Making heads or tails of this mid-fire service change announcement requires an advanced degree in, well, something.
When I swiped through at Times Square on the way back to Brooklyn a little after 7 p.m. last night, I didn’t know what to expect. A two-alarm cable fire in a manhole near the DeKalb Ave. subway station — and the Manhattan Bridge bottleneck — snared subway service along the B, D, N, Q and R lines right as the evening rush began. For my route home, only the IRT lines were providing reliable service from Manhattan into Brooklyn, and I feared a slow, sluggish, crowded ride home.
Ultimately, I lucked out and had none of that. My 3 train was no more crowded at that hour than it ever was; we didn’t really stop for long stretches; and the conductor made nary an announcement about service outages as we rode through Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. In fact, had I not seen word of the delays on the outdoor dynamic signs at Times Square or online, I wouldn’t have known about the service outages, and that’s a problem. But more on that later.
When I got to Brooklyn and had a chance to speak with some friends and read reports from the mayhem, it seemed that I missed quite a bit by taking the IRT. Platforms in Manhattan were packed, and the situation in Brooklyn was even worse. The MTA couldn’t scramble enough shuttle buses to meet demands, and riders were either had to walk or shove themselves onto packed buses. A parade of potential straphangers walked down 4th and 5th Aves. in Brooklyn as New Yorkers, always resourceful, took their commutes into their own hands.
Meanwhile, at Atlantic Ave., the scene was manic. Police officers were instructing confused subway riders to platforms with no service. Some officers said the R train was running when it wasn’t; others said a B or Q would arrive to ferry passengers toward Brighton Beach and Coney Island. Confused crowds built up, but eventually everyone got home.
The fire cleared up a few hours later, and the morning commute won’t be impacted. Yet, there’s another part of this story that warrants a closer examination. The MTA’s ability to deliver real-time status updates on a changing situation was again tested, and again, it didn’t really earn passing grades. On Twitter, I tried to follow along, but at various points in time, the MTA’s website featured a jumble of information. One page — available here — seems archived for posterity, and it’s not even the worst.
On the surviving page, nothing really makes sense. D trains are running along 4th Ave. in Brooklyn, but Transit also says to take the B63 to 36th St. Meanwhile, here’s a gem. Kudos to anyone who can decipher this:
Brooklyn bound N, Q and R train service will terminate at the 57 Street- 7 Avenue Station, 34 Street- Herald Square Station, the Canal Street Station and the Whitehall- South Ferry Station.
At other points, the live page said N and Q trains were running along the R from Canal St. while also saying there was no service in between Brooklyn and Manhattan on the BMT lines. It took a while for anyone at the MTA to even acknowledge the fact that service to Bay Ridge seemed nonexistent, and even after Transit announced bus routes from Downtown Brooklyn, it was still unclear if any part of the R was running out to Bay Ridge or points south. I had to ask @NYCTSubwayScoop to clear the whole thing up, and while acknowledging the mess, Transit’s official Twitter account said, “It’s a fluid situation.”
If it’s fluid for the people in charge, it’s fluid for riders too, and someone has to be able to communicate changes in real-time or as close to it as possible to riders, especially during rush hour. We’ve come along way since the MTA’s website crashed amidst a system-wide flood in August of 2007. With Twitter, a text message service and a better website, the MTA can keep its passengers informed amidst problems, but the system still isn’t perfect. If those of us who pay too much attention to the inner workings of the New York City subway system have a hard time following along, where does that leave the average rider just trying to get home from work amidst massive at 6 p.m.?
45 comments
I heard the Bleecker/Lafayette transfer is now being pushed back to coincide with opening of SAS. Not surprising considering how much work is left to do.
Wait, what? Where did you hear that? Isn’t the transfer pretty much complete now, unlike SAS?
About the D probobaly it was only able to run express.So they wanted to advise people how to get to the local stops.
The sitation in and immediatley around the Atlantic Avenue station at 6:00 was close to dangerous, with major overcrowding around the stairs and close to zero crowd control. It took me over 10 minutes to get out of the Pacific Street exit from the 2/3 Brooklyn-Bound platform.
Throughout the incident, the MTA web site said that some F trains were running over the G from Queens Plaza to Jay-Metrotech, when I assume it meant to say from Queens Plaza to Bergen
34th street was bad @ 5:45 and it was hard to hear the announcements. By 6pm, I finally understood what was going on and I ended up taking the express bus home. Funny about the F running on the G line, full car train sets, what a luxury for the G line!
When I used to take the G daily, I would see an F about once a week or so. It’s great that the Crosstown Line exists to allow for these diversions when something’s wrong in Manhattan, or, in this case, at Dekalb Avenue.
The way the system was built, there are certain key stops, especially on the IND-BMT, where a major problem doesn’t just shut down the line, it messes up everything to the north and south of the incident.
Dekalb is probably No. 1 when it comes to home many individual lines it can affect, since it blows up Broadway and Sixth Avenue to the north and four Southern Division routes to the south. But anything at Atlantic Ave.-Barclary’s Center, West Fourth, Jay St-Metrotech, Fulton/B’way-Nassau, B’way Junction or Canal Street is also a nightmare scenario for the MTA (some of those could keep running if there was just a track fire on one of the lines, but something like a major water main break or a building fire in those areas has the potential to knock everything out).
Yeah, I figured the B63 blurb was trying to convey how to do the local stops. Could have said: for local stops between Atlantic-Barclay’s and 36th Street, use the B63.
Thing is, there isn’t an easy way to convey this kind of information in words easily. If you have the map in front of you, it should be decipherable.
Wonder if it’s possible to come up w/ a map that shows what current service looks like (when it’s f-cked up) and highlight the alternates while fading out the messed up service.
The buses are useless. Too many people to fit a 37 seater with 30 standees on a low floor 40 foot bus. Lots of people walk out onto 3 Av, 4 Av and even 5 Av going south to their destinations.
Thank god is not humid or raining or even on a school day.
Unfortunately not, because there is never a perfectly consistent service pattern when something like this is going on. Any explanation of service is, at best, a rough approximation. Every station that can possibly serve as a terminal will be used as a terminal, and whatever service does run will invariably be highly erratic. The exact outage may also change over time – for instance, a track fire on one track may initially knock out only that one track, but if power has to be removed, that may knock out other tracks or extend the limits of the outage.
There is also no possible way, during rush hours, to harvest up enough buses and drivers to operate a shuttle bus service that serves more than a tiny fraction of the displaced subway riders.
Thanks to the lighter than usual August no school and work vacation crowds. The 4 & 5 were unusually crowded, but not overcrowded, at least not at Union Sq although there was a back up people going for the 4 5 at the N Q R transfer. The 6 seemed not impacted.
I don’t see how the MTA can communicate minute by minute. In any emergency situation, it’s just not possible because information changes rapidly, decisions need to be made on rapidly changing information and then that information needs to be compiled and distributed. I think they did a reasonably good job on their web site, and the Notify NYC broadcasts any major train outages (such as this 1).
If I still lived in Sheepshead Bay, I’d’ve (!) just taken the Command Bus, and eaten the fare and longer ride.
I don’t see what’s so confusing about the highlighted text above. Downtown N, Q and R trains were turning around at any one of those stations. Yes, it’s somewhat confusing, and potentially even more so if you’re on such a train and can’t hear the announcements, but that service pattern was the operational reality of what happened, so how would you suggest the MTA explain it?
(Though, for the record, that description isn’t even complete — I got back to Brooklyn by taking an E to Court Sq and changing to the G line to avoid the mess, and there was a diverted R train running along the G to Bedford-Nostrand, adding at least one more terminal station to that list.)
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect 1-2 sentences of explanation outlining what’s happening. “Trains may be turning around at any of the following stations and no trains are running between Brooklyn and Manhattan” takes care of that problem.
True, though it would also not be helpful to have a long, elaborate description of everything that was going on, as that would be even more confusing. Erring on the brief side is probably better, especially since the situation was changing constantly as the MTA got a handle on how bad it was. Once things stabilized a bit, I believe the site did fairly clearly state “there is no service between Manhattan and Brooklyn on the B,D,N,Q, and R lines.”
I’m confused as to why the MTA didn’t advise more people to use the A & C trains; my C train was faster than it had ever been.
MTA management forgot to look up the map that they made.
Main reason is likely that the 2/3/4/5 could get people to Atlantic Av-Pacific St, which was the MTA’s best shot at getting people onto the various Southern BMT branch lines. A/C would get people into the borough, but provides no access (without an out-of-system transfer) to the BMT lines once in Brooklyn, other than at Jay St to the R (and the F) which was in this case useless.
Transfer from the C to the Franklin Ave Shuttle to Prospect Park for Brighton line service south. That’s not an out-of-system transfer.
The shuttle is a 2-car train. Enough people will find it on their own to severely overcrowd it. No need to explicitly direct more people to it.
Next time if like this happens the MTA should post alternatives. Should said “Use the 2,3,4,5” or the nearby A/C station to midtown.
Hope this is a wake-up call for them
They been sleeping under the desk ever since Jay Walder Blizzard meltdown in 2010.
It says right there on the last line: “Customers heading to Brooklyn from Manhattan are urged to use 2 3 4 5 trains to Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center.”
(The A/C doesn’t connect with most of the affected lines or serve similar areas, so recommending the A/C would have been a bad idea.)
On the trains I was on and the platform they told us that there was “debris” on the track on the Manhattan Bridge. Not a word about a cable fire at Dekalb.
All I can say is that I am glad to have retired and I wasn’t in Manhattan yesterday.
Looking at the info you give at the beginning of the article, I dont really find that confusing. It seems to describe what happened. The problem was that info was not available to the people riding and too much wrong info was given out. We are spending all this money on new technology and still can’t provide timely info or get emergency buses in place in a timely fashion leading to dangerous platform conditions. That seems to be the problem to me.
All things considered, it could have been far worse. You are correct in saying this should be a wake up call to improve matters the next time. I just hope the MTA realizes they have a problem and the way this was handled is just unacceptable.
Is it even possible to go from the Crosstown Line to Jay Street – Metrotech in the s/b direction as it says in the advisory?
Obviously the F wasn’t doing that – they probably should have written “from the Queens Plaza Station to the Bergen Street Station”
No, not possible without some sort of reverse move.
The only option the Crosstown line has is to turn south on Smith Street
Unfortunately, I was on the subway and not the bike yesterday.
I boarded a B train at 42nd Street. By 34th Street it had been announced the train would be turning before going to Brooklyn due to a problem on the Manhattan Bridge.
It took a long time to get to W. 4th Street due to congestion. But by that time they had the story straight. Fire at Dekalb. The Manhattan Bridge is closed. B turning at 2nd Avenue. Take the F or D to Jay Street and switch to the R/Q, or take the A/C to Broadway/Nassau/Fulton and switch to the IRT to Atlantic Avenue, where BMT trains were terminating.
It was completely clear to me. When my daughters were 12 years old and taught the to ride the subway by themselves, I made a point of telling them that to do so they had be able to get home many different ways depending on problems that might occur. Same thing when I taught them to drive (still working on it, not going with GPS).
I was caught in that mess yesterday. It was really bad especially on the Brooklyn side of it. Announcements weren’t clear and the agency was giving bad advice to people. I guess it was to save people from paying an additional fare. Instead of directing riders at Union Square to use the 4 or 5 trains to get into Brooklyn they just let riders board useless N and Q trains only to be held up between stations.
Last night was one of the most chaotic messes I have ever seen on the subways. Announcements were close to non-existent and those received were generally inaccurate. When I first arrived at Whitehall for the R to Bay Ridge there was something about debris on the Manhattan Bridge, which of course should not mean anything for the R going through the tunnel. But of course the announcement was wrong, the R was not running. Tere was a train out of service on the track to Brooklyn and there was an N train on the middle track that in fact was going back to Astoria and which I am sure was taken by people headed to Brooklyn my mistake.
I left and got a 4 at Bowling Green, which was packed. I exited at Atlantic and the platform was dangerously packed with people trying to exit down the stairs and other going in all directions, no announcements. It was so dangerous and backed up that I immediately jumped on a 4 going back to Manhattan and took it to Nevins to switch to a southbound 2 train back to Atlantic. This allowed me to enter the total chaos of people walking packed solid in all directions. But at least I wasn’t trapped on the middle platform.
Eventually, I made it to the south bound BMT platform and figured I would take anything to get me closer to Bay Ridge. Most of this platform was also packed and there were no announcements and conflicting reports from the few cops in the vicinity. I walked to the front of the platform, which was slightly less crowded. By now everyone, including myself was drenched in sweat and I was worried some people might faint.
After about 10 minutes a train game in on the express stop. It was an empty R. Its doors stayed close for a few minutes and then it opened up and people went in and it sat there with no announcements. Finally, someone came on and said it was an R going express to Bay Ridge. Eventually it left and the conductor made some announcements about connections with buses for people heading towards Coney Island. The conductor obviously was unsure where the B9, B4, or B1 went, but at least it was something.
I consider myself lucky, as there didn’t seem to be any other trains and I made it back to 95th Street station without having to walk, something I have had to do when 4th Avenue has been shut down due to jumpers.
The MTA failed yesterday in terms of communication and in creating a potentially dangerous situation at Atlantic. I can’t imagine what people were doing who don’t know the system or the streets. It reinforced why I prefer the days I can commute the 10 miles each way by bike.
You could have taken X27, B37 or B63 bus to Bay Ridge… or wait: B37 was cut; B63 is jammed pack and BusTime; lol…lots of missing buses. X27 could save you lots of times if you had not enter Whitehall St station and pay $5.50.
You could still get a subway-express bus transfer, so you wouldn’t pay moe than $5.50.
Yesterday, was 9th anniversary of the Blackout 2003. Well, MTA celebrating thatanniversary by burning up the cables with trash and wrecking everyones commute.
LOL. I love your comment!
And yes, you’re right; besides, the MTA is too kind to let these anniversaries slip our minds, isn’t it?
I’m sure Joe Lhota personally set the cables on fire.
I don’t understand why they did not run some b and d service via the f to coney island and then up the respective D And B Lines. The trains trapped on the Brighton already could have done the same in reverse. This would have moved thousands of people to where they needed .
This would have relieved the overcrowding at 6 th ave local stations. These trains could have operated express on the f line.
What jumped out to me is that the MTA had no plan for dealing with an outage at DeKalb (and by extension no plan for dealing with the loss of West 4th St or B’way Junction or …). They were making it up as they went along.
There’s enough likelihood of losing one of this big junctions and enough disaster if one does that the risk exposure is fairly high and a risk mitigation plan is worth doing. MTA ought to pick some guy and sit him in a room and tell him to come up with plans: what do we do if we lose this junction and how do we tell people what we’re doing. It doesn’t have to be the best possible plan; just a workable one. The important piece is telling people what trains are running to where and how to get to them.
1) Thank God for the B103…super express down 4th ave all the way through to the Prospect Expressway.
2) Why on Earth would they not run the Q to Atlantic? Is there a track limitation? Took the 2/3 there figuring I’d hop on the Q at that point, but they were only running them to Prospect?
There’s no way to cross trains from one track to the other at Atlantic, so it can’t be used as a terminal.
Actually, they do this often during GOs. Just have to single track between Prospect and Atlantic. Running half the trains through is better than nothing.
The Q trains would end up running every 15 minutes, which would be nowhere near sufficient for the Brighton Line (they run every 30 minutes when they single-track between Prospect Park and Atlantic, so they would run every 15 minutes if both tracks were in use).
It’s too bad that the Franklin Av line can’t accommodate full trains. That would have been a really useful reroute during this disruption, connecting the Brighton line to the A/C and 2/3/4/5 trains.
Every 15 minutes is better than never.
It almost looks like they could do this:
No express B
Single-track shuttle between Atlantic and Prospect Park on the Brighton-bound track.
Regular Q service below Prospect Park with Manhattan-bound Q crossing over to Manhattan-bound center track after Parkside as usual, then crossing over to Brighton-bound center track in crossover before Prospect Park
So someone could shuttle from Atlantic to Prospect Park, get out, shuttle reverses back to Atlantic, then a regular Q pulls in on the same platform, having crossed over after Parkside, board, and then regular local service out to Brighton.
It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.
With only one track in use between Atlantic and Prospect Park, the best possible headway (in the best possible circumstances) is 30 minutes.
Trying to use the same track for trains terminating in two directions certainly wouldn’t help matters.
They could run every 15 minutes if everything were precisely scheduled and choreographed in advance.
That obviously wasn’t the case here. I think even 30 minutes would have been a challenge.