Category: Live Blogging On the Subway

Poor electronic signs, you never had a chance

subwaybloggerLeave a comment

ltrainsign.jpg 

Yay!  The electronic message boardsalong the L line are up and running.  Uhhh…wait…no, maybe they aren’t.  Are they broken already?

In some cases yes, and not just with quirky little bugs.  It turns out that people are actually stealing the copper wiring that the signs are hooked up to!  The copper cabling is very valuable, and can be sold easily as scrap metal. 

The rising price of copper among scrap dealers is thought to be the cause of many copper capers around the city.

Transit officials say the thefts are partly to blame for delays in completing its ballyhooed Public Address/Customer Information Screen project.

Alright, let’s not get too carried away.  We can agree that it is a pretty significant set back, but don’t put too much of the delay-blame on the copper thieves.  There’s been a significant number of non-wire related problems too. 

On a side note, how much faith should we have in subway security?  If people can walk in, cut out copper cables, and walk away without anyone noticing, that seems to be a problem!  These aren’t little cables either.  Some of them can be an inch or two thick. 

More Winter Weather on the Way

subwaybloggerLeave a comment

Just in time to mess up your commute. The rain, snow, freezing rain, and ultimately ice will be here at about the time you’re ready to head off to work.

Even for those of us that don’t rely on street transportation, it could get messy. It all starts with the walk.

The sidewalks can be a disater waiting to happen. Many landlords and businesses don’t clear their sidewalks until after the snow and ice has stopped. So that makes walking fun. Then, there’s the slip n’ slide stairs to get down to the subway. Also fun. Lasty, you get to do it all over again in reverse once you get to your destination.

What does all this mean? Leave plenty of extra time to get where you are going. That way, you won’t have to be like “Last Minute Arrival Guy.”

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Asbestos Abatement

subwayblogger1 Comment

Mmmm yummy.

There are some signs up at my stop that say…

Public Notice. Asbestos Abatement.

It’s the kind of sign that makes you want to take a nice deep breath of relief.

It lists out all of the areas that the asbestos was found. In a nut shell, it’s every where.

Sweet.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Hey buddy, keep it in your…

subwaybloggerLeave a comment

blackberry.jpg 

…holster.

There’s people on the subway that , like me, use their BlackBerry on the train. However, some people act like others are trying to steal secrets from them or something.

This one guys keeps picking his head up to see if people are reading over his shoulder. Then he stares down his suspects and turns the other way. He looks insulted!

Buddy, we are all standing ass-to-back here. So yeah, someone might see your screen. If it’s that secret, maybe a crowded train isn’t the best place to be doing whatever you are doing on your phone.

Personally, I just let people read over my shoulder. Sometimes if I suspect someone has wandering eyes, I will write, “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?”

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Thanks Last Minute Arrival Guy

subwayblogger7 Comments

Do you know this guy?  He’s the one that runs through the closing subway doors at the last possible second.  You might know him best because he usually knocks people down like bowling pins as he darts through the doors.

There’s not much to say other than “what a dick.”

I love how he says “excuse me” as he throws himself into the sea of people standing in the doorway.  For some reason he thinks that he is skinnier than a runway model or something.  There’s clearly no more room, but Last Minute Arrival Guy sees nothing but space.

On a crowded train, everyone finally squeezes in and settles into their possitions.  People begin to read their paper, or click through their iPods.  Then WHAM!  Enter Last Minute Arrival Guy.

Sometimes, a fellow passenger says, “Hey, there’s no more room!”  The famous rebuttal is, “Yeah there is.”  What a compelling argument fella.  Sure, if we all breath a little shallower, there’s plenty of space. 

Hey everyone, take off your coats and hold them over your heads so that we can make a little more room for this a-hole to get on board!

Stops Under Construction

subwaybloggerLeave a comment

Every time I find myself in the Columbus Circle area, it seems that the station is taken over by more construction. Everytime I’m there, it’s like a completely different stop because of all the temporary walls that go up.

The first thing the crews seem to do is establish a home base somewhere at the station. Then, they set up big, blue walls to section off an area to work on.

It used to be that an area would be blocked off, they’d work, and then move on to the next area. Now, it seems like the constuction teams are just taking over the whole station!

I guess it’s a good thing that improvements are being made. Hopefully they will remember to leave standing room on the platforms at least!

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Gotta love a short week

subwaybloggerLeave a comment

Nothing starts the week off right like starting it on Tuesday! Unless of course you live in Brooklyn and rely on the 7 train.

For those that fit that description, it might well have been a rather uneventful weekend.

SUBWAYblogger lives in Manhattan, so the 7 train closure wasn’t that big a deal. However, we feel your pain. Nothing sucks more in your transit life than when your stop is closed. This summer, the bus became our regular weekend alternative to make it over to the nearest express stop.

There’s been protests along the 7 line about the weekend line closure. Unfortunately, it won’t make any difference. In the big picture, closing the line on the weekends is the fastest way to get the work done. Otherwise, it will drag on forever.

Look at it this way, as soon as the work is done, it will be 50 years before they so much as change a lightbulb on that line!

Live from the subway, back to you in studio…

Broken doors

subwaybloggerLeave a comment

Well, that was a first. I just arrived at the subway station and there was a train already at the platform. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it down the stairs in time to get on. However, the train was in the station for quite a while because of a stuck door.

The train motorman got out of the front of the train, and walked back to the car with the stuck door. He had to slide the door back and forth by hand to get it to catch the lock! 

You can always tell which doors are open or stuck by the little red lights above the doors on the inside or outside of the train.

They kept telling everyone to get their bags and coats away from the door. They thought people were blocking the doors. After 15 tries, it was clear they weren’t going to close correctly on their own.

But the motorman was able to kick the door’s ass, and made it work.

What was also odd was that he jumped off the front of the train onto the tracks, then climbed onto the platform. I guess there were too many people in the car to allow him to walk out the normal way.

Then he jumped off the platform, around to the front of the train, and climbed back up the front of the train again.

Live from the subway, back to you in studio… 

Walking to the subway is a bitch

subwayblogger2 Comments

snowcabs.jpg

On snowy days like today, walking to the subway is a real pain in the ass.  Mostly, it is due the joy that is crossing over intersections.  Most look like this.  The slush in the streets gets up to your knees in some places.

The MTA also does a pretty crappy job of clearing the stairs.  The snow, slush, and ice builds up quickly, so people cling to the handrail to keep from breaking their asses.  Then you have to climb back up the slippery stairs to get out of the subway.

But once you’re there, the train is way better than trying to drive.  It’s even better than the busses. I saw two busses on the same block stuck in the street!  Once of them spun out its back tires causing it to fishtail into a sign pole.  Yikes.

Nothing Says Sexy Like a Free Subway Condom

subwaybloggerLeave a comment

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/U--D_-PqLpA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the NYC Subway condom has hit the streets.

The video here is really funny. Look around midway through for the old man with the cane that get’s handed the condom. He doesn’t know what to do with it so he hands it back!! hahah

In midtown today, you might have been offered one as you exited the subway. As you can see in the video above, people don’t really pay attention to what they are being offered. SUBWAYblogger knew right way what it was, and jumped all over it.

Interestingly, the city may have skirted the violation of the MTA’s circle logo trademarks. The MTA was upset that they were going to use the subway line logos (little colored circles) on the condom’s wrapper to make it look “city like.”

On the one SUBWAYblogger received this morning, there were subway looking circles that spell “NYC CONDOM.” However, the actual letters in the circles are not real subway lines. For example, the “C” in Condom is in a yellow circle, but the C subway line is actually blue. So maybe that’s how they got around that issue.