern Brooklyn residents did get a small bit of good news yesterday.
The MTA brought back limited service on the G train, which serves Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
But unlike the L, that train does not go into Manhattan.
NJ Transit — which also had serious storm-related damage — announced it would begin running a free ferry-bus route between the Meadowlands Park & Ride, Weehawken Ferry Terminal and Pier 79 at West 39th Street in Manhattan.
Only one of the agency’s four lines with direct access into Penn Station — the Northeast Corridor — was operating yesterday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of flights at area airports were canceled yesterday because of the nor’easter.
Unlike Sandy, the Port Authority did not close the airports but warned fliers of the mass cancellations.
“I should’ve have thought to call ahead but the rain didn’t seem so bad,” said flier Phoebe Lai, 24, whose 3pm flight to Sacramento from La Guardia was canceled.
“When I got here I knew right away something was fishy because there was no line!”