MTA might close big chunks of lines on weekends to spare rider pain

Here’s one thing that government watchdogs and the MTA agree on: weekend subway work needs an overhaul.

To get more repair work done on weekends, the MTA is considering shutting down major segments of the lines being fixed instead of doing the work little-by-little.

“Do I want to just take my pain in a short dose … or be nibbled to death? It’s a question we are asking,” MTA CEO Jay Walder said Thursday.

Currently, NYC Transit reroutes trains around the repair work, whereas it’s common in London to just shut down the line entirely — leading to less confusion, Walder said. This weekend, for example, there will be service changes on 15 city subway lines.

The idea is in its infancy, and officials couldn’t provide more detail on where or when it might be tried. But the issue will become more pressing for straphangers, as the MTA is scheduled to do $4.3 billion in repairs in the next five years.

Meanwhile, both the city and state comptroller announced Thursday that they will be perform audits to find out if the weekend work is needlessly frustrating riders.

“(We) will shed light on whether ‘necessary track work’ has become an overused black hole of an excuse,” said City Comptroller John Liu.

The audits will take months to complete, officials said.