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In today's subway news:
There's a big feature in the Metro section of the NY Times that asks "Who's Watching the Underwater Tunnels?" - the underwater subway tunnels that is. The answer is the police, but the patrols have only stepped up after the London bombings. There are 8.3 miles of underwater tunnels in the subway system (here's the fun graphic), which represent 1.15% of the subway's system. After September 11, 2001, booths were put into the stations, but between then and the London bombings, "nearly half of the tunnels have not been continuously guarded by police." The booths do have "intercoms, telephone lines and video monitors linked to closed-circuit television cameras," but the officer stationed in them have complained of "foul odors and poor air circulation" in spite of A/C and ventilations systems in them. Hello, foul odors and poor air circulation are part and parcel of being in the subways! The part of the story Gothamist liked best (or feared most) were description of how the tunnels are actually built in bedrock, so an explosion in a subway tunnel wouldn't break the tunnel, but "relieve itself up and down the tunnel."
- The MTA has allowed a church to use the subway map in its advertising for an upcoming "God on Film" program. Yes, those subway map bookmarks that people are handing out are from the Journey Church ("'casual, contemporary, Christian church' for New Yorkers"). Gothamist did take one a couple weeks ago, but then realized it wasn't strictly MTA information, so we chucked it; now we know it costs $300 for a license/lease to print up 20,000 map bookmarks. Critics are complaining that it seems like the MTA is endorsing the church, but the MTA says the maps are a public service. Hmm, it's been a while since we've seen the Scientologists in the subway...
- And this November, we'll be voting on a transit bond for $3 billion of transit projects, like the rail link between Manhattan and JFK Airport and the 2nd Avenue Subway.
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They do have a point. There are dozens of subway tunnels going from Manhattan to the outer areas. Not just that, there’s the LIRR AMTRACK + NJ Transit Tunnels they have to worry about.
But do terrorists have the engineering know how to bring down a Subway Tunnel? They tend to be qasi-fuckups sometimes.
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The best way to deal with Scientologists is to put Rat Poison on various scientology pamphlets and place them in highly congested parts of the subway. Since none of the regular commuters will pick them up, hopefully a scientologist will walk by and pick up the bait.
If you were offended by my last post, please send Hate Mail to zenmasterny@aol.com.
Thanks
If you look at the chart prepared by the Times, linked above, you'll notice that, of the four tunnels under the East River between Queens and Manhattan, one of them is somehow 2000 feet longer than the other three.
I pondered this for a minute before thinking to myself, the NRW doesn't go underwater at all! That 5489' "tunnel" is the 59th street bridge!!! Good job NYT.
(Perhaps they meant instead to mention that the LIRR tunnel at 34th St is also an MTA tunnel...)
Sorry, it is a tunnel: The 60th Street Tunnel. NRW trains do not go over the 59th St Bridge.
If the scientologists in the subway are the people offering "stress tests" at the Times Square station, I saw them a week ago. SO they're still around. Unfortunately.
I just added Daylight to my netflix queue in order to prepare myself for the eventual need to escape from a submerged tunnel.
I just got one of those God on Film maps yesterday! I used a black permanent marker to cover over the advertising.