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Red alert! No weekend 2, 3 trains in Brooklyn starting spring next year

Red alert! No weekend 2, 3 trains in Brooklyn starting spring next year
MTA

There will be no weekend 2 and 3 train service in Brooklyn for more than a year while the Metropolitan Transportation Authority repairs the line’s Hurricane Sandy-ravaged tunnel to Manhattan next year, the agency announced on Friday.

Kings County red-bullet riders won’t be stranded when the 56-weekend closure starts in June — 4 and 5 trains will hit all the local stops from Nevins Street station to New Lots Avenue and Flatbush Avenue-Brooklyn College stations, respectively.

But Clark Street station in Brooklyn Heights and Downtown’s Hoyt Street stop will be out of commission during those weekends.

And it will add roughly four-and-a half minutes to the average commute for some 205,000 weekend riders, according to the agency.

For those unfortunate Brooklynites who have to visit the far-off island of Manhattan on weekends — and the lucky Manhattanites who get to spend some time in the Borough of Kings — there will be free above-ground transfers between the 4 and 5 Bowling Green stop and the Whitehall Street-South Ferry 1, 2, and R station.

The borough-connecting underwater passageway — officially called the Clark Street Tube — is in bad shape after the 2012 super-storm battered it with some 500,000 gallons of saltwater, damaging tracks, signals, and switches, transit officials say.

After the Clarke Street tunnel, the agency will also perform similar weekend repairs to the F train’s Rutgers Street tunnel, and close the L-train’s Canarsie tube full-time for a much-dreaded 18 months of patch-ups.

Reach deputy editor Ruth Brown at rbrown@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260–8309. Follow her at twitter.com/rbbrown.