Subways are for sleeping: NYC Transit survival thread

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What if all our infrastructure work costing 1000% of the international average wasn't only due to incompetence but was also part of an organized scheme of corruption and kickbacks? I mean, hypothetically https://t.co/Xt2HzTZlzb

— Michael T Sweeney (@mtsw) July 18, 2018

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Cuomo now touting the MTA's experimentation with facial recognition technology at bridges and tunnels, and then adds: "They're now experimenting with technology that just identifies a person by the ear, believe it or not" cc @Steph_Beasley

— Dana Rubinstein (@danarubinstein) July 20, 2018

seems right https://t.co/SEhBpvbVZu

— alex pareene (@pareene) July 23, 2018

i keep saying this, but people, including our leaders in government, literally do not understand that the subways carry more people than the bridges do. they do not understand the numbers https://t.co/Y5ameZXrJb

— Michael T Sweeney (@mtsw) July 24, 2018

i know the metro card readers are shitty and temperamental but peoples' behavior with them is so often mindboggling

you cannot whip the card through as fast as humanly possible (it will even tell you to slow down!)
you cannot move the card one millimeter per second
you don't have to wait 10 seconds after the person in front of you has gone through
show some common fucking sense

My chief problem is the card always gets a crease or pimple in the stripe, often making 5-10 swipes necessary.

Need the contact style very badly, betting on 2025.

I used the same 12 month metro card for an entire year with no noticeable deterioration whatsoever so tbh I don’t even know how one ends up creased or damaged.

And everyone knows you put them through at walking pace right?

I just have bad pockets, apparently.

And what's strange is some readers have no problem, one swipe and that's it.

And excuse me, now I am at 59th Street and this blue wall is literally blocking the N express line. Yet utterly no explaination why? There is not even basic signage. WTF is this? How can anyone plan their trip “accordingly” with a literal wall like that just being there?!? @NY1 pic.twitter.com/5kt1GW6S0k

— Jack Szwergold (@JackSzwergold) July 30, 2018

Here’s what went wrong on the D, N, and R lines this morning and the actions we’ve taken to drastically cut delays moving forward. pic.twitter.com/T76PRNDddb

— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) July 30, 2018

xp but when I'm in a rush I am too frazzled and terrified of being fired to painstakingly measure the exact speed of swiping a metrocard, sorry

comments like this are why the subway is among the single most anxiety-inducing things in my life, to the point of having actual anxiety attacks on the train on a regular basis. for another example, I have a very poor sense of balance and the rapid jerking of the subway often causes me to fall, as in literally get knocked off my feet, especially if I'm carrying bags or groceries, which is virtually all the time (my laptop bag alone is heavy and bulky, since it has a laptop in it on top of all my other stuff.). but people yell at you if you "hug the pole." they also yell at you, of course, if you fall. there is no way to win

i feel u on the balance issue. the old C trains actively hurt my knee if i'm positioned incorrectly

i was not suggesting that you painstakingly measure the exact speed of swiping; i was noting that experience teaches *nearly* all of us that super-fast or wicked-slow will not work. there are also other reasons why a card won't work -- i guess morbs uses his as a hanky or something

but if you stand there and repeatedly whip the card at the highest possible speed and become incensed at its failure to work -- as the dude who prompted my original post did -- then i don't know what to say

My card works smoothly on the F line, like shit at the Prince St R/W

not gonna go into my hour-plus JUST USED travails tonight with an idiot booth clerk involved

i still think trying to hide a yearlong track work project is goddamn amazing even for the MTA

http://gothamist.com/2018/07/30/surprise_subway_work_here_to_derail.php

seem to be a lot of 'emergency brakes activating' lately

this happened a few weeks ago to a train i was on when it was about halfway into the station. we sat there for 10 or 15 minutes before someone finally went around and unlocked one door on each car by hand. which would not have been comforting in a real emergency

What a commute I had this morning

Excited for flooding content

seem to be a lot of 'emergency brakes activating' lately

I've been noticing this too! Did somebody turn up the sensitivity on whatever activates them systemwide?

my (exhausted, overheated) hunch that the A/C is out on the 1 more than other lines turns out to be correct

http://gothamist.com/2018/06/15/hottest_subway_guide_2018.php

Just experienced what seemed to be an unnecessary emergency brake activation

“Hell is other people”
No, it’s being kicked in the face by a pole dancing subway performer in a hot car while surrounded by other people

fuckin hate the 1 car with the ac off, seems to be the first car i walk into every day

http://gothamist.com/2018/08/09/clark_street_elevators_only.php

lol

L train shutting down completely between Man and Bk this weekend and also several other weekends in the coming months

I thought the shutdown was going to be total from the get-go

this isn't the actual shutdown yet right

as a n/w train rider i can't get worked up about "down between Manhattan and whatever borough I live in for the weekend"

(it *is* absolute horseshit for ppl who work on weekends)

Bent or deteriorated cards, you can get them replaced at the booth? I had some expired cards with money still on them and the booth attendant moved all the money to a new card.

they sometimes can and sometimes can't - if their thingy can't confirm the amount on the card you get stuck with the sad "mail this in to request a refund" envelope/form.

D trains are stopping along the N line between 36 St (Bklyn) and Stilwell Av in both directions.
There is no R train service between 36 St (Bklyn) and Bay Ridge-95 St in both directions.
These service changes and delays are because of Con Edison loss of power in Brooklyn.

— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) August 10, 2018

btw the last time an extremely unhelpful clerk gave me one of those envelopes, i literally said to her "I don't do that shit."

i don't live on the L, thank god, but it's absolutely absurd that they won't dedicate a bus lane on the w'burg bridge during the shutdown

with any luck these weekend previews will help demonstrate that before the shit truly hits the fan

I have to start work on Monday (just for a couple of months while in town) and I couldn't sleep last night because of anxiety about having to take the train again during rush hours.

Lol day 3 of a new job for me and I guess one non-hellish commute out of three is not bad these days?

Hi @MTA last night I was on an A train stalled under the river for 90 mins (eventually we all had to walk to the front car to hop onto the high st platform) and now I’ve spent 50 mins on a C train that became an F train and is now a D train.

But congrats on the new app pic.twitter.com/bpCcvujrHq

— Kengo Tsutusmi (@kengos) August 8, 2018

Add this to the list of NYC infrastructure failures getting worse with climate change:

The down 4/5/6 platform at Union Square hit 104° F, making it the hottest temperature recorded in the subway. Other similarly busy stations were close behind.https://t.co/ODh21Grffo pic.twitter.com/1EegUkBLy7

— Alexander Kaufman (@AlexCKaufman) August 13, 2018

when I was in Chicago the other day they had an enormous fuck-off industrial fan on the O'Hare platform, and while all these platforms are so crowded I don't know where the MTA would put one, it sure seemed like an amazing idea

meanwhile

nyc subway about to risk it all pic.twitter.com/eBeUOp5pPQ

— angy mobley (@andymoney69) August 13, 2018

Southbound N trains are running on the D line from 36 St to Coney Island Stillwell Av while the NYPD safely retrieve goats from the tracks. pic.twitter.com/oDy0KVk6PL

— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) August 20, 2018

nice Monday

http://gothamist.com/2018/08/27/b_q_n_r_j_z_trains_bad_sad.php

my commute involves three trains and improbably ALL THREE OF THEM lacked air-conditioning

vote Nixon

http://gothamist.com/2018/09/07/subway_mta_forget_it.php

Moving trains a full avenue block away from most of the subway lines while keeping MSG in its current place so that we can have a nice headhouse is NYC's approach to transit in the 21st Century in a nutshell. https://t.co/4YgTKMBPak

— Second Ave. Sagas (@2AvSagas) September 6, 2018

xp -- regardless of one's thoughts on nixon vs. cuomo the air conditioning issue is something neither of them can fix, because it's an issue with cars specific to the 1 and 6 lines, and those cars don't get replaced for about six years (it presumably takes a while to get a replacement of train cars, and they can't pull from lines that run different kinds of cars)

wait, i thought all A-division stock was interchangeable... what would be specific about the 1 and 6? versus the 2, 3, 4, and 5?

but anyway though, cuomo has been governor for eight years - he could have said day one "i am going to build on the recent turnaround in the subway system and prioritize catching up on maintenance and replacing old rolling stock." he didn't. or more recently he could have looked at byford's report-back and said "yup, this is the visionary thinking we need to kick the system into the twenty-first century - we need to fund this urgently, top priority" - he didn't. so at least nixon, by virtue of not being cuomo, hasn't already demonstrated that she doesn't give a shit about teeing up medium- and long-term investments which would include replacement cars.