Ummm…why is everyone so impressed with the good grades the S train received in the Rider’s Reportcard?
How hard could it possibly be to run a train that has only one stop? If you can’t manage to do that well, you need to find a new line of work. It’s no shock to us that the S train was rated well.
You just get on it. Stand for 30 second, and get off. Then it heads back in the other direction. Not rocket science.
Seriously folks? Is this what it has come to?
I know it has been a couple days since I last posted (company in town), but I take my eye off the ball for one second and we’ve got Christmas music in the mall.
I enjoy holidays like Veteran’s Day because it usually means I can get a seat on the subway. Which I did…in both directions. However, when I got off the train today the holiday was crushed. It was crushed by Christmas.
There it was. The start of holiday decorations. Holiday music playing outside. It is the official start to the holiday season. Let the cash registers ring.
SUBWAYblogger.com recently got our hands on some insider knowledge from sources within the transportation business.
First, the obvious, but not widely known. Coming a year from now, New York City will host the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems. This is hands down the absolute largest, most important expo for the entire transportation business. Everyone who is anyone in the transport biz attends this show. Manufacturers, builders, tech geeks, etc. all get in on the act.
So what does this mean for the everyday transit user? Hopefully some quick improvements.
Our sources tell us that the upcoming World Congress is a regular topic of conversation for high level transportation officials in the city. Why? Because no host city wants to be embarrassed by the state of their transportation system. Part of the World Congress includes tours of facilities in the city. During that week, NYC will be the world wide focus for the transportation business. That’s a ton of pressure if you’re on the receiving end of that focus. You want to be on top of your game.
So what will we see? Well, it’s no coincidence that we have seen somewhat random program launches by the MTA like: online escalator/elevator alerts, weekend service alerts via email, MTA trip planner, cellphone service in the subway, alternative payment methods, and most recently the SMS text message alert RFP.
So you should expect to see many of these new technology initiatives sprout up. The more jewels the city has to show at the World Congress the better. All those new hybrid buses…yeah…those will be looked at too.
It’s reasonable to assume we would have gotten all this stuff eventually even if the World Congress weren’t coming to town. However, it probably wouldn’t be happening all at the same time (now!).
The new New Jersey 511 system is a perfect example. (511 is a call in service for NJ traffic and transit alerts). The NJ DOT had this technology 4 or 5 years ago already purchased. However, we hear that they allegedly sat on it because of bureaucratic issues. Then, all of a sudden, they caught wind that New York and Connecticut plan to launch a 511 system. So they jumped to get theirs up. Unfortunately, they are launching “new” 5 year old technology. So when you call the number, you hear an ancient text-to-speech voice reading you traffic/transit alerts. Pretty lame-0. Read More »
Have you seen this video. It’s like a Craigslist “Missed Connection”…only way more gay. There, I said it.
But, the romantics here at SUBWAYblogger decided to throw the kid a bone, and post it.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=373021&server=vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=
Patrick discusses the girl of his dreams from Jakob Lodwick on Vimeo.
If this turns out to be some sort of hoax, I’m going to be rippin’ pissed. On the other hand, if he finally meets her, I totally want to see a picture of this chick.In other news, even if he doesn’t meet her, he’s now got thousands of other single hot girls wanting his shit. So either way, he’s totally set. If that was the plan from the get-go, this may have been the most genius idea in the history of mankind.
Ever heard this one: “Because of a trouble, uptown/downtown _____ trains are running ______ ”
Ever wonder what the signal lights really mean? It’s a little more complicated than a normal traffic light. For example, when you really pay close attention, you might notice stacked sets of lights. One might be green, and another might be yellow. What the heck does that mean?
Well, I stumbled across a fabulous article on “How Stuff Works.” Who knew?! They have an article about how the subway works. It covers more than just the lights and signals. This is one of the many helpful illustrations they have.
So check it out. Some pretty cool stuff I bet you didn’t know.
I created the Annoying Subway People lists a few months back. I published Part 1 and Part 2 in quick succession and got a great response from both. I was totally stoked and planned on doing many more. I kept track of all the annoying people the trains had to offer and really had a good thing going. But then I accidentally deleted the master list! Nuts.
All my ideas were gone. I desperately tried to remember who was on the list, but it was all for naught. To make matters worse, I found myself either growing more patient with my fellow commuters or being too busy sweating my balls off. I even tried to get frustrated with people on purpose, but everyone was on their best behavior! Nobody so much as looked at me the wrong way! That in itself was frustrating. But then came the wedding…
The planning had been going full force for many months. The stress/anxiety levels were at record levels. I didn’t sleep enough and I had a million things on my mind. Low and behold, my patience level dropped to rock bottom. I’ll be damned if the Annoying Subway People ideas didn’t started flowing again!
So with that long intro out of the way, I present you the long overdue
Annoying Subway People: Part 3 To refresh your memories, so far we’ve covered:1. Zig-Zaggers
2. Doddlers
3. Fingers in Ear People
4. People Who Don’t Bathe
5. Door-Holders
6. Candy Selling Kids
7. Window Scratchers
8. Stoppers/Stair Stoppers
9. Earbud Guy
10. Stop and Go Conductors
11. No Speaka English-ites
12. Mimes
13. Shorties
14. The Leaning SleepersToday we start with Number…
15. Sickies: They’re already out in force now, but just you wait until cooler weather hits. I love boarding a train packed full of sniffling, sneezing, and coughing people. It’s even better when they’re sneezing and coughing directly on me. Screw carrying around Purell for my hands, I’m going to start carrying a can of Lysol to spray on people.
16. Bridge-Talkers: The N train takes anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes to cross the Manhattan Bridge. It’s the only part of my commute that has cell-phone service. Sure enough, every morning some jerk (or seven) pulls out his phone and squeezes in all-that important call. “Hey, what’s going on? Nothing? Me too. Just crossing the bridge…” and on and on and on. He doesn’t have anything to say, he’s just bored. Hey buddy, try reading a book or something. Nobody wants to hear how boring your life is.
17. Witches: Remember when we talked about Stair-Stoppers? Apparently there’s a extra special breed of stair-stoppers called Witches. You’ll see them as you try to exit the subway on a rainy day. They’ll make it all the way to the top of the stairs, then stop dead in their tracks and try to figure out how they’re going to survive when there’s a possibility of getting wet. You can actually see the panic in their eyes. Doesn’t matter if they have an umbrella. In fact, this might slow ’em down even more. Bonus points for little people that have ridiculously massive umbrellas.Read More »
As you know, I’ve been bitching about the massive, never ending amount of construction at 59th Street Columbus Circle. Well, the builders just recently discovered a little piece of subway history. They found this plaque mounted behind a false wall.
The plaque dates from before the IRT line even ran there…prior to 1901! How cool is that?
It just makes me wonder what kind of historic artifacts are hidden behind walls all over the city. Little bits of history, just covered up and forgotten.
It turns out that the 59th Street station was a kind of proving ground for the architects Heins & LaFarge in 1901, three years before the Interborough Rapid Transit Company trains began running through it.
“The architects used its walls as an art gallery, experimenting with decorative ideas in various colors of tiles and other materials,” Philip Ashforth Coppola wrote in “Silver Connections: A Fresh Perspective on the New York Area Subway Systems” (Four Oceans Press, 1984). “When the real decorating of Columbus Circle began, all these preliminary experiments were covered over and forgotten.” That is, until this fall. [From NY Times. Read more here]
There’s talk about carefully cutting it out of the wall and placing it in the transit museum. I wish they would leave it right where it is, maybe restore it a little bit, and make it available for people to see. The could do something artistic with the way the wall is peeled away just around the plaque part itself. It’s really cool, as a rider, to come across these little treasures.
SUBWAYblogger 