Maybe most readers here haven’t been in the city long enough, but 25 years ago the signage was much much worse. In many places non-existant. I LIKE the subways and I once spent 20 minutes wandering around the Chambers St. IND station looking for the connection to the Park Place IRT. It was on the maps, but there was zero clues. I didn’t find it that day. Yes, I’ve found it since, and it’s well marked now.

I don’t think they started putting the station ID’s on columns until the 70s. Before that you were just supposed to know, or catch the tile sign as you pulled in.

Also, there was a time when they put exact times for the end of service on signs. But really, even on the good days, who can say the last train scheduled for 9:12 didn’t come at 9:10, or if it’s 9:15 it will be here in a minute? And is your watch in tune with thiers? It wasn’t really helping.

Any complaints should be taken in the context of how far we have come.

Unfortunately, many have also requested that D trains stop at DeKalb Avenue all weekend when the B doesn’t run; while this would be useful, it is trickier with daytime volumes of trains passing through the area. While there are switches as has been mentioned that would allow trains to operate express on 4th Avenue and then stop at DeKalb Avenue, they are very slow and located on a curve and are usually avoided for regular service (ok incidentally or in an emergency, not particularly suitable for constant use).

As for the signs, I think they only mention Pacific Street because it applies at all times so as to avoid (even more) confusion or clutter on the signs. As an aside, wouldn’t it be cool to have electronic, variable-message signs in those locations to tell you exactly what train is coming and what it’s doing, that would be changeable if a train is rerouted, etc!

They were generally installed on the reverse side of preexisting signs. The standard “Exit” sign is narrow, so in many cases there wasn’t much room to spell out words in full.

Hence the abbreviated “platform”.

I don’t see a problem with the B/D signs, but they should be supplemented with timetables posted on the columns, or at least an explicit statement of the hours of B operation, and of D local operation, at this station. Trying to cram the times onto the main sign would be confusing to anybody not traveling at a potentially ambiguous time of day.

Diverting the D to the local track at DeKalb (and then back to the express at Pacific) would make for an easier transfer, but it would also make for delays and less reliable service due to the extra merge with the R.