Roosevelt Island service will go to a 24-hour shuttle February 22, boarding for Manhattan every 20 minutes at 18, 38, and 58 minutes past the hour.  Trains will stop at 63rd and Lex, then terminate at 7th Avenue at 57th Street.  There, riders can catch trains on the N and R lines.

Island-bound shuttles will leave 57th & 7th at 6, 26, and 46 past the hour, or 63rd & Lex at 10, 30, and 50 past.

The arrangement is scheduled to last 15 months, until mid-1999, while track work is done between 21st Street, Long Island City, and the Q-line station at 57th and 6th.  The delay in the start of the shuttle service came about because prerequisite work had not been completed as planned.

This comes at a time when the Tramway is still not part of the Metrocard free transfer system, thus compounding the difficulties and increasing the costs residents will face.

In addition, the MTA has yet to implement free Metrocard rail-to-rail walking transfers.  Unless they are available by the time the cutback goes into effect, the station at 57th and 7th will be the only train-to-train transfer point for passengers who want to remain in the subway system after their shuttle trip.

The tracks in the subway tunnel between 21st Street, Queens, and both 57th and 6th and 57th and 7th, Manhattan, are being replaced some 20 years after initial installation because they haven't held up adequately.  The rails are affixed to the concrete roadbed, rather than to a buffering system of rail ties.  The tracks went largely unused between completion of construction and the late-'80's opening of the subway, and were neglected during the City's period of fiscal crisis in the '70's.  New technology is now available for affixing the track to the roadbed, so the repaired sections are expected to hold up longer than the original installation.