what the subway really needs
Eric G. Carter
>Air Conditioning. It's ridiculous to walk into Wall Street station or
>Grand Central (the two stations I frequent twice daily) on a dry 60 degree
>day and get hit in the face with what feels like over 80 degrees and
>oodles of humidity.
--
The reason subway stations get so hot: Air conditioning! It's the subway
train air conditioners releasing all of that heat into the tunnels.
eca...@pipeline.com
"When I'm good, I'm good...when I'm bad, I'm better....when I'm worst, I'm
best."
Eric Carter "The truth shall make you strange"
Ken Ficara
> Air Conditioning. It's ridiculous to walk into Wall Street station
Well, the tradeoff we got when the trains finally became mostly
air-conditioned ten years ago or so was hotter stations. Remember,
those cool trains are the result of a heat pump that's expelling the
heat into the tunnels and stations.
You couldn't possibly a/c the stations unless you managed to seal the
whole system. You could probably create little glassed-in areas with
air conditioners, but WHERE DO YOU PUT THE HEAT? Whether it's a little
window unit, or a big office-building type system, the heat you're
removing has got to be dumped somewhere.
Frankly, I'd much rather the TA spent a lot of money continuing to
improve service so that you only have to wait five minutes or so for a
train.
> Granted, we don't want indigents congregating in the air
>conditioned areas, but couldn't there be a "no loitering" area set up where
Forget the indigents. What do you think that a/c area is going to look
like during rush hour, where you can barely stand on the platform?
>you can wait only until your train gets there? I've noticed that the bum
>count has gone down quite a bit over the last six or so years, and that
Actually the bum count rose pretty sharply when Rudy was elected.
>outrageous. Isn't DC's subway airconditioned, or did it just feel that
>way?
Good question. I don't think so; I think you were feeling the effect
of stations with 25-foot ceilings that let the heat rise. Does anyone
know of an airconditioned subway system?
--
Ken Ficara fic...@acm.org
GEnie: K.FICARA Compu$erve: 71311,1461 AOL: KenFicara
Susan Barwick
In article <37vbal$9...@news.cloud9.net>, henn...@cloud9.net (Mathew Hennessy) writes:
> Air Conditioning. It's ridiculous to walk into Wall Street station
> degree day and get hit in the face with what feels like over 80 degrees and
> inhaler runs out I seriously fear for my life (I have been in the hospital
> for asthma many times before, and several times were, in the opinion of my
> physician, life threatening) going down there. Obviously these problems
> are highly exacerbated by the sheer numbers of rush-hour commuters, but
> it's still a problem and a valid gripe.
> Granted, we don't want indigents congregating in the air
> conditioned areas, but couldn't there be a "no loitering" area set up where
> count has gone down quite a bit over the last six or so years, and that
> And the expense? It's probably cheaper than suffering the lawsuits
> from the parents of dead asthmatics! ;)
> Anything to reduce the nastiness of the subway system will garner
> both respect and ridership, and I don't think that my idea is too
> outrageous. Isn't DC's subway airconditioned, or did it just feel that
> way?
>
> Mathew A. Hennessy | "What I get by my brains I will spend on my bollocks,
> henn...@cloud9.net | so long as I have a tester or a testicle remaining."
> --------------------| - Lord Byron
> My other computer is a PowerMac. | I'd rather be playing Alien Vs. Predator.
You are kidding, aren't you?!?!! Air-conditioned subway platforms --
with no loitering zones to boot! And you don't think your
idea is too outrageous. It's TOTALLY outrageous! Like who's
gonna pay for your idea? And how exactly would one contain
the air conditioned air within the subway system, considering
all the places for the air to escape (via the tunnels themselves).
Please think again!
--
*********************************************************
Susan Barwick | susan....@fi.gs.com
Goldman Sachs & Co. | phone: 212-902-8131
85 Broad Street, 15th Floor | fax: 212-346-3043
Lui Sieh
<38189h$p...@remus.rutgers.edu>:
>>outrageous. Isn't DC's subway airconditioned, or did it just feel that
>>way?
>
>Good question. I don't think so; I think you were feeling the effect
>of stations with 25-foot ceilings that let the heat rise. Does anyone
>know of an airconditioned subway system?
I think maybe Singapore's system comes fairly close. Both systems are
nearly identical.
//Lui
--
Who: Lui Sieh |How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same
Mail: si...@panix.com |balance with ourselves. -- Thomas A Kempis
_____________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: These are my opinions...but others may share them as well
Mathew Hennessy
>You are kidding, aren't you?!?!! Air-conditioned subway platforms --
>with no loitering zones to boot! And you don't think your
Not at all. If enough people were bothered by the heat and
humidity, someone would either find the way or start looking for another
job. I seriously doubt that I'm the only one who has a problem with it,
according to casual conversation in the AM rush.
>idea is too outrageous. It's TOTALLY outrageous! Like who's
>gonna pay for your idea? And how exactly would one contain
How about doing a study, and trying to factor in anticipated
ridership growth, possible funding assistance from the state/feds, or
consider rate increases? I pay $40 a week to take the New Haven into NYC,
well over 20 miles, twice a day on a commuter train that's comfortable,
quiet, and always seems to have a seat for me. I pay $12.50 a week to get
shouted at by platform men, to choke nearly to death on the foul air, to
cram in with a hundred of my closest friends, to go from 42nd st to Wall st
twice a day. I hope I'm not the only one seeing something strange here.
Besides, if we're going to pay so that stations have wheelchair access
maintained, how about addressing my disability? Granted, it's not as
spatially limiting in an absolute sense, but it's probably more lethal.
>the air conditioned air within the subway system, considering
>all the places for the air to escape (via the tunnels themselves).
If the hot air could escape, that would probably alleviate most of
the problem! It seems to me that the ventilation leaves rather a bit to be
desired. Perhaps a fan system would be more affordable, combined with some
dehumidifiers draining into the sewer. Whatever the solution, SOME
solution should be proposed and implemented.
>Please think again!
Oh, I think about this again and again, twice a day, as some
woman's shoulder blades are digging into the middle of my spine. Oddly
enough, I seem to come to the same conclusion all the time.
>Susan Barwick | susan....@fi.gs.com
>Goldman Sachs & Co. | phone: 212-902-8131
>85 Broad Street, 15th Floor | fax: 212-346-3043
Hey, you should know what I'm talking about! I work over at Chase
Plaza, which should be rather close by.. I'm constantly amazed at the
amount of crap New Yorkers will put up with. Perhaps it's too damn
stressful to care too much..
The8thMan
Mauritz) writes:
:: Ken Ficara (fic...@remus.rutgers.edu) wrote:
:: with general lack of respect for public property in this city, make
this
::idea sounds like a bad joke. Most New Yorkers would prolly laugh at the
::idea of having glass enclosed subway stations.
>Probably not practical as NYers seem to shit on public property with
>complete impunity.
Um, don't you think you should rephrase that to "as a certain determined
minority of NYers.." I don't see Giuliani or hordes of guys in suits
dropping
their drawers and doing their business in stark daylight.
Recently there was a mass community cleanup composed of natives and
commuters alike cleaning up places like Grand Central, Penn, etc. I'd
like
to think we're not all as bad as you suggest.
Rather than sink to your level and point up things about Jersey, I'll
leave it
at that. :)
>Regards,
>Chris
>--
>Christopher Mauritz | Ask me about public access unix
>ri...@mordor.com | and interactive internet services.
>Mordor International BBS | BBS: (201)433-7343,(212)843-3451
>Jersey City, NJ | FAX: (201)433-4222
Bruce Stewart
: of stations with 25-foot ceilings that let the heat rise. Does anyone
: know of an airconditioned subway system?
Washington DC has air-conditioned stations.
Bruce G. Stewart
Bruce Stewart
>Seems like Singapore has everything New York needs:
>Airconditioned subways and caning!
Hey. I'm sure New York has caning for anyone who is willing to pay.
Bruce G. Stewart
Chris Mauritz
: In article <Cxx5...@ritz.mordor.com>, ri...@ritz.mordor.com (Chris
: Mauritz) writes:
: :: Ken Ficara (fic...@remus.rutgers.edu) wrote:
: :: with general lack of respect for public property in this city, make
: this
: ::idea sounds like a bad joke. Most New Yorkers would prolly laugh at the
: ::idea of having glass enclosed subway stations.
: >Probably not practical as NYers seem to shit on public property with
: >complete impunity.
: Um, don't you think you should rephrase that to "as a certain determined
: minority of NYers.." I don't see Giuliani or hordes of guys in suits
: dropping
: their drawers and doing their business in stark daylight.
Actually, this was poorly phrased on my part. I think the vast majority
of New Yorkers are upstanding citizens who are just as sick of the filth
as I am. It is a shame that a tiny minority of determined jerks make
the place into the dump we know today. To mirror another poster's
sentiments, perhaps a half dozen lashes to these cretins wouldn't be
a bad thing.
: Recently there was a mass community cleanup composed of natives and
: commuters alike cleaning up places like Grand Central, Penn, etc. I'd
: like
: to think we're not all as bad as you suggest.
Yup.
: Rather than sink to your level and point up things about Jersey, I'll
: leave it
: at that. :)
In terms of subway service, the PATH train is several orders of magnitude
cleaner and more reliable than the NYC subway. However, it also doesn't
go to as many places. :)
Marc Stein
>The subway stations of Hong Kong are air-conditioned. I'm not sure about
>the height of the ceilings, but the architecture of the station is similiar
>in design to the stations of the PATH. I don't know how they did it or
>where the heat goes, but the stations are definitely air-conditioned.
>When you walk down into one, you can feel a definite temperature.
>I wonder if the MTA should look into this...
>--
>Dan
>hkn...@acf.nyu.edu
>ed...@escape.com
I have heard that the subway stations here are warmer than they used to be
because they started air-conditioning all the subway trains-- exhaust heat
from the A/C's. I was going to ask what they do with the exhaust when
they air-condition subway stations, but then I remembered that every building
in the city is air-conditioned. A few more industrial A/C's won't make much
difference to street-level comfort.
Cpt Medina
Hello Mathew:
I know what you mean. I live in San Francisco and the Metro feels
the same way even when it is not a hot day. I lived in New York as a child
and I remember the subway quite well.-Tony
Ken Ficara
>idea sounds like a bad joke. Most New Yorkers would prolly laugh at the
>idea of having glass enclosed subway stations.
One of the many things I like about New York City is that, presented
with this DisneyWorld style idea of glassing in subway stations and
air-conditioning them (hell, why not ruffled curtains and little end
tables while we're at it?), most New Yorkers would collapse
laughing. Frankly, I'd be sorely tempted not to scrawl some graffiti
on them myself.
rrhe...@emr1.emr.ca
>In nyc.general henn...@cloud9.net (Mathew Hennessy) said:
>
>
>>Air Conditioning. It's ridiculous to walk into Wall Street station or
>>Grand Central (the two stations I frequent twice daily) on a dry 60 degree
>
>>day and get hit in the face with what feels like over 80 degrees and
>>oodles of humidity.
>--
>
>The reason subway stations get so hot: Air conditioning! It's the subway
>train air conditioners releasing all of that heat into the tunnels.
>
>eca...@pipeline.com
I don't know that the A/C trains make the stations hot. I remember when there
were no A/C trains (boy am I old!) and the subways were just as hot but you
couldn't look forward to an A/C train coming along.
--
Roberta Rheaume
rrhe...@emr1.emr.ca
----------------------------
The8thMan
writes:
>How About all the obvious line transfers unavailable. Uptown only at #6
>B'way Lafayette? Can't go from the A to the 1 at Canal? Why Why Why?
No, you mean you can only change for the downtown only at B'way-Laf.
My feeling is they didn't feel it was worth the time and money to dig
a passage from the BMT to the other side of the 6 train. To be honest,
it would make sense, seeing how it would give BMT riders much easier
access to the East Side rather than having to change at 14th or 42nd.
>And what ever happened to that other East side line. I'll take that over
>AC any day.
You mean the 2nd Avenue line? Beats me.. I think it was tied to the
63rd St. tunnel which wound up becoming an extension to the Q line.
Yasso
outrageous, but more ventilation would be great. I find the platforms much
more comfortable as trains approach and depart, creating a breeze.
>Yasso
The8thMan
writes:
>You are kidding, aren't you?!?!! Air-conditioned subway platforms --
>with no loitering zones to boot! And you don't think your
>idea is too outrageous. It's TOTALLY outrageous! Like who's
>gonna pay for your idea?
Well, for one thing, you can always take a cab which will take longer :)
My feeling is, the first person who brings up the city on a lawsuit
over injuries from heat exhaustion will probably get planning
started. :)
But also understand, that in places like Wall St, it'd be
almost impossible to AC the stations by any degree. Where are
you going to put the equipment? Can't dig much for new holes,
lower Manhattan is already a nightmare of overcrowded underground
conduits.. dig up the wrong line and you're talking fireball or
ball lightning.. :) Can't stick the AC machines on the street, you'd
stuff up traffic...
>And how exactly would one contain
>the air conditioned air within the subway system, considering
>all the places for the air to escape (via the tunnels themselves).
It'd be a real trick. :)
William Porto
: Air Conditioning. It's ridiculous to walk into Wall Street station
: or Grand Central (the two stations I frequent twice daily) on a dry 60
: degree day and get hit in the face with what feels like over 80 degrees and
: oodles of humidity.
There was a report this past summer on how much it would cost to air
condition / ventalate certain stations, such as the Union Square
station. It would run into the millions per station just to lover it
somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees.
Go to you local library and look up the Times article.
Rock Miller
>In terms of subway service, the PATH train is several orders of magnitude
>cleaner and more reliable than the NYC subway. However, it also doesn't
>go to as many places. :)
True, but in partial defense of NYC Transit, I'd like to point out that PATH
is a) much much smaller and simpler than the subway and b) run by an agency
with deep pockets, which does not have to go begging to the State Legislature
for funds to improve the system.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Rock Miller (ro...@interport.net)
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York
(All opinions are personal)
Rock Miller
>I don't know that the A/C trains make the stations hot. I remember when
there >were no A/C trains (boy am I old!) and the subways were just as hot but
you >couldn't look forward to an A/C train coming along.
They do make some difference: approximately 18 percent of the heat down there
comes from train A/C's, if I remember aright. Much of it comes from
heat produced by train acceleration and train braking (and, in crowded
stations, from the body heat of the passengers) however, and those have
always existed.
Rock Miller
>There was a report this past summer on how much it would cost to air
>condition / ventalate certain stations, such as the Union Square
>station. It would run into the millions per station just to lover it
>somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees.
Um, try "tens of millions"
SUZANNE & JOE DROPKIN
>In article <Cxz4M...@ritz.mordor.com> ri...@ritz.mordor.com (Chris Mauritz) writes:
>>In terms of subway service, the PATH train is several orders of magnitude
>>cleaner and more reliable than the NYC subway. However, it also doesn't
>>go to as many places. :)
>
>True, but in partial defense of NYC Transit, I'd like to point out that PATH
>is a) much much smaller and simpler than the subway and b) run by an agency
>with deep pockets, which does not have to go begging to the State Legislature
>for funds to improve the system.
... and in general carry a higher status of people who can afford to commute
everyday and expect nothing less than a clean system.
Chris Mauritz
So maybe the New Yorkers that are fed up need to raise their expectations
and raise a little hell until those expectations are met?
MAX222
<<...Anything to reduce the nastiness of the subway system will garner
both respect and ridership, and I don't think that my idea is too
outrageous. Isn't DC's subway airconditioned, or did it just feel that
way?....>
You're certainly right about Wall Street IRT -- in summer it must get to
110F. My suggestion is privatization and competition. Go back to having
three subway companies (IRT/IND/BMT). Then if passengers are upset with
the IRT's lack of a/c, then they could easily take another line -- or,
worse, the company operating the line could lose its franchise.
There's almost no incentive for a government agency, run by non-elected
bureaucrats to significantly improve service. We're still using
turn-of-the century tokens, and no matter how often, or how far you go,
the fare is the same.
As for a/c'd stations, Singapore is only city I know of that does this.
The subway there is also being privatized.
Seth Breidbart
> We're still using
>turn-of-the century tokens,
???
They certainly seem different to me. I have small Y-hole tokens,
large y-hole tokens, diamond-hole tokens, no-hole tokens, and
inserted-center-of-other-metal tokens. And, of course, a fare card
(when will they become valid elsewhere? The right type of turnstyles
are present at my local stop, they just haven't installed the card
readers.)
Seth
Rock Miller
>So maybe the New Yorkers that are fed up need to raise their expectations
>and raise a little hell until those expectations are met?
I think New Yorkers raise hell about expectations all the time, but those
expectations are felt most directly in terms of holding fare levels
down, so there isn't much of a mechanism for translating higher fares into
improved service. Even though the subway is absolutely critical to the
existence of New York, very few NYC politicians have any particular interest
in the complexities of subway policy. So they line up for particular
campaigns, when it's a question of bashing the Transit Authority, or pressing
to hold the line on fares, but they don't have much sustained interest in it.
This is felt at funding time in Albany, when the suburban delegations are very
focused about getting what they want for Metro North and (especially) LIRR,
but the City delegation fails to make its weight felt proportional to the size
of the City's population.
It is my personal opinion that a lot of New Yorkers have the same rent-control
mentality about the subway that they have about their landlords: That is, they
feel they get lousy service, and are determined not to pay a dime more until
it's improved. Very understandable, yet it cannot improve unless they pay
more, so it's a vicious circle that's never broken.
Rock Miller
>Expectation doesn't clean up the subways. Money and good management
>do however.
That's it in a nutshell. You need both, it's not an either-or thing.
Rock Miller
> You're certainly right about Wall Street IRT -- in summer it must get to
>110F. My suggestion is privatization and competition. Go back to having
>three subway companies (IRT/IND/BMT). Then if passengers are upset with
>the IRT's lack of a/c, then they could easily take another line -- or,
>worse, the company operating the line could lose its franchise. here's
almost no incentive for a government agency, run by non-elected>bureaucrats
to significantly improve service.
I think you have a very naive view of the IRT/BMT/IND days before the dreaded
Transit Authority. The IRT and BMT were operated basically as geographic
monopolies, with overlap only in Manhattan, and moreover they were permitted
to keep or buy out the elevateds to further restrict competition. The IND,
which was built on the same type of logical basis that you extoll, following
bitter complaints about service quality provided by the IRT and BMT, proved a
disaster in business terms, siphoning off enough just enough traffic from the
private operators to pull them under, but providing no noticeable improvement
in the latter's operating philosophy. This legacy of duplicative service is
only of the subway's Achilles heels even today: New York carries approximately
the same order of magnitude of ridership as the Paris Metro, for instance, but
requires *twice* as much trackage and *twice* as much rolling stock to do it,
which directly impacts the fares and the bottom-line fiscal health of the
system.
The basic fact is that a subway is so capital-intensive that it is not
possible even for a city as large as New York to support true competition in
this regard. It was always built as a public work, and has always been
publicly subsidized (yeah, the IRT and the BMT made great profits up to the
1920's, but that was because of the favorable terms of the contract, which
allowed them to cream off the substantial operating profits while leaving the
City with the burden of paying off the debt service on the tax-free bonds
which it had issued to finance the construction of the system). And the idea
that a private operator could lose its franchise if it didn't measure up is
laughable: it's not like the operation of unique turn-of-the-century subway
systems is a commodity that can be easily found on the open market, after all.
Public operation of the subway system is like democracy: it's lousy, but it's
better the alternatives.
>We're still using turn-of-the century tokens, and no matter how often, or how
>far you go, the fare is the same.
Your sense of history is not fully accurate. Tokens are not
turn-of-the-century items: they were introduced in 1953, when the fare went up
to 15 cents, and the turnstiles (a great innovation when they were introduced
in the 1920's to accept nickels in place of paper tickets, by the way) could
not be adapted to accept multiple coins. Tokens will be phased out by 1997 or
1998 or so, in favor of Metrocard, which is a very advanced system the like of
which does not exist on any other transit system, so it's hard to claim that
Transit is behind the curve on this one.
The single-zone fare is an issue that has been hotly debated over the years.
Metrocard will not support multiple zones, not because it's a political hot
potato, however, but because implementing zone fares requires that tickets be
scanned at exit as well as at entry (as is the case on Washington Metro,
MARTA, and SF BART), and simulation studied showed that forcing riders to
scan at exits would create intolerable congestion and long queues at the exits.
My opinion is that the virtues of a zone fare system in New York are largely
theoretical, and that, given that the city's structure and real-estate prices
are built around the assumption of a single fare, it would be useless and
disruptive to introduce a zone fare system now.
The8thMan
writes:
>BMT? I think you mean the IND. I was given to understand that there
>used to be a 2-way connection, but it made it too easy for people to
>sneak into the subway without paying, so they removed it. (There was
>a bridge over the #6 line.)
Now that you mention it, I do note there used to be a stairway that went
up
into seemingly nowhere right where the transfer entrance from the 6 to the
D/Q/F/B part of the station is.. as far as making it too easy to sneak on,
that
might have been the case before they rearranged the gating at B'WayLaf..
re: the second ave line
>They started building it, poured a lot of money into a hole in the
>ground, then quit.
And I bet 'they' cry themselves to sleep every night. :)
Actually, not a day goes by when I step on the 4 or 6 and I don't hear at
least one grouse or bitch about why the West Side gets two lines of
service
and the East Side only gets one.. I bet there's something political behind
that,
for the same reason why there are no exits from 59th to 96th on the East
Side Drive..
Mike Palij
>In article <38bo9r$e...@newsbf01.news.aol.com>,
>The8thMan <the8...@aol.com> wrote:
>>In article <38aeu1$4...@newsbf01.news.aol.com>, la...@aol.com (Laeri)
>>writes:
>>
>>>How About all the obvious line transfers unavailable. Uptown only at #6
>>>B'way Lafayette? Can't go from the A to the 1 at Canal? Why Why Why?
>>
>>No, you mean you can only change for the downtown only at B'way-Laf.
>>My feeling is they didn't feel it was worth the time and money to dig
>>a passage from the BMT to the other side of the 6 train.
>
>used to be a 2-way connection, but it made it too easy for people to
>sneak into the subway without paying, so they removed it. (There was
>a bridge over the #6 line.)
Um, I think you're wrong here. The IRT line predates the IND
lines and the IND, I believe, runs under the IRT tracks. At
the east end of both IND platforms is a stairway that is
fenced off. I assumed that this was where access to the
uptown IRT was. If this isn't so, where do the stairs lead?
>>>And what ever happened to that other East side line. I'll take that over
>>>AC any day.
>>
>>You mean the 2nd Avenue line? Beats me..
>
>They started building it, poured a lot of money into a hole in the
>ground, then quit.
Its my understanding that there are several blocks of nearly
finished tunnel uptown in Harlem which the TA maintains so
that the street doesn't collapse. I believe that may be a
comparable stretch downtown but I forget where. Its possible
that the City will complete line when it is economically
feasible, say in the year 3000. :-)
**************=Ain't No One's Opinion But My Own=**************
- Michael Palij -
Psychology Dept. - pa...@xp.psych.nyu.edu - New York University
Yeechang Lee
Seth Breidbart <se...@panix.com> wrote:
|(when will they become valid elsewhere? The right type of turnstyles
|are present at my local stop, they just haven't installed the card
|readers.)
I wonder that too. None of the subway stations I frequent (242nd St. 1/9,
116 St/Columbia University, 66 St.) have Metrocard yet, 'though the first
two do have the right kind of turnstiles. I'd buy the cards in a second if
the readers were ready.
OTOH, I'm sure the MTA people are trying their best, so I'm not complaining
(though I wonder why 137th St./City College has it and CU's station doesn't
. . .)
--- __________________________________________________________________
Yeechang Lee (yc...@columbia.edu)|Nevada Las Vegas Mission 1992-94
Columbia University/New York City|One of those obnoxious NuYawkers
RayBX
Miller) writes:
> > Definitely. But only if the nation makes an open-ended financial
commitment to
> creating the best subway system on the planet. I don't see this
happening.
Sorry Rock but this does not hold up! How about the MTA making a
commitment to spending the money they take from it's customers in a
RESPONSIBLE fashion B4 claiming that there's inadequate funding?
I live in Brighton Beach, terminal station for the 'Q'. We have a set of
six car sweepers (!) whose job is, I imagine, to clean the outbound Q
trains. After years of watching these guys, my wife and I have determined
the 6 positions on the team to be as follows:
(1) Lead guy - his job is to stand next to the stairs onto the elevated
platform and greet every female rider, usually by name. Never have we seen
this man pick up his cleaning apparatus from it's spot leaning against the
stairwell.
(2) Newsboys - These two occupy a bench (so that the customers can all
stand) smoking (against the rules for the passengers I believe) until a Q
pulls in. They then get onto the two middle cars, put down their brooms &
dustpans and pull newspapers out of their jackets. They sit there reading
until departure is signalled.
(1) station guy - This fellow's job is obvious, he watches the station
to make sure that it doesn't leave. He just stands there, staring at the
benches or signs.
(2) worker bees - This job carries the most turnover - I have seen
several people fill these posts; I imagine that's because these are the
toughest two spots on the
team. These two actually sweep and mop the cars! While it may be
coicidence, these two spots are currently filled by a woman and a
West-Indian man. I remember former holders of these slots being
Asian-American and Mexican (?) men. The other 4 members of the team are
all white men.
When the MTA stops spending money on salary and benefits for the 4
wastes of life described above and likewise on the ridiculous
remodelling/renovating of the column tile on the Broadway Lafayette
station and starts spending the money it collects WISELY... THEN let's
talk about the need for adequate financing. The way I see it, they're
wasting the money they already get, why should they get more?
---Raymond Blum ra...@aol.com
"Hey. You can't do THAT with a computer!!!"
Chris Mauritz
: henn...@cloud9.net (Mathew Hennessy) writes:
: > I saw a guy on his way to work get stiffed by a vending machine at 8am at
: > grand central last week and the token clerk was not very polite about it..
: > Considering how the token machines probably save her quite a bit of work,
: > you'd think she'd be more decent about it..
: I think "machine saved employee a bit of work" and "machine put employee out
: of work" pretty much go hand in hand. Given this, why should the token
: clerk be happy about the situation?
Why should she/he be less than courteous? That is their job. There are lots
of aspects of my job that I find unpleasant, but you can be damn sure that
if I was unpleasant to a client, I'd be looking for another job.
Marc Stein
>
>Expectation doesn't clean up the subways. Money and good management
>do however.
>
I think most of the blame for the disgusting condition of many subway
stations lies squarely on the riders. If people didn't use the tracks
and trains as trashcans and restrooms, we'd have cleaner subways, money
or no money.
Marc
Marc Stein
Yeechang Lee <yc...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>In article <opie-23109...@opie.dialup.access.net>,
>Matthew S. 'Opie' Warren <op...@panix.com> wrote:
>|And I don't even want to talk about the 168th street 1/9.
>
>All I can say is, I'm sure glad I'm a student at Columbia's Morningside
>Heights campus and not the Health Sciences one! That elevator wait alone
>kills you!
>--- __________________________________________________________________
> Yeechang Lee (yc...@columbia.edu)|Nevada Las Vegas Mission 1992-94
> Columbia University/New York City|One of those obnoxious NuYawkers
Yes, literally kills you. There are certifiably dangerous levels of steel
dust, pcb's and other toxic pollutants there. Its bad enough as a passanger,
but the elevator operators are in real mortal danger. Until recently, they
weren't even allowed to run small electric fans, to keep from suffocating.
This station is, I read and believe from almost daily experience,
some 10 stories underground, and originally had no ventilation. Not
too many years ago, the NYC Transit Authority spent (I am getting
this from my recollection of a Washington Heights/Inwood
local paper article) somewhere around $7M to dig shafts and install
large fans, which they almost never run. Their excuse: the first time
they ran them, some blades cracked, and it'd be too expensive to repair. I can
only guess that the contractor had some connection personal connection with
the transit authority, but that's purely speculation.
Occasionally they do run, and you can feel the difference. Most likely,
they save more money by not running the fans than they have to spend
on disability for the elevator operators. I don't think anyone knows how
that station affects commuters' health, but considering the hundreds of
hours total some riders have to endure in that bit of hell-on-earth, I
am sure it goes beyond simple discomfort.
Seth Breidbart
Chris Mauritz <ri...@ritz.mordor.com> wrote:
>Why should she/he be less than courteous? That is their job. There are lots
>of aspects of my job that I find unpleasant, but you can be damn sure that
>if I was unpleasant to a client, I'd be looking for another job.
Because you don't have as strong a union as they do.
Can anybody explain why subway token clerks, who don't have to do much
arithmetic, earn several times as much as typical supermarket checkout
clerks, who are at least expected to know the prices of several
different items (and deal with amounts that aren't divisible by
$1.25)?
Seth
AlGreen
>I am, admittedly, clueless about such things, but does it really take 4-5
>years for something like Metrocard to spread systemwide? Is it a matter of
>money, or of debugging?
Both. But mainly money.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex D Rodriguez
Rock Miller <ro...@interport.net> wrote:
>The MTA is currently negotiating with private debit-card companies to make
>Metrocard a form of currency: something with which you can make a phone call,
>or buy a soda or newspaper, even take a taxi. It's not all that far away.
This sounds like an unnecessary and stupid idea. Why would I want to carry
another card in my wallet? Unlike my bank card, if I lose my metrocard I
have lost all of the money because there is no id verification needed to get
cash with the metrocard. Sounds like a waste of time and money.
----------------------
Alex Rodriguez
George Feil
yc...@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu (Yeechang Lee) writes:
> I am, admittedly, clueless about such things, but does it really
> take 4-5 years for something like Metrocard to spread systemwide?
> Is it a matter of money, or of debugging?
Well, for one thing, you have to network 460+ stations for the
card. It just so happens that parts of the IRT were networked first,
which is why so many stations in Brooklyn (including Bergen St., my
home station) accept the card already.
For another, you have to replace thousands of turnstiles. The stations
were never designed to have turnstiles be electric powered, much less
be networked. So some stations have to have their electrical systems
completely rebuilt in order to handle this.
In addition, there are several stations that are unattended
(especially at night), and you have to replace the old rotating
gates. The TA experimented with new ones at the 7 Ave. station on the
F line for several years before giving up. The contraptions had a
ratcheting action that would bang people on the back of the ankles,
and were prone to frequent breakdowns.
In the end, the capital costs of undertaking the project are quite
large, and the construction takes a long time to complete.
--
| ----+ Cruising at an altitude of 96 stories...
-|--+ / /| George Feil, Sumitomo Bank Capital Markets
/ | /|+----+| email: fe...@sbcm.com fax: 212-524-8081
+----+|| || Opinions are not those of SBCM, Inc.
| ||| || PGP public key available on request
Yeechang Lee
|Would Lex be allowed to smell like a public
|urinal if it was instead named "Bloomingdales Station?" They'd have a new
|theme to the decor every 3 months, and young men and women with atomizers
|spritzing $500/oz aromas on anything that moves down there. Rename the 5th
|Avenue BMT as Trump Plaza. The place would probably look like a bordello,
|but it would be deluxe. Columbus Circle becomes Paramount Circle. The
|Lexington stop on the E and F will have a cool, efficient identity as the
|Citicorp Center stop. You get the idea.
This is a _great_ idea! Turn 116 St on the 1/9 into "Columbia
University"! Columbia's not always the cleanest campus in the world, but
certainly anything's better than the status quo.
Unrealistic, yes, but fun to think about . . .
Yeechang Lee
|Oh. And somebody mentioned the new turnstyles, which brings a particular
|gripe to my mind. Why the hell do these things need to beep? It's just
|what the system doesn't need - one more annoying, high-pitched, impossible
|to localize noise source. Make 'em click, pop, grunt, twock like an old
|Bally machine giving out a free game, but please kill the beep.
Hate to admit it, but the 2 stations use the most have the new turnstiles,
and more than once I've SLAMmed myself against the turnstile because it
hasn't beeped yet . . .
. . . and at the 3rd station w/ the old turnstiles, I've stood there and
waited for the beep to come wondering what's wrong with the thing . . .
MAX222
Miller) writes:
<<Be patient. The 68 stations that have Metrocard now are in the nature of
a
field test. The rest of the stations will be done in 1997-98, after the
buses
are done, so that people can have low-cost bus-subway transfers. The bus
farebox is the toughest part of the problem: once that's proven, the rest
of
the system should be retrofitted pretty easily.>>
1998!?? Why, why, why is the MTA so slow? A private business that took
five years to roll out such a basic improvement would be out of business.
Can you imagine a company like Wal-Mart taking 5 years to install optical
scanning at their 10,000 checkout counters?
Rock Miller
>>The MTA is currently negotiating with private debit-card companies to make
>>Metrocard a form of currency: something with which you can make a phone call,
>>or buy a soda or newspaper, even take a taxi. It's not all that far away.
>This sounds like an unnecessary and stupid idea. Why would I want to carry
>another card in my wallet? Unlike my bank card, if I lose my metrocard I
>have lost all of the money because there is no id verification needed to get
>cash with the metrocard. Sounds like a waste of time and money.
So, don't buy it, or buy it in $5 increments. It's a free country.
Marty Focazio
: >>Grand Central (the two stations I frequent twice daily) on a dry 60 degree
: >
: >>day and get hit in the face with what feels like over 80 degrees and
: >>oodles of humidity.
: >--
: >train air conditioners releasing all of that heat into the tunnels.
: >
The reason it so hot is because the subways are so close to hell...
--
--
Marty Focazio
mar...@panix.com
"Challenger, go at throttle up..."
Michael John Flory
The 168th Street 1/9 station is almost a model of urban Dickensian gloom.
Wasn't it used as such in the film of _Bonfire of the Vanities_? Supposedly
it was in the Bronx, Sherman's route to the courthouse after his financial
fall.... For a while I've noticed what seems to be a permanent colony of
pigeons in the station. I imagine the pigeon pioneers made their way thru
the tunnels, not the elevators. The whole place seems to be reverting to
a sort of bat-cave.
As bad as the elevators are, the alternative access is worse. A few years
ago all four elevators conked out at once. A friend braved the stairs --
eight long flights or so. Partway down he realized something was dripping
on his head and it wasn't water....
Michael Flory (mj...@columbia.edu)
Yeechang Lee
Michael John Flory <mj...@aloha.cc.columbia.edu> wrote:
|As bad as the elevators are, the alternative access is worse. A few years
|ago all four elevators conked out at once. A friend braved the stairs --
|eight long flights or so. Partway down he realized something was dripping
|on his head and it wasn't water....
Yikes! I didn't even know the station had stairs, and now I'm glad I
didn't.
Come to think of it, I've never seen more than one elevator operating at the
same time.
Mathew Hennessy
Yeechang Lee <yc...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
>Hate to admit it, but the 2 stations use the most have the new turnstiles,
>and more than once I've SLAMmed myself against the turnstile because it
>hasn't beeped yet . . .
Well, I have a 29 inseam and the top bar is set at about a 30
inseam so rushing through the turnstiles can sometimes be a very painful
experience. They were probably designed by a woman!
> Yeechang Lee (yc...@columbia.edu)|Nevada Las Vegas Mission 1992-94
--
Mathew A. Hennessy | "What I get by my brains I will spend on my bollocks,
henn...@cloud9.net | so long as I have a tester or a testicle remaining."
--------------------| - Lord Byron
My other computer is a PowerMac. | I'd rather be playing Alien Vs. Predator.
Rock Miller
>1) Arrival boards like in London that show when the next train is due to
>arrive and in how many minutes. These make the London experience so much
>more comfortable. Even if the train isn't comming for 10 minutes, you can
>watch the clock click down, and feel better.
You should have customer information signs in most of the stations
(360-some) by 1999. They might not have the precision of London's at first,
but they will tell you what train is arriving next, and how long it will be
before it arrives. After 2001 or so, on all the IRT trains, you will have
precise information about train arrivals, generated automatically by the
signal system.
>2) Use standard materials in all renovations. The stations renovated in
>the 1980s are already falling apart. 53rd/Lex is a good example. At least
>12 custom tiles were used, all of which are having problems, and are now
>being patched with the wrong colored tiles. The MTA is wasting millions by
>allowing Architects to choose materials that are hard to maintain. I'd
>much rather have plain well maintained stations than "original" ones.
>Doing this requires a permanent design staff to set standards, etc. But I
>think it would save money in the long run.
This has been done, you just haven't seen the fruits of it yet. It took the TA
a bit of time to develop design standards and to settle on the right mix of
materials for stations: for a preview of what to expect on station renovations
that are under design now, go to the BMT station at 57th and 7th.
>
>3) Expand the 7 train down to Javits or the L up to it.
Extension of the #7 train to New Jersey is one of the options in the current
study that MTA is doing with the Port Authority and NJT, but I think that this
would not involve a stop near Javits, most likely because the tunnel would be
so deep by that point (in order to get under the riverbed) that building a
station would be very expensive. Truthfully, I think the light rail idea
working its way through the City is a more cost-effective to make
Javits accessible to Midtown.
>4) Replace the small seats on the IRT trains with benches or fewer/bigger
>seats.
The story I've heard (which is probably apocryphal) is that the small
seats on the R62s' and R62a's (the new stainless steel cars on the IRT) is a
result of political intervention. When it was revealed that these new cars
would have slightly fewer seats than the old ones, some (unnamed) politicians
insisted on having this rectified. Since this was impossible, the solution
chosen was to narrow the existing seats.
The TA's focus groups have indicated that customers put a higher priority on
having adequate standing room in rush hour than on having seats in rush hour,
so the IRT test trains recently ordered from Kawasaki have fewer seats than
the old ones. However, given the negative public reaction to the fewer
seats on the actual cars, they are reconsidering the idea.
Patrick Lee
>
> The TA's focus groups have indicated that customers put a higher priority on
> having adequate standing room in rush hour than on having seats in rush hour,
> so the IRT test trains recently ordered from Kawasaki have fewer seats than
The TA must have picked a wrong focus group or everyone in the group must only
travel in the subway for less than 15 minutes ... I'll take seats over
standing room any time -- even if the seats have to be a little narrower and
there is less standing room. People stand near the doors anyway so it really
does not matter how much standing room you have -- they'll still be blocking
the door!
--
Patrick Lee [Internet: pat...@panix.com] [CompuServe: 74003,2566]
Stuyvesant H.S. Alumni Assoc. http://www.panix.com/stuy
Yeechang Lee
Mathew Hennessy <henn...@cloud9.net> wrote:
| Well, I have a 29 inseam and the top bar is set at about a 30
|inseam so rushing through the turnstiles can sometimes be a very painful
|experience. They were probably designed by a woman!
I'm a bit taller, and those inches make a big difference, I guess.
-- __________________________________________________________________
Yeechang Lee (yc...@columbia.edu)|Nevada Las Vegas Mission 1992-94
Columbia University/New York City|Celestial Kingdom with Taco Bell
George Feil
> Rock Miller wrote in article <rockm.124...@interport.net> :
> >The story I've heard (which is probably apocryphal) is that the small
> >seats on the R62s' and R62a's (the new stainless steel cars on the IRT) is a
> >result of political intervention. When it was revealed that these new cars
> >would have slightly fewer seats than the old ones, some (unnamed) politicians
> >insisted on having this rectified. Since this was impossible, the solution
> >chosen was to narrow the existing seats.
> >...
> The story which I heard (which is probably even more apocryphal) is
> that since these cars were built by the Japanese, they used their
> ergonomics of an average 17" wide seat as opposed to the American
> average of 21". :')
Not true. Many of them were built by Bombardier, a US / Canadian
company.
Rock Miller
>In article <3942ei$3...@rsafran.dialup.access.net> rsa...@panix.com (Richard
>Safran) writes:
>> Rock Miller wrote in article <rockm.124...@interport.net> :
>> >The story I've heard (which is probably apocryphal) is that the small
>> >seats on the R62s' and R62a's (the new stainless steel cars on the IRT) is a
>> >result of political intervention. When it was revealed that these new cars
>> >would have slightly fewer seats than the old ones, some (unnamed) politicians
>> >insisted on having this rectified. Since this was impossible, the solution
>> >chosen was to narrow the existing seats.
>> >...
>> The story which I heard (which is probably even more apocryphal) is
>> that since these cars were built by the Japanese, they used their
>> ergonomics of an average 17" wide seat as opposed to the American
>> average of 21". :')
>Not true. Many of them were built by Bombardier, a US / Canadian
>company.
But to a design by Kawasaki, a Japanese company . . .
Cheng-Jih Chen
The8thMan <the8...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>But also understand, that in places like Wall St, it'd be
>almost impossible to AC the stations by any degree. Where are
>you going to put the equipment? Can't dig much for new holes,
>lower Manhattan is already a nightmare of overcrowded underground
>conduits.. dig up the wrong line and you're talking fireball or
>ball lightning.. :) Can't stick the AC machines on the street, you'd
>stuff up traffic...
Of course, the real solution would then be to put a dome over the
City, and the subways can be A/C'ed by default....
Yeechang Lee
Rock Miller <ro...@interport.net> wrote:
|A new rail control center is currently in the late stages of planning,
|and is expected to open up for business in 2001. That should
|significantly improve the schedule reliability of the system,
_7_ years?!?!?!
-- __________________________________________________________________
Yeechang Lee (yc...@columbia.edu)|Nevada Las Vegas Mission 1992-94
Columbia University/New York City|Celestial Kingdom thru Taco Bell
Scritzifchisted Ulmo Qzutvchsxik
I noticed on the BMT lines the trains are awfully slow at speed
transition, and adds a lot to travel time.
If they want to save money on engergy, they should have regenerative
braking.
[Sorry for posting out of ``thread'' subbranch topic, but my system
expired the older messages.]
George Feil
> Do the new test train cars accelerate and brake fast?
>
> I noticed on the BMT lines the trains are awfully slow at speed
> transition, and adds a lot to travel time.
From my experiences of riding the test train on the #2 line, I've
noticed the accelleration and braking to be smooth -- much smoother
than the old St. Louis cars. As for rate of accelleration, I didn't
notice it to be significantly different from the existing IRT trains.
> If they want to save money on engergy, they should have regenerative
> braking.
I agree. The test train has conventional brakes, and rather squealy
ones at that (at least at a lower pitch and volume than the old
brakes). Rock, is this coupled with supplementary dynamic braking as
well?
Harvey Fishman
> In article <3942ei$3...@rsafran.dialup.access.net> rsa...@panix.com (Richard Safran) writes:
> > The story which I heard (which is probably even more apocryphal) is
> > that since these cars were built by the Japanese, they used their
> > ergonomics of an average 17" wide seat as opposed to the American
> > average of 21". :')
>
> Not true. Many of them were built by Bombardier, a US / Canadian
> company.
But there were two completely separate contracts for the R-62 cars. The
Kawasaki unit (1301-1625) were delivered in 1983 through 1985. Once the
design had been proved in service, the MTA went out for another
procurement TO THE SAME DESIGN and that was won by Bombardier. The
Bombardier units (1651-2475) were delivered in 1984-1987. But they were
bound to the Kawasaki design.
Harvey
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvey Fishman |
fis...@panix.com | A chip on the shoulder is a tremendous load to carry.
718-258-7276 |
John ENGLERT
>> > The story which I heard (which is probably even more apocryphal) is
>> > that since these cars were built by the Japanese, they used their
>> > ergonomics of an average 17" wide seat as opposed to the American
>> > average of 21". :')
R-62 and R-62As is a function of what the tech spec from MTA required,
not that the Japanese have small behinds. MTA wanted to have X number
of seats, and the designers gave them that many. It had nothing to do
with Asians.
bradley ward allen
>> I noticed on the BMT lines the trains are awfully slow at speed
>> transition, and adds a lot to travel time.
George:
>From my experiences of riding the test train on the #2 line, I've
>noticed the accelleration and braking to be smooth -- much smoother
>than the old St. Louis cars. As for rate of accelleration, I didn't
>notice it to be significantly different from the existing IRT trains.
Me:
After riding many transit systems, I've decided, comfort be damned: I
want to get there. Who cares whether it's smooth? Sitting still is
`smooth'. Thanks for the info. If it's smooth and fast, all the
better, but somehow I'm scared that smooth may mean slow, because the
BMT lines are awfully awfully smooth, and awfully awfully slow.
On the other hand, if it was smoother, *and* you didn't notice a
acceleration difference, either you don't notice speed, or you didn't
notice you were going faster because of the smoothness of it all. Who
knows.