MTA NYC Transit Full System Map

Check out the map and find where the 4-5-6 (green) line meets the E-F (orange and blue) lines. To the lower-right of Central Park. If you live in Queens and work in downtown Manhattan (a lot of people) you get off the E-F there and take the 6 to Grand Central, then the 4-5 (express line) all the way downtown. If you live on the Upper East Side and work in mid-town, you take the 6 down to 51st street and then walk or take the E-F through mid-town if you're lazy like me. Here's the rub, and is one of the major failing points of the NYC Mass Transit system. You have a huge amount of people (they were stacked 7 deep in front of every car this morning) trying to get on the train at 51st street. Conversely, you have the entire Upper East group that works in mid-town (the people who work downtown take the express and by-pass 51st street) trying to get off that very train at the exact same time. I have pictures of a typical 6 at home that I'll post. The conductors of the subway only like to wait a certain amount of time in each station. On most mornings, they start trying to close the doors to leave the station before everyone is off the train. No one has yet attempted to get on the train. Also, since there are so many people trying to get on the train, they can only separate enough to let people get off the train in single file. It takes a long time. This morning the doors tried to cut me in half, and I was about the half-way point of people trying to get off. Remember, no one's got on yet. A woman on the platform, seeing this, said for all to hear, "every fucking morning, they do that shit every fucking morning." I may not have said it quite like that, but I can't imagine it from her perspective as she was in the fourth row of people waiting and probably wasn't going to get on that train, and maybe not the next one.

Everyone knows that we need a 2nd Avenue subway line, but the MTA is proposing it stop at 68th street. 8 stops from 125th street to 68th street. It's comical how far that comes from addressing the problem. No one would get on the train because it doesn't go anywhere. The current line that services the east side runs down Lexington Ave. Some of the richest people in Manhattan live in the Sutton Place neighborhood. That's from around 55th street to 42nd street and 3rd Ave to the East river. 3rd ave is the next one closer to the river after Lex. Any questions as to why the 2nd ave subway will stop 13 blocks before this neighborhood and long before it can meet up with the E-F coming out of Queens?
- posted by levinson @ 3/05/2001 08:36:00 AM