Benjamin Kabak

I examined yesterday the top ten most popular subway stations in New York City, and by virtue of Manhattan’s central focus and popularity, nine of the ten are in the County of New York. Let’s expand the scope a bit and explore the other boroughs as well. We’ll start with Queens.

In Queens — as in Brooklyn and the Bronx — key transfer points seem to be the most popular stations. These stops are also centrally located in some densely populated residential areas. Court Square will likely see a bump this year with the new complex.

In Brooklyn, the first two stations feed into the downtown area with jobs and housing. I expect Atlantic Ave./Pacific St. to move to the top of this list once the Barclays Center arena opens. If the rest of the Atlantic Yards project ever sees the light of day, it will far surpass Jay St. on the leaderboard. Beford Ave. has seen annual ridership grow by 2 million since 2007. That’s stunning growth.

In the Bronx, with the courthouse up the hill and the Yankees across the street, the 161st St. station leads the pack. The remainder are key transfer points, job centers or major residential areas. I sense a theme.

As Friday rolls around in New York, the city’s straphangers know that weekend subway service will be spotty, at best. Trains that should run local will go express, and trains that should run express might run local. Other trains may not run at all or head to some other train’s usual terminal. It’s confusing, and travel takes longer. According to a new report, the MTA isn’t particularly good at informing its customers of these changes.

One problem the MTA has struggled to combat over the years concerns signage. At a basic level, many New Yorkers simply do not read signs, and that’s a problem impossible to overcome. To fight that basic stubbornness or laziness, Transit instead bombards us with frequent in-car announcements concerning upcoming stops and rerouted trains. If a rider doesn’t know where the train is going, he or she is simply not listening.

But on a different level, the MTA has also battled an information problem. Although service advisories are posted online a few days in advance, the agency hasn’t quite hit the nail on the head when it comes to in-system signage. Transit’s latest iteration of its service advisory posters are more colorful and easier to read, but covering the system appropriately remains a challenge. According to a report released yesterday by the New York City Transit Riders Council, the MTA does not always post signage in every station as they promised, and old signage lingers long past its expiration date.

The Riders Council conducted their study over the course of a few weekends in October and November. They surveyed 48 stations 63 times from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., and on the traditional letter grade system, the MTA would likely walk away with a D for its signage efforts. While Transit promised to hang signs near entrances and on platforms, only 64 percent of entrances featured signs, and just 60 percent of platforms hosted the posters.

With the London-inspired posters, Transit in 2010 also debuted new line-specific signs to be hung upon station columns. The Riders Council found that these signs were featured in just 55 percent of station entrances but on 72 percent of platforms. To make matters worse, five stations surveyed had no signage at all concerning service changes at that station. These included Nostrand Ave., Broadway Junction and High St. all on the IND Fulton Line in Brooklyn.

In terms of alternative access, Transit did not fare any better. The authority provided ADA-accessibility information in just 53 percent of stations surveyed, and only 71 percent of stations had signs that listed alternate routes for any straphanger combatting service changes. The Riders Council was not impressed. “Looking at the 48 stations overall,” the report says, “the level of compliance is mediocre at best.”

After noting that some stations featured only hastily-scribbled hand-written signs, the Riders Council issued some fairly obvious recommendations. The MTA must make a more concerted effort to post signs at every station and every entrance. “Riders need to be informed of all service changes prior to entering the station,” the report noted.

Interestingly, the Riders Council issued a call for faster installation of the MTA’s new digital Station Advisory Information Displays. Noting the flexibility and visibility of these 21st Century screens, the report urged the MTA to pick up the pace of installation and target areas that are both high traffic and likely to go through service diversions. “By installing SAID boards in the unpaid areas of stations, NYC Transit would provide riders with a predictable and reliable place to look for service advisories,” they said.

It’s hard to dispute any of these findings. While I recognize that the MTA can’t force its customers to read the signs, it must make the signs available and visible. Without the signs, riders must partake in a massively confusing guessing game that will leave them frustrated and delayed. They should be in every station, at every entrance and on every platform. Anything less is just lazy.

I’ve been slowly making my way through the data dump of station information New York City Transit released this week, and later on, I’m hoping to have a post highlighting the busiest fare control areas in the city. Right now, let’s jump in with the basics. The top ten busiest subway stations of 2011 are……

Now, that’s not surprising because Times Square is the center of the known universe. The rest make sense too. Interestingly, Queens, which has the third subway ridership by borough, has a station in the top ten while Brooklyn, the second most popular borough, does not. In fact, the most popular station in Brooklyn — Jay St./MetroTech — was just 26nd overall last year.

At the bottom of the list are a bunch of stations in the Rockaways, East 143rd St. along the 6 and 21st on the G. The last one sees just 1,123 per weekday and around 730 per weekend. I’ve always wondered why that station, so close to Court Square, exists. More with this data later.

Of all the guff given out by New Yorkers directed at the subway system, none is worse than the ire those who rely on the G have for that train. The IND Crosstown line is the rare subway line that doesn’t enter Manhattan, and thanks to the stubbornness of history, it doesn’t provide the right transfers for Manhattan-bound trains, missing Atlantic/Pacific by a few hundred feet. With short trains and stations in need of repair, it has earned its Ghost Train nickname.

Yet, despite its reputation, my personal experiences with the G train have been as expected. At rush hour, the train runs every 6-8 minutes and never more frequently. While I sometimes have to wait longer than I’d prefer, the G is a pretty regular train that generally adheres to its schedule. It shares track only with the F at its southern end, and thus, it doesn’t have to deal with too many delays caused by switching priorities. It’s convenient and relatively fast for a ride that would otherwise take too long or cost over $20 in a cab.

Someone though is always trying to do something with the G train. It once ran to Forest Hills, and now it does not. It currently heads south to Church Ave., but even that sensible and useful extension is in jeopardy. A few petitions and some vocal politicians are working to ensure that the five-stop extension of the G train made necessary for the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation becomes a permanent one. My money — and hopefully the MTA’s — is on this movement becoming successful.

Yet, despite the bad reputation, the G is showing some serious signs of ridership growth. Take a look at its improvements in 2011 as compared with 2010:

That’s growth that far outpaces the overall 2.26 percent bump in annual subway rides. The stations that service Greenpoint, meanwhile, rank in the top 44 of all Brooklyn subway stations, and Carroll St. and 7th Ave., shared with the F along the Culver line, witnessed jumps of over 15 percent as well. It’s hard to isolate out the number of F riders there as opposed to those waiting for the G, but the line is becoming popular.

So what is the MTA to do? Nothing shows the G train’s increased popularity more so that a late-night wait at Metropolitan Ave. as the platform fills up. Nothing shows the G train’s problems as the mad dash people make to reach the center of the platform as the short train zooms by. The two concerns, then, as noted yesterday in this space, focus around transfers and train length. The MTA, if it won’t increase the frequency of the G train, should lengthen the train sets.

The authority must also ascertain what impact a heavily utilized G train will have on transfer points. After all, most people are taking the G to get to another subway line that connects with Manhattan (although some use it to reach Court Square in Queens or the Pratt campus in Brooklyn). As ridership increases, those transfer points will see crowds swell as well.

Once upon a time, the G was the butt of all jokes, but it’s shedding this reputation. It’s not quite yet overcrowded but as its areas grow, ridership will continue to climb. Maybe it’s time to pay attention to the IND Crosstown line, that little G train that could.