Turns out it was just a late night service quirk and not a result of the service changes. It was funny to me though because this was pretty much my exact thought process before the F train rolled into the station.
Posts Tagged ‘service change’
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Usually service changes have an excess of information to the point that you have no idea what it means. This one didn’t have enough information. It literally said “This evening” for the service change. It was up for at least three days.
Sometimes subway service change notifications will require you to use a magnifying glass to read. Other times you need to piece them together to get what ultimately is relevant to your specific travel needs. We were trying to figure out why people were on the local platform still when it seemed nothing was coming there (in retrospect the E train was probably still on the local track). In time we ran downstairs and back up to the express platform to catch the A. Our through processes pretty much did happen at the pace depicted in this comic.
These walls exist whereupon there are no fewer than nine different service advisories. Some say the same thing but for different dates. The trick is finding the one pertaining to your train and the date it is happenning. Still though it can be quite daunting. Also there are times I get confused when it says one train replaces another train because I wonder if it means that an express is now local or something like that. This is something I feel like you never see in movies that take place in the future, regular maintenance.
Yesterday I just missed the subway in the morning, but wasn’t worried because I usually catch the train that was coming in seven or so minutes. About twenty seven minutes passed by and that’s when people went to the guy at the booth. He said there were no trains on that side. The full platform of people groaned and I had to take a bus to another stop and ended up being more than half an hour late. This time the deli really had switched to lunch mode and put the bagels away (though I was still able to get mine).
What I wondered was when the guy in the booth found out there were no trains anymore because they were running express past. Also if he had known is there even a big loudspeaker in the subway the guy in the booth uses? I was under the impression it was some big control center place where all the announcements were made from, and that the guy in the booth’s PA system wasn’t that strong past the immediate vicinity.
I’m sure most people in New York had their own commuting horror story yesterday due to the weather. I woke up somewhere between 5:00 am and 6:00 am because of the crazy loud thunder. I was pretty groggy, but I remember thinking it was cool because I like thunder and it’s been a while since we had any. Also the lightning was going crazy flashing in my eyes every few seconds. A friend of mine whose apartment has a view of the World’s Fair globe in Queens said the rain was pouring so hard he couldn’t see the globe.
Anyway, I get to the subway station and I see at least six people on their cell phones, and another woman quickly hailing a cab (I’m sure she had a wonderful time stuck in traffic). Last time this happened the other nearby subway station was all right, so I walked over. Turns out not only were there at least two to three times as many people outside this station on their cell phones, but they had already taped off the station. I called a work friend who lives in Brooklyn to see what they were doing.
I then decided to go back home and read announcements, but luckily passed a couple saying the R train was still running. So I ended up walking to that station, and once I got there it was pretty normal except for the tremendous amount of water on the tracks. Plus the humidity was INSANELY GROSS. There was a guy who looked like he was caught in the rain, but just had just soaked his white shirt in sweat, eeeeeeeewwwwww. So I got to work maybe an hour late. Don’t want to sound ignorant here, but listen up MTA. This happens EVERY TIME there’s a major rainstorm, what’s the deal yo?
Sorry for the lack of a comic yesterday, I was just really zonked after getting back from Anime Expo, taking the redeye on Monday night and then sleeping until later in the afternoon once I got home. It always takes a while to settle back in after going to a convention and this one was in particular one that took a lot out of me for various reasons.
As for this comic I just thought of it when I was on the train going over the Manhattan bridge and the train stopped frequently saying that there was traffic ahead due to power loss in Manhattan. I was playing Brain Age Sudoku at the time so I was mostly occupied. Eventually the power loss excuse stopped and changed to the police investigation one which persisted until I made it home finally. But really, does it really matter all that much which reason we get? The one I hate the most is “There’s a train ahead of us.” Granted I know nothing about the subway and how close trains get together, but it always seems to me that if we’re not moving at all there’d be plenty of room between us and the next train. But more likely the train ahead is also going slow so that’s the reason.
I sense a coming storm of subway service changes on weekends now that it’s getting warmer, or it could be a coincidence. I don’t think I’ve seen a service change that referenced a season instead of a month, but now I have. The Q train also wasn’t running at all, instead there was a shuttle bus to the nearest N station. Let it begin.
Technically at this point I still have not tasted the fruits of the delicious end of this hellish transit strike. If I’m to believe what they’re telling me I should be sitting pretty tomorrow morning instead of lugging my, well, luggage across the bridge to work and then to Penn Station.
I biked to work yesterday which actually went a little smoother than the ride home the previous day. For one thing there was less traffic so I had fewer of those congested areas where I was too afraid to ride alongside cars for fear of scratching them up with my handlebars and then falling onto the pavement. I also found a street with a bike lane was was a remarkable stress reliever. Still though I could never do it regularly. I probably would get the hang of it if forced to but it’s way too nerve wracking. Following the more hardcore in traffic seems like a good idea until they go to the center of the street and then weave back to the right leaving you stranded if you don’t act quickly enough.
I also think the incline of the Manhattan Bridge is a lot steeper on the Brooklyn side than the Manhattan because it felt a lot more difficult. Funny thing is that because of my martial arts my legs are in better shape than they’ve ever been. Yet less than an hour of biking was enough to make me feel like they were still not in very good shape. Different muscles I guess.
I’m just so glad it’s all over. Never good to start a vacation with giant amounts of stress.
Something I noticed was that some of the New York Times’ captions for their strike photos were truly amusing in how they were clearly written just because they needed to put some sort of caption. The best was one for people walking on the Brooklyn Bridge: “People walk into Manhattan over the bridge named after the borough they live in.” Another great one was a photo of the road symbol for the walk lane: “On the Brooklyn Bridge, a symbol appeared to encourage commuters as they marched themselves all the way across the East River for the third morning in a row.”
Yesterday I was hanging out with a friend in Williamsburg and had a really irritating time getting back to my neck of Brooklyn. I had to transfer three times instead of only two. This doesn’t sound like a significant difference but when it’s already 12:30 am you just want to get home. Plus the third transfer was one of those ones where they decide to skip your stop and then you have to backtrack from the station they actually arrived at. Those are the most annoying.
What’s especially annoying is that on weekends there’s been construction going on on both of the subway lines I take. More than that, the signs seemed to indicate the changes were going to be over at the end of October but it looks like they have new signs indicating that this sort of thing is going to be happening late nights and weekends for another three weeks. Grrrr….
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