A stranded N train sits idle at 8th Ave. as an MTA worker attempts to dig out the station. (Photo courtesy of New York City Transit)
It’s been a rough 24 hours for the MTA. Faced with what one spokesman called the worst weather-related service impact “in recent memory,” the authority spent Monday trying to get its system up and running again. Bus sat stranded in the snow-bound streets of New York while commuter rail lines and above-ground subway routes were felled by the snow.
As Tuesday dawns and temperatures remain near the freezing mark, the MTA assures its riders that crews are working to free the subways and buses that power the city. “Our real priority now is digging everything out and getting everything in place for service,” MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder said during a press conference. “It will be a tough day. We will have limited service.”
Like much of the city, the MTA was knocked out by the sheer force of the snow. The storm dumped nearly 20 inches of snow on New York in short order, and workers found themselves unable to reach areas buried after the blizzard. Stations — such as Carroll Street along the Culver Line — remained largely inaccessible, and as snow drifted through air grates, even some underground stops saw accumulations of up to a few inches.
In a statement sent out late on Monday night, the MTA promised better service on Tuesday, but it won’t be perfect. Bus service will slowly return to something resembling normal while subway service, with some notable exceptions, will be on or close to schedule. The authority offered up more: “MTA crews are continuing round-the-clock work to restore service throughout the system as soon as possible in a manner that is safe for our customers, employees and equipment after the blizzard that dumped almost two feet of snow throughout the MTA’s service territory. Nonetheless, impacts on service will continue into tomorrow, and MTA customers should look to MTA.info before they leave for the latest specific information, and should allow extra travel time.”
As far as the subways go, the MTA had the follow to say: “The New York City Subway is operating with outages affecting a number of lines that are elevated or in open cuts, particularly in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the Rockaways in Queens. New York City Transit expects to restore service to all portions of the subway system for tomorrow morning’s rush hour except for the Q train, the A line between Euclid Av. and the Rockaways, the N line in Brooklyn, and the L line from Myrtle Av. to Canarsie. Customers should go to MTA.info for the latest service updates.”
It’s unclear when the Brighton line, the elevated A sections, the Sea Beach line and the L will reopen. Right now, crews are trying to remove snow drifts that blanket the tracks, and the trenched subway lines make removal very difficult. As long as no one else has to spend all night trapped on an A train, most New Yorkers will find travel through Manhattan sluggish but acceptable on Tuesday.
This snow storm, the region’s first of the winter, was a bad one. Hopefully, it’s not a harbinger of things to come. Our generally reliable transit network just couldn’t stomach the snow this time around, and the system should resurface later this week just in time for a fare hike. Mother Nature seems to have a funny sense of humor that way.
Stranded N trains await rescuing. (Courtesy of New York City Transit)
5 comments
So regarding the “8 hours on an A train” story, I assume they were letting people off if that was their stop or they had another way of getting home? But for the people that were still far from home, they kept them on the train because there was nowhere else for them to go?
Was the train even stuck at a station, or was it between stations?
According to the linked article, it was at a station. It even talked about letting people off the train to use the station bathroom.
But supposedly the station in question was the racetrack station. So the options are stay on the train near the warmth of others or wait in the wind and cold with snow drifts steadily flying.
That train has power, so just how stranded is it? If even one pickup shoe on one car has power, isn’t that enough to move a train, albeit awkwardly? With twenty metal arms scraping the ice and 600 volts to arc through a little water I’m quite surprised that a train can be stopped dead and can’t be pushed forward or pulled back by the next one behind it. Boston has used exactly that method to clear dead trains off a track rather than waiting forever to dispatch a diesel. Of course they will still have an hours long delay, but that will be for staff standing around looking for someone else to blame rather than the simple process of clearing the track.