Service Advisory: We Hear Walking Is Good For You Too

Every time I come back from visiting another city that actually has their shit together (in this case, Montreal, but in general, everywhere else) I am so pissed off at "the greatest city in the world's" inability to provide reliable, frequent service on clean, modern trains. Given what we pay, it's absolutely absurd.

Montreal's Metro has 68 stations covering 40.59 miles of track, stops running at ~1am, and costs $2.75 (the US and CDN dollars are about on par right now) for a single fare. (Their monthly farecard is only $66.25, which I think we should emulate - our weekly and monthly passes don't give enough of a discount.) The NYC subway has 468 stations covering 229 miles of track, runs 24/7, and costs $2.00 for a single fare. And have you SEEN what they pay in London? Our $2.00 flat fare is a bargain.

That said, I think they should publish a new map each weekend showing which trains are running where, rather than just textual advisories.

You know, looking at it again, I guess it's really not much worse than what one normally has to deal with in the subway system. Sure, the handwriting is awful, but even with the permanent steel signs, who hasn't gotten a little lost in an unfamiliar, complex station where you're trying to transfer and you have to go up some stairs, down a tunnel, down some other stairs, across a platform, back up some stairs, through another tunnel, etc.? The permanent signs aren't all that helpful in those cases.

It's Fulton Street...what did you expect?

"still, the general point of the article stands-- weekend service changes suck, especially when it means the 2 is actually the 5, or whatever the hell was going on a few weeks ago."

Not to say it doesnt suck for the riders I'll still try to explain why the 2 and 5 switch.

When the underriver tube into Brooklyn from the West Side is under construction, the only access to Brooklyn is via the East Side.

But what if your at Christopher and want to get to Utica?

Well you get on a Southbound 2 which takes you AROUND South Ferry, into Bowling Green where you catch a 4 to Utica.

Problem - Once your a 2 in Bowling Green you MUST run on the 5 line until 149th St.

OK, so 2's are running UP the East Side, well you need some uptown express service on the West side, so send 5's around the loop and let them fill in for the 2's on 7th ave.

As annoying as it seems, its all to provide some service continuity.

Or you could just be expected to walk to Lexington Ave from Wherever you are on the westside.

ooops! fare hike!

F- for fair hike

+5 for "labyrinthine"

whoops, i'm an idiot--the post already identifies the station as fulton st...

if i had to hazard a guess, i'd guess that this sign was posted at the fulton st/broadway-nassau station. the jmz never stops at fulton st on weekends. while this is certainly frustrating as hell, it's nothing out of the ordinary. the rest of the instructions are simply directions for navigating that labyrinthine mess of a station.

still, the general point of the article stands-- weekend service changes suck, especially when it means the 2 is actually the 5, or whatever the hell was going on a few weeks ago.

Government monopolies are tha shiznit!

I'm sticking to my bike.

What is so hard to understand about that sign?

Every time I come back from visiting another city that actually has their shit together (in this case, Montreal, but in general, everywhere else) I am so pissed off at "the greatest city in the world's" inability to provide reliable, frequent service on clean, modern trains. Given what we pay, it's absolutely absurd.

Me, I'm just glad that the warm weather and all allows me to bike more and avoid the wasteful, slow, expensive fiasco that is the MTA.

I meant from the lower east side. And if I had the time to figure out I probably wouldn't have bothered anyway.

I am a stupid tourist.

This happened to me two weeks ago. I thought I could get to the upperwest side on the weekend but noooo that would be too easy. I cabbed it.

I think it's unfair to pick on booth workers for these signs, or characterize them as uneducated. To correctly compose the byzantine level of service disruptions shown above has to be even harder than understanding them.

I've seen legal documents that were less abstruse in their composition than these signs. I don't think the base-line personnel of the MTA should be the targets of customer abuse. Most of those men and women do fantastic and thankless work.

You expected better from people who could barely graduate high school?

Given that level of disruption, weekend subway trips should be free. Even more than free. They should add a dollar to the balance of riders' metrocards when swiped on Saturdays and Sundays as a sort of apology.

Well, I guess the token booth clerks are trying, right?

But on the upside, weekend service issues are built in excuse for why you're late or can't go somewhere (become a shut-in this summer!).