MTA Absurdity

Back in May, New York City Transit President Howard Roberts, new to the job, expressed a desire to receive grades on the subway from straphangers. While some good MTA ideas fall by the wayside, Roberts has delivered on this promise, and starting yesterday, 7 riders received report cards. They are, much to my delight, also available online.

These report cards, as I originally noted, ask riders to rate the subways based on a series of fairly obvious categories. Comfort, cleanliness, security, congeniality of employees and clarity of public address announcements are the benchmarks. But while this may seem like a complete overview of the system, the report is noticeably lacking in certain areas.

A quick glance at the report card template shows that Roberts and his group at NYCT have managed to hit upon the big ones. The first few questions deal with train delays and overcrowded subways; the next few focus on riders’ senses of security and the functionality of station escalators and elevators; announcements and signage are grouped with station and car cleanliness; and the survey wraps up with a question on whether or not riders find the insultingly easy-to-use MetroCard vending machines insulting easy to use.

Personally, my two favorites are 13 and 14: train announcements that are easy to hear and train announcements that are informative. I would say that most train announcements are not informative. How many times do I need to hear the MTA tell me to check myself and protect myself (before I wreck myself) due to heightened security in the subways?

But for the 21 questions plus on on overall subway performance, one key topic is noticeably missing from the survey. As SUBWAYblogger eruditely pointed out this week, it’s freakin’ hot on the subways right now. Roberts’ questionaire asks riders if the temperature on train cars is comfortable. (Answer: Usually ok. Sometimes, way too cold. Those cars with broken air conditioners are to be avoided like the plague.) But no where does Roberts ask about the temperature inside the stations.

Now, while most 7 train stops are above ground and this question may be more relevant to riders on trains that stay below ground (the IRT comes to mind), those 7 stops in Manhattan are insufferably hot. Try waiting in Grand Central during rush hour for a 7 train. It’s easily 110-120 degrees on that platform.

So maybe the MTA knows that it’s hot and doesn’t want to get a bunch of bad grades for platform temperature. Maybe they’re trying to figure out some way, any way, to cool down the platforms. Again, SUBWAYblogger isn’t too optimistic, and I agree with him there. But no matter; the MTA should not be avoiding this question. It’s hot in the subway stations; do something about it.

Chipped and peeling paint jobs are a routine sight in the subways. (Courtesy of flickr user tash in ny)

Sometimes, the ridiculous stories just write themselves. This is one of those times because the MTA can’t get it together to use extra cash they have floating around to paint stations that need to be painted. Yes, you read that right.

So the MTA, when the sale of Stuyvesant Town went through, earned a whopping $52 million off of the sale’s mortgage. With this money in tow, the Authority developed a five-year program during which they would paint 200 stations in need of painting. That was seven months ago.

Today, the Daily News reported that the MTA just can’t figure out how to get this program off the ground. Pete Donohue had more:

The MTA last year adopted a budget and multiyear fiscal plan calling for dozens of stations to be painted each year for a decade until every hub is refurbished with a fresh coat. Seven months later, NYC Transit hasn’t decided how to proceed with the station painting program. It’s unclear who will do the work, which stations will be among the first to get a paint job and which would be among the last to be brushed, NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said.

“It will go forward, but I don’t know when or what the plan is,” Fleuranges said.

That’s right. It’s taken the MTA seven months (and counting) just to figure out how to proceed with the simplest of plans. MTA board member Andrew Albert summed up my feelings pretty nicely. “They haven’t started?” he asked incredulously. “It shouldn’t take a year to decide what stations to do. There’s little doubt you can find 35 stations a year that badly need a paint job.”

Among the options I came up with were flipping a coin, pulling station names out of a hat or playing that whole “tell me where to stop” game with someone’s finger and the subway map. Someone — anyone — pick a station and start there.

The 149th St.-Grand Concourse station could really use a paint job and so could some of the Bay Ridge stations on the R line. I could name 10 stations without thinking that would benefit from a fresh coat of paint. So come on, MTA. It can’t be that hard, right?

When the South Bronx and East Side went dark last Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of commuters panicked. With rush hour nearly upon the traveling masses, subway service failed on some of the city’s most popular lines. But even worse, the MTA’s Web site went dark.

As would-be straphangers sought information during the blackout’s first few minutes, many tried to navigate to MTA.info, the MTA’s recently revamped and usually reliable Web site. But instead, most surfers — including me — were rebuffed. The site was down. Instead, computer users turned to Gothamist, The Times’ Cityroom blog and, of course, Second Ave. Sagas.

Bloggers worked as they are wont to do on Wednesday. Gathering reports from news sources and MTA officials, the sites worked fast to keep their readers updated on the state of mass transit. During the hourlong power failure, the bloggers went to work while the MTA’s site went down. While a few of my readers e-mailed me about this outage and have expressed concerns about the MTA’s site in the past, The New York Times dug a bit deeper into the outage. William Neuman wrote:

When the power went out in a broad swath of the Upper East Side and the Bronx on Wednesday, a record number of commuters turned to the Internet to learn if their subway lines or commuter trains were running. But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Web site provided no help. The site became inaccessible shortly after the electricity went out at 3:41 p.m. and was down for about an hour, a little longer than the 49-minute power failure.

“Because the incident occurred right before people were getting ready to leave the office, we had a huge surge of traffic at one time, unlike anything we’d had before,” Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the transportation authority, said yesterday…

Mr. Soffin said that technicians had determined that the firewalls that protect the authority’s computers were not able to handle the record Web traffic, making it impossible for users to access the site. He said that the authority had been planning to install new firewall technology and that it would be in place within two months.

Now, as a frequent subway rider and active subway blogger, I love the MTA’s site. The revamped newsroom with its RSS-supported Press Release section is a great resource. These schedules, I learned this past weekend, are actually somewhat accurate, and the service advisores are invaluable.

But if the site for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the nation’s biggest and most popular public transportation system, can’t keep its Web site up and running during a huge spike in traffic, it’s in trouble. Much like most MTA projects, the installation of a new firewall is going to take about two to four times as long as it should.

So as we head into a summer where blackout concerns are rampant in the city, we may yet face another power outage that brings down the MTA’s site. While the Authority is the ultimate word on the status of the subways, for now, you’re safer with bloggers. If the power goes, you’re better off with Gothamist, Cityroom or me than you are with the MTA. And as good as it feels to pat myself on the head, that is definitely not a good state of affairs.

In a (not very) groundbreaking article in Sunday’s The City section, The New York Times took a look at something Greenpoint residents and savvy subway riders have long known: The G train never shows up.

Gosh. I had no idea. I certainly didn’t write about the G train when I graded the subways or talked about subway-line-themed condoms. And these two fine ladies certainly can tell you how reliable the G train is.

But hey, I should cut The Times some slack. The piece was, after all, one of those neighborhood articles in The City section, and it contained some good information:

For residents of Jackson Heights who enjoy the cuisines of Carroll Gardens, for example, or for Greenpointers who shop at the Queens Center mall in Elmhurst, the G can be a straight shot, no train changes needed.

That route, however, is available solely on nights and weekends, the only times the G is scheduled to travel the second half of its appointed route, from Long Island City to Forest Hills. And as of May 24, the 14-mile span became even less real. New York City Transit posted signs saying the line’s route will be abbreviated on weekends “until further notice” because of track work along the Queens Boulevard line, where the G makes the second half of its normal run.

That certainly is bad news for all two of the people who use the G to avoid Manhattan while traveling from Queens to Brooklyn. And while the members of Astorians aren’t too thrilled, it was generally quicker to take a train into Manhattan and then back out to Brooklyn than it is to take the G. This work just makes the G train (which may one day reach further into Brooklyn) all the more useless.

While straphangers search for alternate routes, I wanted to suggest a few more stories The Times could tackle in its effort to bring the obvious to the pages of The City section.

The F Train: It’s crowded. Especially at rush hour and in Park Slope. Also, it doesn’t run often enough and Brooklyn residents really, really, really want V service in Brooklyn and F trains to utilize the underused express tracks. If you live in Brooklyn, you can’t avoid this story.

The M Train: Who rides it? Where does it go? (Answers: No one and nowhere.)

The 7 Train: According to some, this train is “depressing.” It’s filled with “[kids] with purple hair next to some [guy] with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids.” (Hat tip, John Rocker.)

The Shuttle: This train just goes back and forth, and one of its terminals is in Times Square which was named after the now-newspaperless Times Building. Did you know that, The New York Times?

The Second Ave. Subway: There isn’t one. Why not? (Of course, you could just find that answer right here.)

So there ya go, City Section: A few lesser-known well-known stories to go with your exposé on the G train, delivered with love from me to you.

On Tuesday, the MTA announced plans to open their own 311-styled call center. A press release announced this innovation:

One of the customer needs identified by the MTA’s Customer Service Initiative is easy access to streamlined information. As MTA customers increasingly use more than just one of the MTA’s operating agencies on a regular basis, information should be centralized and seamless. The MTA is exploring a plan to create one designated customer service phone number, similar to 311, where MTA customers would reach a call center that could provide seamless transportation information for all MTA services.

I can only imagine what the calls between a confused straphanger-to-be and the MTA’s 3-1-1 would sound like…

————————-

Caller: Hello? Hello? I’m at Union Square and I want to get to Central Park. What’s the fastest way?
MTA 3-1-1: Take that train.
Caller: Which train?
MTA 3-1-1: That one. The express.
Caller: We’re on the phone. I can’t see you pointing. And there are four different express trains here.
MTA 3-1-1: Ok. Hold on.
Pre-Recorded Hold Voice: We apologize for the unavoidable delay.
MTA 3-1-1: Ok. Take the L.

————————-

Caller: Help! Help! I’m being attacked!
MTA 3-1-1: ::Does Nothing::
Caller: Help! I’m being dragged!
MTA 3-1-1: ::Presses panic button::
Caller: HEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLP
MTA 3-1-1: ::Cowers in silence::

————————-

Caller: I’ve been standing out here in Astoria waiting for the train for 20 minutes. Can you tell me what’s going on?
MTA 3-1-1: Stand clear of the closing doors please.
Caller: There’s no train here! I can’t stand clear of the doors.
MTA 3-1-1: We apologize for the unavoidable delay. The train will be moving shortly.
Caller: What train?
MTA 3-1-1: We are being held in the station by the train’s dispatcher. We should be moving shortly.
Caller: WHAT $*#@#* TRAIN?!
MTA 3-1-1: We apologize for the unavoidable delay.

Inspired by the news that the MTA isn’t banning alcohol and these commercials…

Second Ave. Sagas presents Real Men of Genius
(Real Men of Genius)
Today we salute you Mr. Really Drunk Metro-North Commuter

(Mr. Really Drunk Metro-North Commuter)

Facing a long commute the end the day, you board the train clutching three cans of Bud Light, announcing to everyone that you can’t just wait until you’re at home.

(It’s really just a few more stops)

Pelham, New Rochelle, Larchmont, Mamaroneck
Ten more stops to go, and you’re already out of beer.

(We’re only at Port Chester)

Now you can keep on drinking even though you, like 286 other people last year, already got a ticket for creating a disturbance on the train.

(It’s not even a bar)

So crack open an ice cold Bud Light Mr. Drunk Commuter.
Watching the medics at Danbury treat your alcohol poisoning just adds to the excitement of a trip home.

(Mr. Really Drunk Metro-North Commuter)