With Hurricane Irene taking aim at New York City, the MTA will begin shutting down the entire bus and subway system as well as Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road at noon on Saturday, the governor and MTA officials said this afternoon. New Jersey Transit will also be shutting down its network on Saturday at noon.
Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered this MTA shutdown today after discussing it on Thursday, and it is likely that services may not be restored by the Monday morning rush. “Please do not wait for the last train,” MTA Chair and CEO Jay Walder said during a press conference this afternoon. Walder said the MTA “will be running regular service today” and will try to run extra trains tomorrow until the shutdown begins.
For the MTA and New York state, this is an unprecedented move that is designed to protect the MTA’s equipments and its employees. It will also impact evacuation plans. By halting service on Saturday, the state is effectively cutting off evacuation routes early. However, the city and MTA will be running some evacuation buses throughout the day.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would have kept the subways running longer to allow for a smoother evacuation process, but as Walder said, the authority is concerned about its flooding in its under-water tunnels, the safety and security of its rolling stock and any routes that use catenary wires.
Per a release from the authority, “MTA stations and rail terminals are not designated shelters and will be closed in the event of a service shutdown.” Clearly, all weekend work has been canceled. Sources at the authority are not optimistic that trains will be running normally once the storm passes either. Crews will have to inspect the system for damage, and any flooding will have to be cleared.
I’ll continue to update the site with news over the weekend. For now, please leave plenty of travel time, and those in the mandatory evacuation areas should leave well in advance of the MTA’s shutdown. Be safe.
After the jump, a list of the last Metro-North trains to operate tomorrow.
Hudson Line:
Northbound: The 11:45 AM train from Grand Central, due Poughkeepsie at 1:35 PM.
Northbound: The 12:20 PM train from Grand Central, due Croton-Harmon at 1:28 PM.
Southbound: The 11:40 AM train from Poughkeepsie, due Grand Central at 1:21 PM.
Southbound: The 12:00 PM train from Croton-Harmon, due Grand Central at 1:07 PM.
Harlem Line:
Northbound: The 11:48 AM train from Grand Central, due Southeast at 1:18 PM.
Northbound: The 11:55 AM train from Grand Central, due North White Plains at 12:43 PM.
Southbound: The 11:34 AM train from Southeast, due Grand Central at 12:40 PM.
Southbound: The 12:08 PM train from North White Plains, due Grand Central at 1:03 PM.
Wassaic Branch:
Northbound: The 1:21 PM train from Southeast, due Wassaic at 2:05 PM.
Southbound: The 10:26 AM train from Wassaic, due Southeast at 11:06 AM.
New Haven Line:
Eastbound: The 12:07 PM train from Grand Central, due New Haven at 1:54 PM.
Eastbound: The 12:10 PM train from Grand Central, due Stamford at 1:17 PM.
Westbound: The 12:03 PM train from Stamford, due Grand Central at 1:09 PM.
Westbound: The 11:56 AM train from New Haven, due Grand Central at 12:43 PM
Westbound: The 11:30 AM and 11:56 AM trains from New Haven will make all stops to Grand
Central.
New Canaan Branch:
Eastbound: The 12:57 PM train from Stamford, due New Canaan at 1:14 PM.
Westbound: The 12:27 PM train from New Canaan, due Stamford at 12:43 PM.
Danbury Branch:
Northbound: The 12:11 PM train from South Norwalk, due Danbury at 1:02 PM.
Southbound: The 10:43 AM train from Danbury, due South Norwalk at 11:31 AM.
Waterbury Branch:
Northbound: The 11:34 AM train from Bridgeport, due Waterbury at 12:37 PM.
Southbound: The 10:19 AM train from Waterbury, due Bridgeport at 11:12 AM.
Port Jervis Line:
Outbound: The 1:14 PM out of Penn Station/1:25 out of Hoboken due Port Jervis at 3:53 PM
Inbound: The 10:46 AM out of Port Jervis, due Hoboken at 1:19 PM and Penn Station at 1:35
PM.
Pascack Valley Line:
Outbound: The 12:20 out of Hoboken/12:14 out of Penn Station due Spring Valley at 1:37 PM.
Inbound: the 11:37 AM out of Spring Valley due Penn Station at 12:41 PM. and Hoboken at
12:28 PM.
55 comments
Welp, there goes my weekend plans. Rather stay at home than look like the cow from Twister anyway, though.
They may try to get the trains out of Coney Island to avoid having them damaged or destroyed by a storm surge. They may still face fresh water flooding in the tunnels.
There may also be an flooidng threat in the Jamaica and Flushing yards. The small yard in Rockway Park will definately be emptied.
Even with limited damage, I wouldn’t expect normal service Monday or even Tuesday.
I feel like they’re closing service a bit early. I thought they’d be able to provide service through the late afternoon before closing up shop.
Well they’re just beginning the shut down at noon. It takes 8 hours to shut it all down.
I don’t know what to say, except this sounds like a really bad idea.
No – a really bad idea was the New Orleans RTA letting the majority of their bus fleet and many of their streetcars sit in low-lying yards when Katrina hit so they could be submerged and destroyed. Kudos to the MTA for having the guts to make a difficult call.
Pretty sure the shutdown was an order from Governor Cuomo rather than an independent decision by the MTA.
New York isn’t New Orleans. Glenn Beck may not agree, but people’s lives are more important than the equipment regardless.
I don’t mean to say there should be no shutdown, but doing it so prematurely means that people are going to have more trouble evacuating, which is plain dangerous. And, as Clarke says, this was the governor’s fault. The shutdown should be later Saturday, and should probably complete sometime Sunday.
FWIW, it looks like it hits DC area around 8am Sunday.
Late Saturday means you want the system to shut down while the full force of the hurricane is battering it. Makes no sense. Storm moves in Saturday night, hence all rail equipment has to be safe by then. It takes eight hours to shut it all down. I’d keep buses running until 4 or so though, which they might do.
The full force isn’t going to be until around afternoon on Sunday, according to this projection.
Presumably the government knows how to deal with disasters more than you. If they are suspending tolls, train and bus fares in order to aid evacuation, that means they think it will be bad. Its always better to do things early than at last minute, because the hurricane could come here slightly earlier than expected.
You have a lot of misplaced confidence in the government. It seems sensible to be prepared for possibly tens of thousands people not to be ready to leave by noon in evacuation zones, either because they’re stupid, lazy, ignorant, or through no fault of their own simply won’t have their affairs in order yet. Every hour counts.
There are always people who stay behind when ordered to leave in advance. And you know what? You’re fucked. Its the responsibility of these people, when notified over a day in advance, to get out ahead of time.
The MTA workers themselves need to be out of the storm’s away well in advance, for their own personal safety and the equipment itself needs to be secured in advance.
As for the government, I was in the South when the government warned about Katrina. Some stay behind in New Orleans. We see how that worked out, don’t we?
I don’t think anybody disputes the notion that people should leave. The issue is that shutting down the transit system earlier than necessary hinders their ability to leave at what might be a peak point of the evacuation period, and also cuts precious hours away for 8M people to fill prescriptions, get supplies, close up properties, assist family, etc…
They were given fair warning, and government officials told people up and down the coast if they stayed behind that they would be on their own during the storm. There was more than 24 hours advance notice and if some people want to drag things out to the last minute, frankly, that’s their problem.
I just want to toss in a reminder that you mentioned saving lives takes a priority over the equipment. Hence the same thing goes for the men and women who operate the equipment. A longer wait to start the shutdown means more of them are out there getting the trains where they need to be last minute. Then when the storm is starting to get dangerous, where are they supposed to go? Most of them live very far from the terminals they work out of. I agree doing this now is a sound decision. The warning was made yesterday. People were told to make a move long before noon on Saturday. With a full 20 hours to do so if you still have not done that by Saturday before noon then you weren’t going to leave anyway. Not even by Saturday night or even Sunday morning.
R. Graham: that’s a very fair point, and I never said I thought the needs/safety of workers shouldn’t be considered. Still, even barring the people who should have evacuated and and didn’t in time, there are still people who depend on the system for other reasons (getting supplies, etc.), even if you buy into Justin’s, um, indignant claims. This is all hindsight now, of course, but I don’t think it’s as simple as saying transit workers can’t be put at risk. Of course they may be put in risk in some circumstances – the question is deciding the acceptable level of risk.
Remember, those forecast graphics show where they think the eye of the storm will be. Right now, this storm is 500 miles wide. The rain and wind will start well in advance.
It DOES seem strange to begin the shutdown as early as they are doing it. The storm is not expected to hit until Saturday NIGHT, so why do they have to do it at NOON?
For the fiftieth time, it takes 8 hours to shut it all down. That’s why.
I think we all realize that. Taking Alex B.’s point above into, that puts safe/still early completion of the system down by 2am or so Sunday – probably with time for employees to get home.
8 hours, finishing at 2 A.M., would mean starting at 6 P.M.
Sounds reasonable to me. Hell, even 3pm probably means a crucial extra few hours.
Finishing as the storm is in full swing and placing MTA employees in serious harm. They have families, too.
Yes, the MTA employees have families, and why should their lives be jeopardized because some idiots ignore all warnings and don’t want to stay home?
I’ve been watching for the past 24 hours, and it seems that not one forecast has put anything close to the full brunt of the storm at 8pm Saturday night or even midnight.
Dude, so the MTA should stay open much later just because you couldn’t get your ass from DC? Please! You had plenty of time to either extend your stay in DC or come back to NYC . Newsflash, the world doesn’t revolve around you. Now deal with it!
Jeeze, reading comprehension isn’t Justin’s strong point. I’m not concerned about my ability to get home and at no point made any mention to my own inconvenience. I can take a taxi or walk if I have to. I showed concern for other people’s inconvenience or even risk and then asked, separately, about the trains partly out of curiosity and partly so I can plan ahead.
And, no, I didn’t have time to leave any sooner than I did. My mother happens to be hospitalized with some serious medical issues and I had to deal with her before coming home and putting things in order in NYC. Not everyone has the convenience of 24 hours to be chauvinistic on the Internet while others put their lives in order.
In hindsight, the service should’ve been running later. The storm didn’t get bad until about 23:00 or so, meaning that they should’ve been running until around 15:00, giving everybody an extra 3 hours to evacuate (other than the evacuation buses).
I wonder why they didn’t give a “last train” for the subway lines, or an approximation of one. I guess they just kicked everybody out at noon.
My experience on one of the last L trains (I transferred from a C) was that the gates were locked at noon or so, but the system was still operating regularly for at least a while later. When I got off at my stop, we were locked in, and an attendant had to open the gates for us.
The Rockaway lines, 207 St Yard, Corona Yard, Jamaica Yard, Dyer Avenue line, Sea Beach line, Brighton line, and Coney Island yard disagree with this being a bad idea.
It’s an excellent idea. You don’t want flooded stations, bus accidents out there, etc. This is a very well thought-out plan. You should be staying home anyway and preparing now.
If I didn’t clarify it already, I didn’t mean a shutdown is a bad idea. It’s just the premature shutdown is a very bad idea.
I don’t understand why they’re doing this so early. This seems like a terrible idea. And buses, too, at the same time? Why? The weather will be FINE on Saturday.
It most definitely won’t be. By Saturday night they need to have the system down. Buses obviously can be the last to stop running. The early time is for the rail operations.
Maybe the weather won’t be FINE on Saturday afternoon, but it will be no worse than a typical rainy day at that time. As I now understand it, restaurants in my neighborhood will not even open on Saturday, because of “How will our workers get home?”.
I lived on the Gulf Coast and I was there during Katrina. You definitely want to shut things the subway system early so all passengers and employees are out of there WELL BEFORE the HURRICANE hits. You don’t want people running around as the last minute trying to get home. Whatever you wanted to do saturday can wait. And if the hurricane does cause a lot a damage, it maybe awhile before you have normal service on anything.
Employees are stuck at work.
This is why they are announcing it this early so people who work on Saturday can plan accordingly.
And planning accordingly means you don’t show up at work, unless you like living in your office for a few days. Don’t be DUMB people. Your job is not everything and definitely don’t get yourself killed or stranded for a job. In emergencies, they tend to only want essential services, such as the power companies, fire department, police department, hospitals, etc to go to work. Everyone else should stay home until the crisis has passed (in this case the hurricane).
Don’t expect normal service to resume until Tuesday either. It will take time on Monday to assess damage and restore system to full operation.
If the subway is shut down noon on Saturday, it means that businesses won’t open. There will be no way for most of their employees to show up at work and return home.
If businesses are not open on Saturday, then there is no way for people to do emergency preparation, which in New York means buying things like groceries, on Saturday. Essentially the emergency will now begin on Saturday for a a storm expected late Sunday.
When was the announcement made?
Well, I was scheduled to leave DC tomorrow around noon, but I am going to try to exchange my ticket for an earlier train. At least WMATA seems like it is staying up. Looks like the earliest I can realistically get back to NYC will be around noon Saturday, so I am hoping I can get a straggling L Train back home shortly after 12pm. Worst-case scenario: I can walk across the Williamsburg Bridge home, maybe under clear blue skies. The subways being shutdown will surely not help the surface transportation system, so finding a taxi might be hard.
I went to a few supermarkets in Virginia to buy a few extra packs of D batteries just in case, but they’re completely sold out here.
All last runs on lines will apparently leave their terminals at noon.
Hmm, thanks. So, in the case of the L, will that mean the trains heading towards Manhattan at that point will finish their runs and deadhead back?
They’ll go and lay-up in whatever place determined to be a safe place to lay up L trains. And that’s apparently what they’ll do. Reason for such an early time is because in some cases entire yards of trainsets will need to be moved out into safe areas. Working for Coney Island Yard probably won’t be fun tomorrow.
BTW, don’t assume what I’m posting is exact. Last runs may be 12 or 1. I say 12 since that’s the time they gave. But whatever time it is, those last trains to leave finish their runs and go into hiding.
Bolwerk,
I just got back in from my own trip at 10 PM tonight, just enough time to get some emergency supplies. I expect most stores to be closed tomorrow once people realize that if they open, their employees can’t get home.
My recommendation to you is to stay in DC at this point. We were originally going to come back from Baltimore Saturday morning, and if we had stuck with that plan I just would have stayed there after hearing about the subway closing. As it happened, I heard about them while driving up the Jersey Turnpike around 3 PM.
So again, when were they announced?
I think it was officially decided Friday morning, though it was discussed as early as Thursday.
I just realized, gypsy cabs are going to make a killing in the outer boroughs on people who happened to leave just that little bit too late. I’m sure they’ll be lined up along major bus/train hubs’ curbs…
They implemented a zone system, similar to the transit strike: http://gothamist.com/2011/08/2.....d_zone.php
In Boston, they’ve just shut down the commuter trains, but the MBTA website makes no mention of it. Its hurricane update tells people to read the service advisories, which do not mention that the trains are canceled.
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[…] York City will have suffered through approximately 42 hours without our trains. The MTA announced a system-wide shutdown for noon on Saturday, and by 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, stations were roped off. The great […]