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Increased Rush Hour Service Planned For L Subway Line When the Metropolitan Transit Authority unveiled its 2007 budget and four-year financial plan last week, it included such items as face-lifts for dozens of subway stations, the installation of scores of scratch-free windows and an increase in the frequency of trains on the L line during rush hour. The MTA also announced - to the delight of many straphangers - that next year's anticipated fare increase would be postponed, at least, until 2008. A New York City Transit spokes-person told the Courier last Thursday that it could not project when the L subway line would see the increase in trains along the 14-mile route. The TA previously reported that L line ridership had gone from almost 17 million in 1994 to over 30 million in 2005, faster than expected due to population surges in Williams-burg and Greenpoint, resulting in regularly overcrowded subway cars during the morning and evening rush hours. When the TA added 212 new R-143 subway cars, which cost ap-proximately $1.5 million apiece, to the L line fleet a few years ago, it figured that would be sufficient to accommodate projected rider capacity. The five busiest stations - all but one are in Brooklyn - along the L line last year were: 1) First Avenue in Manhattan; 2) Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg; 3) Rockaway Parkway; 4) DeKalb Avenue and 5) Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. The 14th Street-Canarsie line ope-rates between Rockaway Parkway in Brooklyn and Eighth Avenue and West 14th Street in Manhattan and has been in service on its current route since 1931. The fare increase delay, according to the MTA, is due to the windfall from the recent sale of Stuy-vesant Town and Peter Cooper Vil-lage in Manhattan that shored up its budget for 2007.
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