Southbound 1 Trains Are Bypassing 125th Street Until December 18 — Here Is the Way Around It
Harlem's elevated station is getting its platform and steel repaired, and downtown 1 trains are not stopping there for it: on weekdays the fix is one stop too far, on weekends it is an express run to 96th Street.
Downtown riders who use 125th Street have a new muscle memory to learn. Southbound 1 trains are bypassing the elevated 125 St station while the MTA repairs its platform and structural steel — work the agency says is separate from the accessibility improvements planned for the station later. The current phase began October 24 and is scheduled to run through December 18, and the northbound platform stays open throughout it: this is a one-direction problem, and the way around it depends on the day of the week.
On weekdays, the bypass is surgical. Southbound trains skip only 125 St and continue to make every other scheduled stop, including 116 St-Columbia University. A rider bound for 125th Street simply rides one stop too far, to 116th, and reverses direction inside fare control — no second fare, no trip outside. Uptown riders are unaffected: the northbound platform at 125 St remains open.
Weekends are the harder version. Southbound 1 trains run express between 137 St-City College and 96 St, bypassing 125 St and several other stations with it, so the reverse-direction fix moves south with the express: weekend riders for the skipped stations change direction at 96th Street instead. Anyone whose station is on the skipped stretch should check the MTA's advisories before the trip, because the weekend pattern is the one most likely to ruin a schedule built on the weekday one.
The work does not end in December — it changes sides. After the southbound platform phase completes, rehabilitation of the northbound platform is expected to begin in mid-January and run through March 2027, with the same kind of bypass pointed the other way. Riders who learn the 116th and 96th Street reversals now will, in all likelihood, get to use the lesson again after the holidays.
