Thousands of signs throughout the subway system will have to be changed in advance of the June service cuts. (Photo by flickr user TheTruthAbout…)
When Monday, June 28 rolls around, New York City commuters will be plenty confused. The MTA’s service changes will knock out hundreds of bus stops and two subway lines with another — the M — being rerouted up Sixth Ave. To make sure the system is telling people where to go, New York City Transit will have to change approximately 2750 signs at 154 stations. We know how the bus stops are being phased out, but what of the signs underground?
Today, Michael Grynbaum takes us inside the sign shop as Transit prepares for a station overhaul. The guys in that division, Grynbaum writes, have to ready 25,000 maps to go along with the 2750 signs that will start to be put in place two weeks before the cuts go into effect. Nothing with the V or W bullets or the current brown M train is too small to be forgotten.
The replacements range in size and price. A small vinyl M decal, newly orange, may cost the agency about $25 to produce. A giant porcelain sign, like “42 St — Times Square,” costs about $300 to make. All told, the cost of the new signs and maps is expected to reach about $800,000. Some of that money was already budgeted, the agency said, since new maps are printed every year.
All traces of the V and W trains, two of this year’s casualties, must be struck from the system, while decals for the rerouted M line — it will head north on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, replacing the V — must be added to signs and entrances at dozens of stations. Even more minor changes require dozens of replacements. The Q line, for instance, will now terminate in Queens, not Midtown Manhattan, which means every station along its route must advertise “Q to Astoria” rather than the current “57 St — 7 Av…”
Some of the changes will start as slapdash: The circular logos for the V train — known in-house as bullets — will get an M decal taped over for now, and will later be replaced with a permanent sticker. A small station may need fewer than a dozen signs replaced; a major transfer point, West Fourth Street, which will now be a stop for the M instead of the V, requires 147 new signs. But don’t expect new signs at big stations like Herald Square or Rockefeller Center until just a few hours before the changes. “Anything in Manhattan, we try to wait until the last minute,” Mr. Montemarano said.
A mid-2008 sign change caught on camera. Photo by Benjamin Kabak
For the most part, reports Grynbaum, the changes won’t occur until the weekend before the day the service cuts go into place. Then, he writes, “a phalanx of maintenance workers is poised to fan out across the system — ladders and fresh signs in tow…The idea is to minimize confusion and allow breathing room for any last-minute revisions: In 2009, the entire service-cut package was avoided by an 11th-hour Albany bailout.” That bailout won’t come, but the signs need to change.
The signs though aren’t the only things to go. Subway and bus maps that live throughout the system must be switched out as well. Approximately 7000 bus maps will be changed, and 1800 in-station subway maps are to be replaced. With a system as massive as New York City’s, the scope of this project is massive.
When the last remaining vestiges of the W and V trains are removed, when no sign proclaims an M to Bay Parkway, Transit will attempt to sell off the old pieces of metal. Some collectors will buy the signs for wall decorations, some will end up in the Transit Museum’s collection and the rest will be lost to the history of an ever-changing subway system. After all, nothing — not even the short-lived V train — is forever.
Mark your calendar for a transit funeral: The last V and W trains will roll down the line on Friday, June 25.