5 Train Ends Early Tonight Through Thursday: Service Stops Between Bowling Green and East 180th From 8:15 P.M.
Bronx and Manhattan riders on the 5 have four short nights in a row. Service on the line ends early — from 8:15 p.m. — between Bowling Green and East 180th Street tonight through Thursday, the first of this week's planned overnight cutbacks on the Lexington Avenue express.
The early endings run Monday through Thursday, November 9 to 12, and they begin before the evening rush has fully drained away: from 8:15 p.m. each night, 5 trains stop running between Bowling Green in Manhattan and East 180th Street in the Bronx. Riders along the Lexington Avenue corridor — Grand Central, 86th Street, 125th Street and the Bronx stops above it — should plan on the 4 and the 6, which share the avenue, and on longer waits wherever the 5 was the faster option.
The 5 is not tonight's only gap. The MTA's real-time feed, as read by this desk this evening, also showed no J train service between Essex Street and Broad Street in either direction, and downtown 6 trains delayed behind an earlier brake activation at 3 Av-138 St — eleven active alerts systemwide on a Monday night that was supposed to be the quiet start of the transit week.
The pattern is the MTA's familiar trade: the overnight and late-evening hours are when the railroad does the work it cannot do at rush hour, and the price is paid by the riders who travel latest — overnight-shift workers, restaurant and hospital staff, and everyone whose trip home starts after 8 p.m. Four consecutive nights of the same cutback at least has the virtue of predictability: tonight's workaround is Tuesday's, Wednesday's and Thursday's too.
Before leaving, check the live feed for your line — the 5's early ending is planned, but Monday night's other alerts were not, and the difference between the two is exactly what the feed exists to tell you.
