MTA Thinks Already Terrible Commutes Will Mask New Cuts

Photo taken by Unlisted Sightings on flickr

Starting Sunday, New Yorkers are getting a couple more minutes tacked onto their weekend commute. The MTA is extending stretches between trains to ten minutes from the current eight-minute window that currently exists on most lettered lines. But according an internal memo from NYC Transit President Howard Roberts, straphangers probably won't notice too much—he said they're already used to the longer waits because of the weekend construction they already put up with. And why exactly are service cuts still coming since we thought they were taken care of with the MTA bailout passed by the (once semi-functional) state legislature? Well, it turns out that all the feet dragging that led to the eleventh-hour bailout may be to blame since MTA officials say transit workers had already locked in their summer schedules under the original proposal. Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign told the News, "Instead of aiming to improve things, transit officials want to make it official that weekend service stinks!"

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By Billy Parker in News on June 24, 2009 6:15 PM

Comments [rss]

r1b2

Hopefully they can apply any savings towards bailing out Atlantic Yards.

azzh01

This city owes it prosperity to the transit system. We should continue to make it better, not worse. Imagine a 10-minute subway ride from South Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan. Better transit is the city's future, and it kills me how nobody gives a shit.

Matt Joyce

I've been saying it for years and I still believe it. We need to take the management of the MTA, and publicly execute them. It will serve as a sign to the rest of our city that corruption, gross incompetence, and repeated failure will not be tolerated. Hell might even scare our state senate into doing something useful for once.

KiljoyWasHere

I like it when you get down to the platform and there is one half ripped sign saying that the train you want isn't going downtown. Go uptown a stop and then catch the downtown train. It's an adventure!

valeriob

Right. Like gouging out my eyeballs makes finding matching socks an adventure.

JMH

Gene Russianoff crossed the line from "useful advocate" to "media whore" years ago.

aspiringrapper

I've been on 4 different trains over weekends in the last month & each one has been re-routed. Barely any signage or assistance was provided. These people are disgusting.

BKBoy

I hate the MTA as much as the next guy, but I make sure I check mta.info before i leave on weekends - no excuse for not knowing or being surprised by what's going on on your line...

The Colonel

Whitecastlerock is totally right. I live uptown by the A train and it is always a mess on the weekends, so I usually check the site before heading out, but they rarely have any mention of the constant changes to service uptown.

The Colonel

That was supposed to be for the previous thread...

whitecastlerock

that site is not always accurate. It is a crapshoot anytime you walk downinto those filthy caverns, hoping for a train to arrive...

harrisgraber

Weekends have been a horror on the N train. I've waited as long as 35 minutes for a train and I didn't just miss one, either.

There is much housing development in Astoria now. How are these people going to get anywhere? They won't fit on the platforms. Yes, there are that many new houses in progress and a highrise planned for Hallet's Cove. Brilliant planning: increase population, cut services. Thanks, Bloomie!

Brooklynbobby

I'm surprised you can get an N train on the weekend at all. I live on the other end of the line in Brooklyn and it rarely runs both ways on the weekend and hasn't for the last 6 years I've lived there.