This service change precluded W local service from running as envisioned. The south tracks were closed completely for repairs from 1988 to 2001. Repairs to the bridge forced the N, which normally ran express on the Broadway Line and via the bridge, to run local via the Montague Street Tunnel starting in 1986. The Manhattan Bridge, between Manhattan and Brooklyn, contains four subway tracks: a northern pair for the IND Sixth Avenue Line and a southern pair for the BMT Broadway Line. At the time, some N trains (until 1976 designated EE) were designated with a diamond N bullet, ran local on Broadway, and traveled only between Forest Hills and Whitehall Street. This service was essentially a variant of the N route, which in the 1970s and 1980s ran express on the Broadway Line between Forest Hills–71st Avenue in Queens and Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn. The W was originally conceived as an extra Broadway Line local service running on the Astoria and Broadway lines to Whitehall Street in Manhattan. The route was later restored on November 7, 2016, using its original emblem and 2004–2010 routing, as part of the updated service pattern related to the opening of the Second Avenue Subway. It was truncated in 2004 to its current service pattern, running local on the Broadway Line to Whitehall Street until June 25, 2010, when it was eliminated due to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s financial crisis. Introduced on July 22, 2001, the W originally ran at all times on the BMT West End Line and BMT Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn to Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue across the Manhattan Bridge, running express on the Broadway Line.

The W is internally staffed and scheduled as part of the N. The W operates weekdays only except late nights between Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, Queens and Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan, making local stops along its entire route limited rush hour service is extended beyond Whitehall Street to and from 86th Street in Gravesend, Brooklyn, making local stops in Brooklyn. Its route emblem, or 'bullet', is colored yellow since it uses the BMT Broadway Line in Manhattan.

The W Broadway Local is a rapid transit service of the New York City Subway's B Division.

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