Pokey. Inconvenient. Ghost train.

Subway riders and commuter groups hurled these and other complaints at the V line as they came together this morning to demand that it be re-routed.

Members of the Straphangers Campaign and Queens Civil Congress handed out more than 10,000 leaflets at the 53rd Street-Lexington Avenue subway station asking passengers to contact Gov. George Pataki and let him know they are unhappy with the new routing system meant to relieve crowding on the E and F lines in Queens.

“The V line is unpopular. Transit officials are offering Queens riders poor choices,” said Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the Straphangers Campaign. “The V line was intended to relieve crowding. But it didn’t.”

Russianoff said the V line takes 12 extra minutes and makes 10 more stops that other trains traveling from Forest Hills to the East Side of Manhattan. As a result, commuters would rather crowd onto the E line.

“Riders are either stuck with a crowded train, a pokey train or a train that doesn’t go where you want to go,” said Russianoff.

The V trains are operating at 49 percent capacity during peak hours, according to March figures from New York City Transit. While officials say ridership has increased 30 percent since the line began operations last year, commuters question the line’s viability.

“The V train is not really a productive train,” said commuter Harris Kinloch of Springfield Gardens. “You get a seat, but I’d rather get to work faster than get a seat.”

Russianoff proposed that New York City Transit officials flip the V and F line routes, sending F trains back to the 53rd Street-Lexington Avenue station and V trains to the 63rd Street-Lexington Avenue station.

Nothing would make Wendy Constant of Hempstead happier.

“I can’t stand it (the V line),” said the commuter who gets a ride the 179th Street station on Hillside Avenue. “Before, I used to take the F straight to Lexington, but now sometimes I have to transfer 3-4 times to get where I’m going."

Commuters on the revamped G line also voiced complaints.

“I used to take the G train all the way to Brooklyn,” said Tom Pettersen, a teacher at Bishop Loughlin Memorial School who lives in Jackson Heights. “Now it’s a real mess at 23rd and Ely. It’s complicated and crowded.”

Pettersen said adding cars back to the shortened G line or changing the route so it once again stops at Queens Plaza would help.

“I just want it to go back to the way it was,” he said.

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