LONG WAIT OVER: Subway riders yesterday enjoy for the first time a free transfer between the uptown 6 at Bleecker and the B/D/F/M lines. (
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The MTA ended one of the most confusing — and costly — quirks in the subway system yesterday, opening the free transfer between the Bleecker Street uptown 6 station and the B/D/F/M lines at Broadway-Lafayette.
The link — part of a $127 million station restoration — means riders at the busy Village transit hub will no longer have to leave the station and pay again to transfer between the uptown 6 and the B/D/F/M.
Riders have been paying for the transfer — and shlepping above ground — since the 1940s.
“This is really convenient!” said Raymond Forbes, a South Williamsburg graphic designer who transfers from the M to the 6 on his daily commute.
“I had to buy a monthly MetroCard because I was spending a lot of money [on transfers].”
Even straphangers who don’t frequently use the station said it was worth the wait.
“Fantastic. That’s really great. I come here enough that it’s annoying,” said Elisa Zonana, a Park Slope educator who takes the F train. “If I’m going to Grand Central, it’s a total pain.”
The MTA expects about 30,000 riders a day to begin taking advantage of the new transfer.
Until yesterday, it was the only incomplete connection in the entire subway system, frustrating riders right up to the very end.
An hour before the MTA cut the ribbon to allow connections, a stomping woman came tearing onto the uptown 6 platform.
“I’m really pissed off,” said the woman, who refused to give her name. “I had to go up, down, up, down again to get here.”
The lack of a complete connection stemmed from the old days of the subway system, when it was three separate agencies — the IND, the BMT and the IRT, which later were consolidated into the MTA.
But merging the uptown 6 train at Bleecker with Broadway- Lafayette had proved difficult because the uptown Bleecker Street platform ended a block north of the downtown platform.
“It’s one system, one city, one fare,” said MTA chief Joseph Lhota. “We want to keep it that way.”
The renovation included the installation of five elevators, a new escalator and, on the reopened East Mezzanine, an LED sculpture called Hive.
Designed by artist Leo Villareal, it takes the form of a honeycomb — a nod to the station’s role as a downtown transit hub.