Second Ave. Sagas

At renamed stations, a confusion of old and new

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

In-station signs, but not a change to the map, announce the new name at the former Broadway/Nassau station.

When the MTA renamed the system’s 32nd most popular stop and combined it with the 286th to create the new Jay St./MetroTech station, they hosted a ceremonial ribbon-cutting replete with reporters, video cameras and local politicians. When the authority renamed a platform at the system’s tenth most busiest station, they hung up a sign. Today, as maps and announcements remain a jumble of old and new, confusion rules the day for straphangers bound for both Fulton St. in Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.

The confusion, says Theresa Juva of amNew York, came about because the MTA “stealthily renamed” the Fulton St. station. “If you are tourist and you are looking on your map for Broadway-Nassau after Chambers Street and you don’t see it — you’re going to Brooklyn,” Andrew Albert, head of the NYC Transit Riders Council and non-voting MTA Board member, said to her.

Juva attended the Riders Council meeting last week during which members bemoaned the change, and she spoke with council members and MTA officials who explained the confusion:

Riders council members fumed at a meeting Thursday that the MTA changed the station name without public notice and hasn’t changed subway maps. Council member Trudy Mason complained that the maps should have been changed before the holidays. “Tourism is one of the biggest industries in New York, and people are traveling and they don’t know where they are going,” she said…

An MTA spokesman said the agency changing the name to Fulton Street to help riders having the same name for all sections of the hub, which includes six lines. The change was made as part of the $1.4 billion Fulton Street Transit Center project, spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. “Having a single, common station name for all platforms in the complex would simplify passenger way finding and travel directions and reduce passenger confusion,” he said.

He added that new maps are being printed and conductors are clarifying for passengers.

The current map still features old station names.

The problem is one I’ve harped on quite a bit this year: It’s a customer service issue, and it’s easy to see how people could be confused. First, the map on hand in stations doesn’t have a mention of the new station names, and while conductors have been told to announce the changes, the FIND displays haven’t been updated yet. Meanwhile, the online subway map hasn’t been updated while route maps for the A, C, F and R have been changed.

If you’re trying to find your way around, the problem is just as bad. The MTA’s own Trip Planner has been updated, but a user inserting directions into the widget on the authority’s home page will be redirected to Google Maps where the station names haven’t yet been updated. Someone unfamiliar with the system looking for Nassau St. could end up on the G train at Nassau Ave. or on the A until they realize their mistake.

Ultimately, this confusion strikes at the heart of the purpose of a station name. I know where to go and what new station names are, as do most readers of Second Ave. Sagas. But for those who are in town for the first time and relying on the subway, a switch-over can be challenging. If anything, the MTA should have printed new maps before the name changes went into effect so that the maps were ready for users last week. For now, it’s a confusion of tourists.

Of course, some New Yorkers couldn’t care less what the stations are actually called. As Jason Kutch said to amNew York, “I still call it Broadway-Nassau. I was born and raised here. I know where I’m going.” Not everyone does though, and that’s the problem.

Comments

28 responses to “At renamed stations, a confusion of old and new”

  1. Marc Shepherd

    Most of the time, I think the MTA takes too much unnecessary flak. But this time, it really IS an absurdity. How hard can it be to update the Map at the same time you re-name a station?

    Reply
    1. Nathanael

      Apparently map updates are a Big Pain.

      I’m not sure why. Perhaps if a permanent map maintenance executive were on staff at the MTA, one who updated maps in response to every change and kept track of the rollout of new maps across the system, they wouldn’t be a Big Deal.

      Reply
  2. John

    My guess is the MTA just wasn’t thinking about occasional users and assumed since Broadway-Nassau had co-existed for years wtth three other stations named Fulton Street, they wouldn’t have to make a major announcement about changing the name of the complex’s bottom level platform to Fulton Street. In contrast, the Jay Street-Metrotech change involved two stations that had never been connected and one station that was losing it’s name of 80-plus years (had the name change simply involved half-renaming the A/C/F stop, it probably would have just gotten a paper flyer taped to the columns, just like B’way-Nassau did).

    Reply
    1. Marc Shepherd

      Oh, I definitely get that the Jay Street project is a much bigger deal, since it gave commuters a new connection they never had before, whereas Fulton was just a re-naming.

      But neither change is shown on the current subway map, and there’s the absurdity.

      Reply
  3. Mark L

    I commute in/out of Fulton Street (formerly Broadway-Nassau) every day on the A/C trains, and I estimate that subway conductors’ announcements are split 50/50 “Fulton Street” vs “Broadway-Nassau.” It’s gotten a bit better recently, but still nowhere near as consistent or clear as it should be, especially considering all of the tourists that go in/out of that station.

    5 years from now this will all be an afterthought (Broadway-Nassau? I hardly knew thee), but it seems like for this transition period of a few months, a lot of confusion could be averted through better planning, sequencing, and communication.

    Reply
  4. BrooklynBus

    Correct. As Ben stated, when it comes to customer service, the MTA needs much improvement. This problem is just symbolic that the MTA does not have customer service as it’s top priority which it should. Assuming some type of technical glitches for not getting the maps updated in time, the least the MTA could have done was delay the name change until after the holidays when there would be fewer tourists or until when the maps would be ready.

    This change was long overdue and should have been made 50 years ago. It was always confusing fir the IND station to have a different name when three other stations named Fulton Street are connected there.

    By the same token (or should I say Metrocard) many other stations that cause confusion to tourists also need to be renamed. For example, there shouldn’t be two stations at different ends of the system named Dekalb Avenue. If someone on the L line asks for directions to get to Dekalb Avenue, how many times have they been directed to the wrong one?

    Reply
  5. AK

    I agree that they could have communicated the change better, but changing the map is extremely expensive, both in terms of man hours and printing costs. Because of this, MTA generally tries to lump together major service changes into periodic map updates.

    Indeed, I can’t imagine that people would be calling on MTA to tear up millions of maps and repost all new maps in stations just to show that one could transfer from the uptown 6 to the 6th Avenue line. I realize the B/N to Fulton change is more significant (especially for non-New Yorkers), but you get my point.

    I’d imagine that they will wait until the Bleeker connection is complete to release a new map. The MTA could release updated maps online instantly, but I think two different maps may actually make people more confused. The short-term solution in situations like this is to make an announcement at the station (though as we know, the announcements on the A/C aren’t the most reliable).

    Reply
    1. Marc Shepherd

      Sure, changing the map is expensive, but it’s not exactly as if stations are re-named every week (or month, or year). It is actually a fairly infrequent occurrence.

      Reply
    2. John

      But they could at least change the online map!!

      Reply
    3. Benjamin Kabak

      They usually release new maps around three times per year, and as Ortiz said, they’re working on an early 2011 update right now. I’d expect we’ll see an updated map in January and another one next winter when the Bleecker St. connection is through. The changes they need to make here won’t take long in terms of man hours at all, and they have to pay the printing costs anyway at stock runs out.

      The true problem is the online map. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have been changed the day the name changes went into effect. That’s the whole point of having a dynamic online presence.

      Reply
      1. BrooklynBus

        Same thing with electronic destination signs and maps. Their whole purpose was for increased flexibility and quicker updating. For example with the temporary closing of stations on the Brighton Line as well as Whitehall Street, this is not always reflected on the on board subway maps. It is up to the conductor to make sure the temporary updates are plugged in before he begins his trip and sometimes they forget. Since these are changes that last months or even years, it seems to me that a more permanent system could be set up like making the temporary changes the default, rather than to leave it up to the conductor for every trip allowing for the possibility of human error.

        Reply
        1. Andrew

          NYCT doesn’t have control of the R160 sign system yet – it’s still under the vendor’s control. That’s why updates take so long. (That doesn’t make it excusable; I’m just explaining what’s going on.)

          Not sure what you mean by Whitehall Street.

          Conductors can manually disable any stops along a route that will be bypassed. They should be doing that on the Brighton line and at Cortlandt southbound.

          Reply
          1. Nathanael

            This is why you should *always* have open-source, in-house-hackable systems for information technology. “Vendor” proprietary systems just never keep up.

            Reply
      2. AK

        I’d be interested in seeing what the costs are– I am guessing they are significantly higher than you imagine, but perhaps not as high as I imagine 🙂

        And I’ll reiterate that changing the online map with old maps still being distributed at booths has real drawbacks. For instance, the MBTA put their new schedules online the last week of November, but continued to distribute the old paper ones at stations and it screwed up commutes for thousands of people. Now granted, the scheduling changes were more significant in that circumstance, but I can see an individual thinking that the paper copy is the official up-to-date one, particularly if they aren’t tech savvy/have access to a computer.

        Reply
        1. John

          So it’s better for them ALL to be wrong? I don’t follow.

          Reply
        2. MM

          They should print the “expiration date” of a schedule, something Metro-North and LIRR already do.

          Reply
      3. Jerrold

        I still wonder what they are going to do about the name of Broadway-Lafayette after the completion of that project.
        Last week I was saying that it might change into Broadway-Houston St., but later on it occurred to me that maybe “Houston-Lafayette St.” would be better. That way, the Bleecker #6 station could also be renamed “Houston-Lafayette St.”

        Reply
        1. John

          I would guess that due to the historical designation for the 1904 Contract 1 areas of Bleecker Street, you’ll probably only see a partial name combo for the new transfer point at best, with the No. 6 stop designated something like “Bleecker-Lafayette” on the new uptown platform section (with possible modifications on the late-1940s tiling on the downtown platform extension) while the B/D/F/M stop retains its “Broadway-Lafayette” designation.

          Reply
          1. Nathanael

            Why not just call them all Bleecker Street — it’s a more entertaining name.

            Reply
  6. BrooklynBus

    Here is another example of how the MTA is not thinking about customer service and you can’t blame this on money either. Try to fond the schedule for the nostalgia train without going to Second Avenue Sagas. It is mentioned on the MTA home page but without any link to the schedule. Then go and check press releases. The schedule still isn’t there. It is buried in a flyer somehow linked to events. It took me about ten minutes to locate it. So why isn’t the MTA thinking about the customer. That is the question.

    Reply
    1. Bolwerk

      I get the impression they don’t have a web-savvy staff. :-\

      Reply
      1. BrooklynBus

        I don’t know what you mean by web savvy. I’m sure the IT people know what they are doing technically. It’s just that common sense isn’t one of the MTA’s virtues, and although they’ve recently updated their customer service signs for temporary service changes, sometimes the MTA just forgets why they are here in the first place, to serve the customer. And I am not speaking about the operations people, but middle and upper management.

        Reply
  7. kvnbklyn

    Ben, I’m glad you’re bringing this subject up. Personally, I think the Jay Street renaming is much more of an issue since the MTA has done almost nothing to inform passengers of the new name and transfer. They could have very easily (and for little to no money) updated the online map (which still hasn’t been updated as I write this) and updated the FIND system on the F train. Instead, we got a few printed signs at Jay Street itself (but none anywhere else along the line or in the trains) and one politicians’ photo-op that was featured on their website for a few days and that’s it. The name changes should be featured on their website for at least a few months and there’s no reason why they couldn’t have also instituted both recorded and live audio reminders throughout the system that these station names had changed (preferably in place of stupid reminders to watch your backpack).

    As for changing Broadway-Nassau to Fulton, many people already think of that station as Fulton since they use it to transfer to all the other stations named Fulton, so I doubt this is going to confuse many people. A nice interim strategy would be to have signs with Broadway-Nassau in parentheses for a year until everyone is used to it.

    And as a side note, the Kickmap iphone app was updated last week with the new station names.

    Reply
  8. Al D

    Good point. Really, what’s the purpose of FIND if in fact it is really IIND. Same thing with their new ad campaign. Save some paper, printing and labor costs and use the FIND displays on the R160s instead. I mean, this is not rocket science. Why did they buy the FIND with a video monitor if they’re not going to use it anyway.

    Reply
  9. Brandon

    As far as the maps: they could save money the way BART does in the Bay Area but putting a sticker over the changed part of the map.

    The station maps in BART are usually the newest version but on trains they mostly have around 2-3 stickers over each other on the peninsula, and 1 on the east bay, to indicate the last 10 years of service changes.

    Reply
    1. AK

      They do this on in-train station signs (new stickers were added for the most recent service changes), but it gets tricky with small maps (think how small the sticker would have to be to amend the Jay Street stop on a pocket-sized map…

      But your point remains a good one in the situations where applicable (adding an R sticker to train disgrams on board A-C’s, for instance).

      Reply
  10. Scott E

    The answer is simple. When Pennsylvania renumbered all of its highway exit numbers from sequential-numbers to mileage-based numbers, they replaced the exit tab with the new one, and added another sign “Formerly Exit XX”. This way, whether someone was following the old set or the new set of directions, they could figure out where they were going. Eventually, many of those “Formerly” signs fell off, signposts were replaced, or somehow they disappeared.

    It should be simple enough to put a temporary “Formerly Broadway-Nassau” plaque beneath each new “Fulton St.” sign, so straphangers on trains with old maps don’t get confused. It buys them time, and only a finite number of signs in a station need to be updated (which are being updated anyway), rather than an infinite number of maps and fixed mindsets in circulation.

    Reply
  11. Gary Wong

    Looks like the map has been updated – both the HTML version and the PDF though the PDF still needs to have the pop-up bubble with the bus routes updated to reflect the station name change and the addition of the R to the station.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts