Two brief items for the end of your day: The New York State Senate confirmed Joseph Lhota as the next CEO and Chairman of the MTA. I’ll have more from the confirmation hearings later, but as a preview, the lovely “two sets of books” meme that just won’t die reared its head. Lhota acquitted himself quite well during the committee confirmation hearings, and after expressing initial skepticism over his appointment, his performance today gave me hope that he’ll be an effective leader who won’t just rubber-stamp everything Gov. Cuomo sends his way.
In more important news, the MTA’s partial line shutdown program, dubbed FastTrack, starts tonight along the East Side. The full details are right here in a press release. Starting tonight and continuing for four nights, there will be no 4, 5 or 6 service between Atlantic Ave. and Grand Central Terminal from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Straphangers are, of course, treating this like the apocalypse. Plan your evening rides, late-night journeys and early-morning commutes accordingly. I’ll have more on this as well tomorrow.
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I can’t wait for the news to find the uninformed people that ride the train daily. There have been non-stop announcements on the PA/CIS, and even in the subway cars themselves now. And at Grand Central yesterday (not normally part of my route) there were people actively passing out brochures. Can’t wait to see the press handle this one.
Dunno if it’s staged or for real but got a link to an article with a few choice straphanger quotes (and pics too)
http://transportationnation.or.....way-sleep/
I read that this afternoon and plan on tackling it tomorrow. Those quotes reveal quite a bit about the way straphangers relate to the system. Very telling.
I love this one… “Darlene Womack, who travels from Morrisiana in the Bronx to her security guard job in the West Village. “Get it together, fix the tracks, you know. Do it on they (their) time not on ours.””
Ignoring the part of doing it on their time, her commute makes me laugh. I work in Morrisania, where there is little subway service, but bus service to either the 2/5 or the 4/B/D. She actually has a better ride, and if she’s taking the 4/5/6 to the West Village she’s not really aware of the best route. She’s got the 2 and the B/D to take her to work and is probably one of the least impacted by this and future FastTrack corridor shutdowns. But no one in the media is going to tell her this when interviewing her.
Here’s hoping for good mgmt-employee relations over the coming years!
I think people will cope with FastTrack (and I may have to deal with it once the Upper Broadway/7th Ave line gets done).
Riders and the press were pretty supportive when this was announced since what we all hope is that over time it leads to reduced work/service changes on weekends. That won’t happen right away but perhaps down the road.
FastTrack certainly isn’t the apocalypse, but the way the MTA rolled it out was absolutely obnoxious. Particularly, the MTA initially encouraged us to think that this would lead to fewer weekend service changes. Now we know it won’t.
I’ve been following the comments here for the past couple of weeks, and it seems that many of your readers are displaying, well, something like Stockholm syndrome. Dan, above, hopes against hope for better weekend service down the line, despite the MTA’s recent explicit statements to the contrary. (Maybe someday he’ll change!) One of your readers last week helpfully explained that these service changes will be from one budget, while weekend work is related another set of appropriations, as if that constitutes any explanation at all. (If you only UNDERSTOOD the MTA…) The thread today is focused on beating up on straphangers who say dumb things when cameras are pointed in their faces. (The MTA is the REAL victim here.)
The fact remains that MTA misled us about the purpose for and effects of these service changes. In light of that, I think a little old fashioned consumer outrage is perfectly appropriate.
It’s also running all local above 42nd St after 10. This is almost as important as the shutdown as far as lengthening travel times.
Seeing wet paint and cleaned tracks makes me optimistic that this can’t help but reduce those express/local changes and signal problems. Every time a rail clamp needs fixing it requires a detour. Getting stuff done all at once has to help.