Subways are for sleeping: NYC Transit survival thread

http://media.tumblr.com/b87f9c89e2c8823de47e9b15e5b6400b/tumblr_inline_ndty2h3jZt1szvr4h.jpg

i guess the dark, dried-blood zones are where i should focus my housing search.

(except for Red Hook obv, where everyone just takes the IKEA shuttle)

yes the scabs are not up-and-coming yet

how the hell Ocean Parkway is a "neighborhood" I don't know.

Aargh, Black Friday tourists!

On the bright side I just went to trader joes at 21 and 6 and there was no queue at all

only five weeks til effing tourists go home

but I will club them if I have to exiting the Altman retro

ha, i just went through ugh times square and the cold is thinning them out somewhat

No uptown 6 on a weekday morning? Nice

the other morning there was a grandma on the uptown A who was headed to penn station but didn't otherwise know anything. at every stop -- even the ones in brooklyn -- she would ask ppl where we were.

'fulton'
'excuse me?'
'fulton'
'14th?'
'FULTON'

we drilled it into her head that she needed to get off at 34th and would not have to go outside, but given how fucked up penn station is, i wouldn't be surprised if she is still wandering its corridors

those types o' people are always fun and tend to have kids in tow.
"i'm trying to get to columbus circle"
"okay, you're on a G train in Queens right now, headed to Brooklyn"
"well is columbus circle one of the stops?"
really puts the lie to the unfriendly new yorker as 75% of the car will rush to share advice

Ha, the other day I was at 96th, downtown 1/2/3 platform, family from Jersey trying to get to Times Square and very politely refusing to accept my contention that they are in the right place and they just have to get on the next train on THIS side, and you will BE THERE in TWO STOPS. My attempt to explain that both the 2 and 3 go there, they just have different fates after that, were interpreted as "one goes to Brooklyn, one goes to Harlem."

always nice when one must take the L to the G to get to south brooklyn

Broken rail they were saying?

plus an 'investigation'

I was the one shrieking on the W4 St platform cuz it's healthy to let shit out

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/12/11/track-fires-delays-malfunctioning-doors-plague-subway-system-all-at-once/

it's like the subway turned into the dc metro for an evening

i was in a cab on the bk bridge and basically if we were not in that cab we would be trapped on whichever island we were on, forever

poor penny

k8 was home she's fine

ok then

here's the summary of last night: http://gothamist.com/2014/12/12/bike_nyc.php

I got on a train around 9ish or so, so I guess I missed the worst of it. still, it was an A train on the local track and it was a sardine tin.

I caught a C at Chambers at 6pm and it was totally fine, not crowded, no disruption! One of those rolling signs on the side of the old trains was suck half showing another train though--which, on the C you can never tell if that's just a malfunction that's been there for 30 years already.

Was the R ever a brown line train? I don't remember it being, but I have the strongest impression that the halfway hidden sign that hadn't rolled over was a diagonal square brown R.

NB I was completely sober but I had just eaten about a dozen espresso beans.

maybe this?

http://cdn.secondavenuesagas.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/BrownR.jpg

http://secondavenuesagas.com/2009/09/01/when-it-was-a-train-the-brown-diamond-r/

F is for fuct

http://gothamist.com/2014/12/13/mta_report_f_train_derailment_cause.php

CHINA, YESSSSSS!!! I thought I was seeing things!

UNBELIEVABLE.

'platform conductors'

http://www.wnyc.org/story/mta-deploys-subway-platform-conductors-combat-subway-delays/

what they should have are CATTLE PRODS to MOVE THE FUCKING 'SENTRY' PASSENGERS away from the doorways and INTO THE FUCKING CAR.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/2014-year-subway-emergency-door-alarms-went-away/

(One New York Times Op-Doc author did the math and found that a daily subway commuter could be exposed to four hours of blaring alarms each year, "at a level that is probably damaging your hearing.")

Concern trolling of the highest order; as if the screech of the trains itself was benign

"what they should have are CATTLE PRODS to MOVE THE FUCKING 'SENTRY' PASSENGERS away from the doorways and INTO THE FUCKING CAR."

No i'm going to keep standing in the doorway for all time, because i have a right to that space to which i got to first (and in which it would be inefficient for someone in a crowded train not to stand) just like anyone else has the right to any other space on the train that they first occupy.

The bottleneck at the doors is easily avoided, assuming you aren't enormous, if you do what I do, which is turn sideways (or even step out of the car) to avoid standing in the way when they're open. Doing so, I take up little more space than the doorframe itself, which extends beyond the seat. The actual bottleneck at entry/exit is far more often caused by the people who no one bothers to complain about in all caps because they don't see/understand the issue - to go all caps on them, the MORONS WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS THE AREA BETWEEN THE CENTRAL POLE AND THE SEATS THROUGH WHICH PEOPLE MUST TRAVEL TO ENTER AND EXIT THE CAR. It's these people (and I'm sometimes one of them too), the ones with bicycles/suitcases/strollers/wheelies especially, and not the people at the door, who simultaneously a) delay entry and exit by standing in traffic and b) prevent the most efficient use of the car's space by blocking access to the car's center, which often sees half the population density of the area near the door.

what they actually need to do is to tell people to 1) board at all parts of the train, 2) use the seats (assuming desired, though sometimes i'll overcome my desire not to in the interests of reducing overcrowding), especially if you've got a longer ride, and don't slouch/"manspread" forward or laterally (though there is also some anatomical insensitivity on the part of those lacking the equipment here), 3) use the center and primarily-non-boarding-end of the car (same), and, most importantly, 4) STAND AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO (WITHOUT TAKING UP ALL OF) WHATEVER THEY'RE HOLDING ON TO, such that they're not radiating out at full arm's-length from the pole/bar into some- or every-one else's standing/walking space.

the corollary to #4 ideally should involve explaining that it is most efficient if everyone stands FACING THE SIDE OF THE CAR, rather than haphazardly facing front or back or, lord help us, diagonally like a spoke radiating around the (may)poll unable to understand the simple physics, presumably intuitive to a small child after the first short stop, that if your feet aren't planted to balance against forward and backward motion, you're going to bump into if not fall all over the people around you while the train is moving.

I almost got in a fight with a drunk pre-Puerto Rican day paradegoer over my doorway spot over the summer, though he didn't like my toenail polish either

benbbag how do you feel about manspreading

ban benbbag

"That hurts my feelings"

No i'm going to keep standing in the doorway for all time, because i have a right to that space to which i got to first

no. nor does someone have the 'right' to stand spread-eagled in the middle of the doorway simply because they were there first

i'm willing, however, to grant you license to stand there if you know that the next several stops open on the opposite side. otherwise, move to the middle

#4 is a tough one; there's a fine line between standing close to one's anchor and hugging it, but yeah

tbh there should be no poles at all, merely a grid of handholds on the ceiling, and ppl who can't reach it have to fucking walk

ban benbbag

^^^^^^^^

Why would you regard that as a civilized or appropriate response, to call for someone's erasure like a fascist? Is it that difficult for you to either confront in substance or ignore the ideas and arguments that I present? I could come up with an equivalently horrible thing to say in return, but I'll pass.

"no. "

Yes. Do you think you have a right to ask someone to stop sitting in their seat because you would like to use it yourself? I get out of the way as long as people need to use the space to enter/exit, but I am otherwise going to use that space unless and until someone pushes me out of it. I'm not sure where the odd "spread eagle" non-sequitur comes from, but I guess some strawmen do come in that position.

i was talking about ppl who don't move, motherfucker

trip home from what was otherwise a very enjoyable and uplifting day was somewhat depressed by stepping into an F train car with one indigent dude with a ski hat pulled over his face completely laid out on a bench laying in a puddle of what appeared to be his own urine which was spilling out onto the floor and keeping everyone else on the car at safe distance. guy proceeded to idly masturbate through his pants at random intervals and everybody kinda pretended that wasn't happening. it was sad.

hey why is everyone crowding back here when the front of the car is practically empty? hey, what's that smell? OH DEAR GOD

Uptown 6 express from brooklyn bridge -> 14 street today because of medical emergency @ canal

xpost u rode the O train brah

mook you have to choose btwn that and the DC metro being on fire

minor but amusing scene this morning -- if anyone is familiar with the E/M platform at Lex/53rd, there's this thing that confuses the shit out of everyone where you can connect to the 6 train but only from one side of the platform, so you have to walk all the way to the end of the platform to get to the right escalator, and also if you enter on the E/M side you have to go down, across, and back up to get to the 6.

This morning, couple standing at the bottom of the escalator

Man: "It's right here!"
Woman: "It's the other end of the platform!"
Man: "Come on, it's right here!"
Woman: "No, it says right there on the sign, walk to the other end of the platform!"
Man: "Whatever, it's the same thing!" *gets on escalator WITHOUT WIFE*
Me (also on escalator): "Uh, excuse me sir, but she's right"
Man: "Whatever, it's all the same platform!"
Other woman on escalator: "Sir you have to go back down and walk to the end of the platform:
Man: ...
*man gets to top*: "See, it's the same platform!" *realizes there's just some exit turnstiles in front of him* "Ah, shit."

felt kinda bad for the woman in question -- people coming in the doors, looking revolted and running away, people 30 feet away breathing through their shirts -- but damn

hadn't smelled anything like that since having to ask a guy who appeared to have shit smeared on his face to leave my bookstore 15 years ago

i think that with the cops being less broken windows-y and the weather being intermittently killing cold, the subways are feeling particularly halfway house and carnival for the past month.