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The extent of the C line damage from Sunday's signal room fire at Chambers Street prompts key begins-with-c words like "Chaos," confusion, and "Calling in sick for five years!" The A is now running on the F, with the C suspended for 3-5 years. The fact that it takes the MTA 3-5 years to repair a subway line, a time period when skyscrapers can be built twice over, tells us a couple things about the subway system: Complicated and fragile. The NY Times got a transit historian to say, "It seems astonishing that a single signal room would be so central to the operation of the line that it would take five years to recover from. That's about as long as it took to build that entire line of the IND." Well, Gothamist guesses the Second Avenue Subway is just about dead in the water.
The MTA's NYC Transit president, Lawrence Reuter, helped fuel more worst-case-scenario nightmares of commuters when he said that the fire "highlighted the transit system's susceptibility to terrorism" as the area is "easily accessible, by passing through a simple swinging gate." Thanks, Reuter, thanks a lot, given that Gothamist also found out that there are many signal rooms like that along the subway's lines. The MTA doesn't really reassure us when they say, "Everything is basically destroyed in that room," either.
Some numbers from the Daily News: "The C line has 110,000 daily riders. Add to that the 470,000 riders on the A line - which will run local between 207th and 145th Sts. - and you have nearly 600,000 people in pain." Not to mention overflow from people trying to figure out better routes for themselves.
How was your commute this morning? Gothamist had to transfer two more times than usual - and we don't even take the C!
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The Q train, and several other trains that run into Atlantic Ave. seem to be busier the last two days. That might have more to do with the snow, though.
That goodness I only rely on the E. However it shows how unpredictable things get.
Methinks that the MTA will use this as another "reason" for a fare hike. IMO, (Mind you, I'm not a transit engineer) they could do it faster if they manage the project correctly.
The A was better today than yesterday, when it went local all the way downtown and took an hour to get to 42nd st from 181st. Today it was overcrowded and only went local from 181st to 145th. I think all of us living uptown can say goodbye to weekend express service for years to come.
I can't believe it will take longer to recover from this fire than it did to recover from 9/11?? And speaking of terrorists, is it this easy to cripple our subway system? A fucking guy with a cart full of wood is able to wander around wherever he chooses? God help us if someone really wanted to shut down the subway. So much for being on high alert and homeland security.
The MTA management needs to get thrown out on their asses. What have the fair hikes been paying for? Why have their been no infrastructure upgrades? Why was a room so central to the subway not even fireproofed? We pay more and more and get less and less, while the MTA focuses on non-issues such as photography bans. Assholes, all of them.
This is an amazing black eye for the city. This one incident shows a shocking and extremely dangerous lack of investment in 1) housing for the homeless (wow, we let them stay in the stations when it's freezing!) 2) the fire dept (it's nothing, just another subway fire) and 3) transportation. Did you catch that line in the NYT about how they've only spent $ on basic maintenance SINCE 1982!I only hope this is the kind of scandal that leads to real changes.
This whole situation is absolutely horrendous, disgusting, and provides all the more reason MTA management should be strung up by their own intestines.
I wonder how much maintenance the MTA management's record bonuses would have paid for? Maybe if we had invested that money back in the subway system itself (rather than its filthy, corrupt, unaccountable overlords) a single person wouldn't have been able to cause as much disruption on the subway system as the 9/11 attacks without even trying.
For once I'm glad I take the 4/5 trains to and from work. Although Jen is right: I'm sure the Second Avenue Subway has just been postponed indefinitely. Maybe when it gets warmer outside I'll start riding my bike to work.
What are the salaries in the top echelons of MTA management? Where can we find out?
As for riding your bike to work, good luck! NYC is still a very bike-unfriendly town (few observed bike lanes, nowhere secure to leave your bike and almost nothing to even lock it to.) The city would go a long way toward reducing traffic if more people could ride bikes...or take the C train, for that matter.
Good to know that on top of everything else, they haven't even caught the guy who did it.
*sigh*
In a post 9/11 world, letting homeless people sleep in subway tunnels because it's cold outside makes about as much sense as letting airplane passengers sit in the cockpit just because they need more legroom.
Of course we need to do more for homeless people, especially during freezing winter nights, but allowing open access to the subway system - the backbone of the city's economic and cultural life - is ridiculous. So a terrorist could breeze past a police man and into a subway tunnel just because it's cold? What kind of security genius is allowing this policy?
Time to move out of Brooklyn.
I wonder if the worst case scenarios are really intended to jack up cost estimates?
Will this be a fatal blow to Bloomburg's "NYC 2012" Olympic ambitions?
Personally, I think that it will be!
Good point, Teecie. Paris is watching!
Let's see Mayor Balls come out and call for some heads to roll at the MTA, put some people on the spot (like Kalikow and Reuter and the Gov), and stand up for something, now that it involves something he cares about.
Well Homeless Guy must have paid his fare. Wouldn't he have had to have someone open the gate to get the cart in? (Lifting over the turnstile would be awkward, no?) I'm just wondering. No security cameras caught even a glimpse of this guy anywhere or anything? And we can't even get Lenny Briscoe on the case anymore.
Insert indignant, knee-jerk remark here.
As much as blame needs to be spread far and wide on this debacle, I think we can cut the FDNY some slack on their response. I read that there was a delay in putting out the fire, but only because they wanted to be sure that power was cut off before they entered and started spraying water around a room full of electrical equipment. I hardly think that's too much to ask. They're NY's Bravest, not Stupidest.
"Insert joke here": time for a moritorium on that, Tydirium!
My commute has been absolutely awful. I normally take the F, already one of the most crowded, overused lines...people who normally take the C had to also take the F today and it was packed to the gills. I can't take it. Although yesterday I took the 2/3 home and it was so crowded, one guy got sick and threw up - poor guy. He was able to open the door between cars and throw up there and then he even apologized to all the passengers in the car. Of course someone took his seat while he was ill and then no one offered him a seat after! (I was standing so I had no seat to offer). Unbelievable.
A comment on subway security:
I remember emailing the MTA over a year ago about this and hearing it would be fixed, but nothing's been done --
On the uptown N/R track at 34th street, uptown-most direction of the track where the front car ends up when trains come in, there's a garbage room bound together loosely by some rusty chain. Rats run in and out of there all the time and within the last month I've seen the same homeless guy go *into* the garbage room and then back out again, as naturally as you please.
So it doesn't surprise me someone could gain that sort of access somewhere else, be it a homeless guy accidentally setting fires or a terrorist plotting something worse on purpose.
Re: F overcrowding
If/when the C is back to normal, I seriously hope that the MTA will keep the Bklyn V permanent. It would help reduce the congestion along the 6th Ave local and at Jay St.
I don't know, have the V terminate Smith-9th like the G? Rehabilitate the unused platforms at Hoyt or Bergen? I don't know which is the most feasible, but anything would be better than the status quo.
Whenever my husband and I see an MTA official talking on TV about how much they hate raising the fares, etc. etc., we mute the sound and fill in what they're really saying: "Since I need a new Mercedes, another Tuscan villa and some new Armani suits, regrettably, we have to raise the fares and make few repairs to the dilapidated system. It hurts me, too!"
This is the MTA's own damned fault. When they were refurbishing the electrical systems of the various lines in the 80s and early 90s, they had the option of using digital switching but instead opted to remain with old-style analog switches. So instead of being able to run a whole subway line off a handful of servers, they need a huge number of control surfaces, automation and - you're not going to believe this - one wire per switch. That's right - a cable has to be run all the way from the control room to the switch, for each and every switch - miles and miles in many cases. (Think of how much it costs to have an electrician come in and install a new outlet, and you'll begin to get some idea of how expensive this is to build and maintain.) If you've ever wondered what all that steel-clad electrical wiring is on the walls of the tunnels, that's what it is.
I would not be surprised if there was a record of the general contractor recommending digital switching at the time, say mid-late 1980s.
The operation of a subway system is basically an IT operations problem - but the MTA 's approach has been to slap a computerized face on a 100-year-old electrical switching system. My best guess is that it ought to scrap the old electrical infrastructure, install a wide area network and a digital switch interface this time around. With each switch just an address on the network, its position could be changed or verified instantaneously, and there'd be no huge single point of failure risk. Assign a network address to each switch, back up the system once a week and this would never happen again. The man-hours involved in building this would be a small fraction of what the MTA is talking about.
I'm hardly an expert on this, but there are experts aplenty around. Some enterprising reporter should get on this, ASAP, to prevent the MTA from rebuilding its Frankenstein monster.
This definitely needs some intervention from the mayor. Let's see if this time Bloomberg actually does something about it. In the past he's complained about the MTA yet has done NOTHING to fix anything, ever.
How long did it take for the NYSE to come back on line after 9/11? For that matter, how long did it take for the MTA to get it together? You cannot say that it will take FIVE YEARS to fix that signal booth without getting we cynics all cynical. Crooks.
Sterling: I was just thinking that -- TrainCP/IP. Internet was partly designed to survive war, to route around damage... it's time these "new" networking principles made their way into our transportation systems.
It is crazy that it will take years to fix this. I agree, it sounds like padding to me as well.
Now, all you people bitching about the fare hikes and management...the money is REALLY going to pay for pensions and crazy no-co-pay health insurance. So, the system does suck, but there is plenty of blame for the Union here too.
they could rebuild the line with a new tunnel in 5 years.
watch out on this...3 of the 4 plans considered to bring the LIRR into downtown (part of the 9/11 revitalization) include taking a subway tunnel away from NYC and giving to the LIRR. They have always pushed the A/C tunnel idea hardest.
This would be a too-perfect excuse.
http://www.lowermanhattan.info/news/study_of_four_lower_47023.asp
Digital switching will solve nothing vis a vis wiring issues. So each switch is just "a node on the network" -- great, you still have to get the switch on the network and provide electrical power to its mechanical parts. That means, guess what: a wire. For each switch. There's no way around it. (Yes, you could run a daisy-chained wire, but that's a very bad idea, for reasons which should be immediately obvious after about 2 seconds of thought.)
oh, and: read between the lines carefully regarding the "homeless man" here. There were no witnesses, and no tapes. "A homeless man" is apparently MTA-speak for "we have no fucking clue who did this and don't want to publically entertain the idea of employee sabotage."
Wow, got all the way to the end and was saved by Dr. Memory. Homeless man= union guy on break, and the supposed shopping cart full of LUMBER= convienient building material mover.
There will be no video tape, no homeless guy, etc.
But the Post jumped right on it. In this age of compassionate conservatives, they had the gall to bleat about how homelessness is not a vicitless crime, ie. we (the home'ed) are vicitized by the dregs of our society- nice.
NY Post says the darndest things.
Because, you know, those homeless guys sleep in the subway system because they're just too lazy to look for a room share on craigslist like the rest of us.
Me, I blame this on Kerik. Just call it a hunch, but he hasn't been in the news lately so he must be up to something.
Dr. Memory - I don't think you're following. When you say "daisy chain wire" I assume you mean powering multiple switches off a single circuit. That's exactly how it ought to be done - that's how the tracks are powered. It could also be done through local junction boxes, with power run down from street level to serve one or several switches. The point is - getting the POWER there is EASY. The challenge is getting the INFORMATION there.
The reason power lines have to be strung so far currently is because the signal line is also the power line. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but I think the power is sent in pulses, so maybe one pulse puts the switch in its starting position, two pulses in its second position, and three in a third position, if it has one. It's ancient electrical engineering, from a time when the switches were literally operated manually. Today it's integrated with a computer front end, but it's still 100-year-old tech on the back end. It's absurd. The challenge is information flow, and the best way to do that is to build a network. If some homeless guy sets fire to a server closet, maybe the subway line goes down for five hours, not five years. A relay station is a $25 Linksys router.
And I know for a FACT that digital switching was suggested during the 80s electrical renovation, and rejected by the MTA. The cost of maintaining the analog system is enormous, and it got a lot higher when that derelict set the fire.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/nyregion/26subway.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=aea4e789ce2674f4&ex=1264395600&partner=rssnyt
Now it's months, not years before the A and C are functioning normally. It's a good read - talks about the antiquated signal system the MTA is using, and how most of the effort has been made to keep shit from falling apart, not improving.
node on the network idea very good, dude making fun of guy made idea, not very good.
supplying power to a node on trainCP/IP would be very easy because it is not controlled from one room. power to switches is the least of problems, every building in new york is not reliant on one wire, what makes you think those switches are. power in the train stations provided through multiple places, so node switching is maybe the best idea. Cheap and Easy. switching on the node level is also easily duplicated and not so reliant on one spot. it works for the street lights, i know its not the same but its close enough, so why not trains. at the same time they could put some digital switches from the phone companies and we can make cell calls in the subways and subway tycoons make an extra buck while repairing. ambitious? maybe.
its just a question on how much the subway wants to spend at once, fat wallets make for a comfortable seat especially because they have one in each back pocket. and im certain they wouldnt be able to see the screen in the movie theaters without the extra inches.
if it were up to me and i were the mta i would take this oppertunity to make some real changes and used that as an escuse for a fair hike (i can be crooked too). but at least trains would be running faster (good bye service cuts). also the chances of a master hacker homeless man screwing up the system is very slim and if it does happen, that would make for a very funny post.