When the MTA called off all weekend work on February 5, the agency knew it was taking a gamble. Snow was in the forecast, but chances of a big storm coming our way were small. With service changes impacting nearly every subway line that weekend, the authority knew it would have to scramble to finish the completed work, and when the weather was milder than expected, the agency had seemingly lost its gamble.
During the past weekend, subway-bound New Yorkers saw firsthand how the decision to cancel work could impact service a few days later. The G train, for instance, was out of commission from 10:30 p.m. on Friday night until 5 a.m. this morning, a span of 77.5 hours. During most three-day weekends when service on Monday runs on a weekend schedule, the crews are called off the job on the holiday, but this past weekend, nearly every change stretched through Monday to make up for lost time.
Still, it wasn’t enough for the MTA to complete the work they needed to complete, and late yesterday afternoon, Transit announced some changes to the IND routing this week. This change was originally supposed to go into effect last week, but with the actual snowstorm, it was postponed until now. Here’s what’s happening:
As part of the signal modernization project near Chambers St., the uptown C and D trains will switch routes north of 59th St. The uptown C will run express along the A tracks from Canal St. to 145th St.; the uptown D train will run local under Central Park West from 59th St. to 145th St.; and the E will continue to make all local stops from its World Trade Center terminal to 50th St. along 8th Ave.
Transit straight-railing the switch north of Canal St., and so during this week, C trains cannot make the move from the tracks out of Brooklyn onto the local tracks under 8th Ave. Transit apologized for the late notification of this service change, and I’m sure more than few riders were in for a surprise this morning.
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I mean to comment that I was pleasantly surprised how well the subway system functioned during the (admittedly overhyped) blizzard. It seems the MTA can handle adverse weather as long as the organization is not taken by surprise and prepares for it.
Compared to all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth in DC, MTA does pretty well with what is admittedly a mammoth task. I still don’t understand how they keep the Franklin Avenue shuttle open – I looked at that at the beginning of the winter (my best friend lives along the shuttle route) and promptly said “um, this is going to be the first line to be shut down in a blizzard, there’s no place to put the snow that will accumulate between Park Pl. and Botanic Garden.” (For those who aren’t familiar with the line, between Prospect Park and Park Pl. is a lengthy underpass backing up against apartment buildings and heavy vegetation.) During the worst storm they did eventually kill it for an hour or so during the overnight hours, but somehow they kept it running through most of it.
Travel woes? It’s a small service change. Some people will have to make an extra transfer. As long as conductors are making good announcements, this isn’t a big deal.
Three-day weekends often host three-day GO’s. That had nothing to do with weather predictions.
This particular service change was supposed to be in effect last week rather than this week. The interlocking was supposed to be taken out of service the weekend of February 6 and 7 with the new signal system cut over this past weekend. But when GO’s were canceled due to the non-snow on February 6 and 7, both pieces of this job were pushed off one week.
[…] headline, it seems as though some Transit riders are being stymied by the MTA’s last-minute IND midweek service changes. When the snows came last week, Transit had to postpone a major service change along the Central […]