The NYC F/M Train Swap, Explained: What Changed and Why

Yes, the F and M trains are swapping routes through part of Manhattan in Queens.

And if the conversations I’ve had are any indication, most people are confused.

I was too. After all, here’s the MTA’s explanation.

I’m not an urban planner, but I am the type of neurodivergent that makes me obsessed with better public transit, so I wanted to give a clear, normal-person explanation of the F/M train swap.

What Exactly Is the F/M Train Swap?

Here’s the simplest way to think about it: From Queens Plaza to Rockefeller Center, the F and M trains swap places.

If it used to be an F train stop and it’s between Queens Plaza and Rockefeller Center, now it will be an M train stop, and vice versa.

New F train stops

From Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Avenue, it will run express to…

• Queens Plaza
• Court Sq-23rd St
• Lex Ave and 53rd St
• 5th Ave and 53rd St

Then it will meet up with its usual route at Rockefeller Center

New M train stops

From Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Avenue, it will run local as normal to 36th St. But then, instead of Queens Plaza, it will stop at…

• 21st St Queensbridge
• Roosevelt Island
• Lex Ave and 63rd St
• 57th St (and 6th Ave)

Then it will meet up with its usual route at Rockefeller Center.

Another way to think about it is that the M train will now go under the 63rd St tunnel and the F train will now go under the 53rd St tunnel.

Slightly more confusing, this is only on weekdays and during the day (6am-9:30pm). So on late nights and weekends, the trains follow their original routes.

All right, why the heck are they doing it?

Why the MTA Is Doing This: The Interlining Problem

This whole swap comes down to something called an interlining. This is a train nerd’s term for what is the subway’s version of an intersection.

It’s the combination of track switches and signals that lets trains safely move from one line to another without colliding or blocking each other.

At Queens Plaza, four trains in both directions have to cross through the same tracks.

By swapping the M and F trains for this portion of the route, it means fewer trains have to wait for another train to cross first. This means slightly faster service and smaller chances of delays for M, F, E, and R trains.

I’ll call it a swap. The engineers call it a “deinterlining.”

This diagram has to be the simplest way possible to understand it.

How did we get these trains crossed up in the first place?

Solving a (Good Problem) Created in 2001

Actually, before we get to 2001, we need to step back to 1989. Before 1989, there was no 63rd St tunnel. These subway stations did not exist:

• 21st St Queensbridge
• Roosevelt Island
• Lex Ave and 63rd St

In 1989, the MTA completed the 63rd St tunnel, opening these stations. But as you’ll notice in this Subway map from the 90s, it didn’t go further into Queens.

Then in 2001, the MTA connected the 63rd tunnel with a connector to Queens Plaza and the Queens Boulevard subway line.

Of course, this brought better service to Queens and Manhattan, but it created a few problems.

If you’re attentive from the map above, you’ll see the G train going to Queens Plaza. Well, the new train made the station too busy. It didn’t have enough tracks or platforms for more trains, so the G began to only stop there on nights and weekends. Today, it doesn’t stop there at all.

Benefits of the F/M Swap

Reduce Delays on the F, M, E, and R Trains

As reported in the Queens Gazette, about 15-20% of rush-hour trains on these routes are delayed at Queens Plaza. That’s terrible. It’s just embarrassing for a world-class subway system.

The F/M swap means reduced delays for four major trains across the entire city. It means your E train going to JFK is less likely to get delayed, but it also means your F train from Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn is less likely to be delayed.

Improve F Train Reliability

The F has multiple merging conflicts along its very long route, and each one introduces the chance for cascading delays. So even though the F schedules about 13 trains per hour at peak, trains come unevenly, gaps form, and passengers end up waiting longer than they should.

Reducing one of these conflicts improves the reliability of the service, in addition to just flat-out improving it.

Reduce Overcrowding on the F Train

The F train is packed at rush hour. By reducing conflicts and speeding up throughput, the swap spreads load more evenly across the F and M.

Riders going to Midtown West, like Rockefeller Center or further down, or Lower Manhattan, won’t be negatively affected. The riders in Eastern Queens, who have the worst commutes, stand to gain the most from this.

In fact, they’ll experience all of these benefits without having to change their routine.

Reduce Crowding at The Lex Ave/53rd St Station

The swap should also reduce station crowding at the Lexington Ave/53rd St station.

Right now, the E and F trains are the desirable ones for Queens-bound riders because they run express, while the M, which runs local in Queens, is emptier and less useful for people trying to get deeper into Queens.

This dynamic leads to crowding on the E/F platforms because people skip the M and wait.

By having two express services running through 53rd St (the E and the newly rerouted F), riders have more options that meaningfully take them where they’re trying to go. That spreads the demand out and helps the station function better during peak hours.

Increase Train Frequency at 53rd St

As noted in The Joint Transit Association’s video on the F/M swap, before 2001, 30 trains per hour went under the 53rd St Tunnel in each direction. After 2001, due to the traffic at the Queens Plaza merge, that dropped to 27 per hour.

By eliminating the merge created in 2001, they can increase the frequency back to 30. (If the trains get the improved signal systems the MTA is promising, this could go up even more.)

Objections to the F/M Swap

Of course, no change comes without trade-offs.

Some People Will Now Have to Transfer

If you usually take an M train and your destination is along the 63rd St tunnel, you’ll have to make a transfer that you previously didn’t. This is unavoidable whenever routes shift.

Some riders will lose a one-seat ride, but others will gain a one-seat ride. It will lengthen commutes for some people, but that’s the reality of changes to transit systems for millions of people.

Less Frequency at 63rd St

The M has less frequency than the F (10 trains per hour at peak vs. 13 for the F), which means the 63rd St tunnel will see fewer trains.

But there’s some nuance here. The F train, as mentioned above, has some of the worst variability in the system.

A scheduled 13 trains per hour doesn’t mean riders feel like they’re getting 13 trains per hour because the trains got bunched together, causing crowding and eliminating the advantage of more frequent trains.

In practice, the M’s lower scheduled frequency may produce more reliable and more evenly spaced service at 63rd St than riders get now.

Confusion Over Nights and Weekends

Since the swap only applies on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., riders will need to remember that the F and M revert to their normal routes at night and on weekends.

This is annoying and adds confusion, for sure. However, this isn’t uncommon on the NYC subway system.

For example, we all know that the A train runs express from 59th St to 125th on the west side during the day, but at night, it stops at all those local stops. New Yorkers are used to different weekend and night schedules.

Confusion In General

A lot of people are going to show up on Monday morning and have no idea why their train is suddenly going to Roosevelt Island.

Maybe you’re one of those people, and now you’re deep into an article on the history of the 63rd St Tunnel.

The MTA should be doing a better job getting the word out. I get that they’re a public agency with a limited comms budget, but this is the kind of service change where clearer, more aggressive outreach would spare riders a lot of stress.

As it stands, many people will only learn about the swap when they’re already on the platform.

A Small Win in a System That Needs Big Ones

All the transit experts are in favor of the F/M swap, and I defer to them.

It’s not flashy, and it won’t lead the evening news, but it fixes a real operational problem that’s been slowing and delaying trains for almost 25 years.

But small wins aren’t enough on their own.

If New York wants a subway that actually meets the needs of the 21st century, we need big wins too.

For Queens, that means finally building QueensLink. For the city as a whole, it means putting the congestion pricing funds to good use. It means the mayor using his powers to speed up the buses.

The F/M swap might feel small, but it’s a reminder that New York can fix things when it chooses to. Now let’s keep moving on the big things too.