After more than a year of waiting, straphangers may be able to resume taking the R train between Brooklyn and Manhattan starting Monday, according to reports.
While the New York Daily News credited an anonymous transit source with the news that the Montague Tunnel that serves the train will be fully repaired two weeks ahead of schedule, the New York Times said the MTA website’s Trip Planner function gave it away.
The Trip Planner estimates that a trip from Court Street in Brooklyn Heights to Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan on Monday morning will take just around four minutes. On a recent weekday, that trip would have taken at least 22 minutes and included a transfer, the Times points out.
The tunnel has been closed since August 2013 while it undergoes repairs due to damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. John O’Grady of NYC Transit told the MTA board back in April that the work was running ahead of its scheduled October completion date.
The MTA declined to comment on the seemingly good news, however, so we suggest commuters still allow for the extra time to get to work on Monday, just in case.
