Mark Foggin, who works for the New York City Health Department, is a student of transportation and a former G-train rider.

February 12, 2002

DEAR G, IT'S BEEN NEARLY two months since the new subway maps began appearing around town. I stare at the multi-colored bundle of routes along that transportation trunk of your old northern terminal, Queens Boulevard, and it's just so different now.

Sure, you're still there, on paper, albeit as a dashed, "part-time hours only" line. But even so, you're hardly to be found among the mass of orange with the new V joining the old F and sandwiching the yellow R and topping the blue E like a long piece of swirled candy.

Now commuters' eyes are drawn to the dominating orange lines that comprise the F and V. Your faint, dashed line gets lost among the Queens parks on the map.

Before the changeover, your distinctive lime-sherbet-green color created a surprisingly successful set of complementary pairs. Queens Boulevard's two expresses-the E and the F-were lumped together on New Yorkers' tongues and on the subway map. Perhaps their orange and blue reminded us of the colors of New York City's flag. (Or the Mets'.)

But then there was you, G, and your partner the R. Lime-green and yellow? It looked strange, true enough, an only-in-New-York combination, but against the black background of the signs that adorned every Queens station along your line west of Forest Hills it was a familiar lime-and- lemon blend.

And it's irreverent, too. A line with attitude. Yours is the only color unto itself. It speaks to your anachronistic nature: You, G, are the only main-line subway route not to enter Manhattan in your daily travels. Your sobriquet "G" stands for the "Brooklyn-Queens Crosstown," which was used in an earlier parlance.

But now there's hardly any Queens left in you, G. You're made to quit abruptly at Court Square, barely beyond the Brooklyn border. Yes, there's a fancy connection now to this new-fangled V at 23rd and Ely Avenues, but we can't find you out in Woodside, Jackson Heights or Elmhurst until late at night or on the weekends, if at all.

A dozen years ago, while looking for some adventure in high school, I had surreptitiously wandered with friends into the new, unused 63rd Street tunnel. We were giddy, thinking that no one else had discovered the new underground stations as we walked on our way to Queens. (Who would've thought Roosevelt Island would ever get a subway stop?)

But now I realize it was this tunnel that portended your ultimate truncation, G. The transit planners tell us that they had to cut you back before you joined Queens Boulevard during the weekdays because there simply wasn't enough space to accommodate you and the new V simultaneously. Sadly, I know they're right.

You never went to midtown where most of the folks in your old neighborhoods needed to go. Instead, you used to head toward Manhattan from Forest Hills but then duck south to places like Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Fort Greene and Carrol Gardens. The new set-up may well provide for a more rational use of the subway by all of its Queens riders heading into Manhattan. But those of us looking for a diversion are left missing you.

Alas, G, I'm afraid you're simply not for V.

Mark Foggin, who works for the New York City Health Department, is a student of transportation and a former G-train rider.

The glory days of the G train - such as they were - are behind it.

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

This article originally appeared here on the New York Newsday website.