that they had a better chance of getting a seat on the train. By May 2002, ridership started picking up on the V, and crowding on the E was reduced from 115% of capacity during rush hours to 96%. Not all riders were happy. Columnist Kennedy sought out and interviewed some who were not happy with the V's debut: On January 23, 2005, a fire destroyed the signal room of Chambers Street on the IND Eighth Avenue Line. V service was temporarily extended to Euclid Avenue until service was restored on February 2. Merger of V and M trains In late 2009, the MTA confronted a financial crisis, and many of the same service cuts threatened just months earlier during a previous budget crisis were revisited. One of the proposals included completely phasing out service and using the V as its replacement. Under this proposal, the V would no longer serve its southern terminus at Lower East Side–Second Avenue. Instead, after leaving Broadway–Lafayette Street, it would use the Chrystie Street Connection, a then-unused track connection between the BMT Nassau Street Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line, and stop at Essex Street in Manhattan before serving all M stations to Metropolitan Avenue in Queens. The MTA determined that this move, while still a service cut, would actually benefit M riders, as approximately 17,000 of them traveled to its stations in Lower Manhattan, whereas 22,000 transferred to other lines to reach destinations in Midtown Manhattan. Additionally, this merger would open up new travel options for northern Brooklyn and Queens riders, in that it would allow direct and more convenient access to areas that were not served by those routes before such as Midtown Manhattan. On March 19, 2010, it was decided that the new service pattern would retain the M designation instead, which would now be designated with an orange symbol representing an IND Sixth Avenue Line train, while the V designation will be discontinued. Many MTA board members had opposed the elimination of the M designation, saying that riders would be more comfortable with an M designation rather than a V designation, and because the M has been around longer than the V. The V ceased operation on Friday, June 25, 2010, with the last train bound for Forest Hills–71st Avenue leaving Lower East Side–Second Avenue at 11:33 p.m. Official M service via the Chrystie Street Connection began on Monday,