The best thing about this fiasco is the right to gripe with everyone and anyone in the neighborhood about the MTA.

To be honest I took the train and arrived in Manhattan 2-5 minutes behind schedule. Not a big deal.

I personally wouldn’t bother with the 68 extension as a solution, although I think it’s a good idea and should be done anyway. That bus is notoriously unreliable.

I think the bigger issue here is we all know how unreliable the F train is in general. If we were told to backtrack 2 stops knowing the trains going back – and then forward – would both be on time it would be one thing, but when the train to take you back 2 stops arrives after 10 minutes, then you wait at Church another couple, then you crawl through the tunnel you can easily tack on 20 minutes to your commute everyday until May! And since you have to plan around the worst case scenario when traveling the F it means you have to build in the worst-case no matter what because you know it will get you if you don’t.

If the F wasn’t so wildly erratic it wouldn’t matter so much, but given the reality on the ground I can understand why commuters aren’t too thrilled. If the MTA could guarantee no more than 5 minutes wait time to backtrack and no more than 5 minutes wait at church followed by a normal-speed trip through the express tunnel I don’t think there would be an issue, but something tells me that promise won’t be forthcoming.

@John:

It’s not really just a few extra minutes for everyone.

First, take into account the age population for a lot of Kensington. Elderly individuals can’t just always take a short jog to another train stop, even though I could. Along with that, you’re not just waiting a possible 5-15 minutes for one train, but instead 10-30 for TWO trains. That also doesn’t take into account the overcrowding at certain train stations that will happen as a result of this. By having larger numbers of uses enter and exit the train at fewer stops, it causes congestion which only contributes to longer delays. I think everyone’s had an experience where an F became a G during rush hour, and it is very time consuming to have a large number of people exit the train all at once, not to mention the time it takes for them all to enter an entirely new train.