After New York City Transit finished collecting rider report cards for the No. 7 line, and just beginning doling out cards for the L line, Transit opened up grading for all lines on the MTA Web site. Straphangers are invited to grade their line in English, Spanish, Chinese or a selection of 10 other languages. Transit has only officially opened two lines for grading--one is now closed--but they'll hold your vote on the other 20 until voting for those lines begins.
(via flickr's Leepak)
Tomorrow the A train will become a breast-feeding caravan. To promote breast-feeding mother's rights, state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) and a bunch of nursing mothers will hop on the A train at 59th Street just in time for lunch. The noon ride will end in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Alliance for Breastfeeding Empowerment fair on Fulton Street near New York Avenue. Krueger, who penned the Breastfeeding Mothers' Bill of Rights, said in a written statement that mothers are still harrassed for feeding their babies in pubilc places.
The trackwork that's been fouling up the weekend commutes for thousands of A and C riders will end one week early, the MTA announced today. The suspension of C service and the partial suspension of A service will continue this weekend but the trackwork will be finished by Monday, the MTA said. The disrpution allowed MTA worked to replace 1,200 feet of roadbed on the Manhattan bound A and C track between Hoyt-Schemerhorn and Jay Street stations.
-- Michael Clancy
That’s what rider representative to the MTA board Andrew Albert tells the tracker.
Albert said he checked out how New York City Transit handled the A/C diversions over the weekend. He noted how Transit commandeered whole blocks street parking for shuttle buses.
“They had the operation down very well,” he said.
He also advised weekend travelers headed for the AirTrain to take the E to Jamaica Station rather than a shuttle bus along the A route to Howard Beach.
-- Chuck Bennett
A rider was struck by a train around 9:30 am at the Grant Ave. station along the A line. No information about his condition or whether it was an accident or suicide. Northbound service between Rockaway Blvd and Euclid Avenue is still out.
UPDATE: Preliminary reports indicate it was a "jumper" and was DOA when emergenct responders arrived.
-- Chuck Bennett
Photo of R160 by Jefferson Siegel
A reader asked:
Are new trains (think L,2,3,4,5,6) now running on the A line? I was headed downtown tonight on the E and at Chambers, I spotted a train that looked like the L but was, in fact, the A headed uptown. Any official news of new trains on this line or was this a fluke? Thanks for your help in clearing up this mystery.
The answer is yes. NYC Transit started testing the new R160 -- a swankier version of the R143s found on the L -- on the A line. Unlike the older cars, the R160s have the fancy LCD screen display with a map that moves as the subway travels. Originally, it was being tested on the N line, but on Sept. 11 it started another 30 day trial period on the A.
-- Chuck Bennett amNY.com
The TA revised the number of riders trapped on the A train in the blistering sun from 300 to 70. Still, it’s one to many. And 70 people crowding into the four cars with open doors can’t be that pleasant, especially as it sat out on the bridge with the sun reflecting off the water. And the refreshing water was close yet so far.
The TA is also now saying the 97 degree heat may have caused the third rail to buckle causing the power loss.
What is suprising that no one got fed up and just walked off the tracks.
-- Chuck Bennett
The TA revised the number of riders trapped on the A train in the blistering sun from 300 to 70. Still, it’s one to many. And 70 people crowding into the four cars with open doors can’t be that pleasant, especially as it sat out on the bridge with the sun reflecting off the water. And the refreshing water was close yet so far.
The TA is also now saying the 97 degree heat may have caused the third rail to buckle causing the power loss.
What is suprising that no one got fed up and just walked off the tracks.
-- Chuck Bennett
If you were anywhere near a TV set in New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s, then you remember (and perhaps recoil at the sound of) this jingle: Take the train to the plane!
That train was the JFK Express, the repurposed A train which ran from 1978 to 1990 and was a
dud almost from the start. The big but hardly only fault: It didn't provide a one-seat ride to the airport. (You had to endure an arduous transfer to a free Port Authority bus at Howard Beach.) It did offer several perks, such as a comfortable ride, police on the train, and even on-board ticketing. But by May 1989, daily ridership was down to just 3,700 (each express used four cars), while an average A train could accommodate 2,000 passengers, Jim Dwyer pointed out that year.
So all these years later, here's a look at the commercials that tried and failed to sell New York on the merits of the JFK Express, but left NYC with -- love it or hate it -- a classic campaign. The first spot introducing the service is from 1978; the second is from 1980, and has a commuter taking a stab at singing the jingle. They surfaced on YouTube, from a poster called tvnewsman.
-- Rolando Pujol
Image from Wikipedia
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