Dear NYC MTA,
As a lifetime rider of your service, I am grateful that you
exist. As a “differently-abled”
person who sometimes has trouble getting around, you have often provided my
only and/or easiest transportation option. However, in the last few years, your level of service has
declined considerably. As someone
who rides the F train every day to work, I can say that with each passing day I
get angrier and angrier with your abusive relationship towards me and the rest
of New York City’s subway riders.
It currently takes me on average an hour and twenty minutes
to get to work door-to-door. I
don’t work that far uptown and I don’t live that far into Brooklyn. In fact, one night, I took a cab home
and timed out my ride to thirty-five minutes! There was a time when the subway provided the fastest
service. People would ride the
train to avoid traffic. Those days
have apparently passed.
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| Photo by Allan Raible |
The F train in particular is shockingly abysmal. I noticed the change a few years back
when they extended the G line a few stops beyond Smith and 9th. The
G causes tremendous congestion on the F line. As a result, in Brooklyn where the two trains meet, they
often are reduced to a slow, painful crawl. The G should be the local. The F should be on the unused express tracks. The F train should be rocketing its way
forth. But this has not
happened. Common sense would say
that after a bit more construction is finished, this change might occur, but
I’ll believe it when I see it.
As the fares have risen to an astronomical $2.50, one might
think the service would get better.
In fact, with every passing day, it gets increasingly worse. The city and the subway system are
taking advantage of the public.
The fact that the trains ran better in the late eighties and early
nineties when the fare was a reasonable $1.00 seems to point to the fact that
someone has to be scraping off the top.
The system is not being run efficiently. Mayor Bloomberg hasn’t said a word about this. He’s a billionaire. He doesn’t seem to care. I have no real proof that the books are
being messed with, I’m merely speculating, but that seems to be a reasonable
assumption given the drop in service combined with the routine requests for
fare hikes.
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| Photo by Allan Raible |
But the fact that there isn’t more of a fuss being raised is
something I find distressing. This
morning, my commute took nearly two hours. Why? Well, I
waited for the F for a half hour.
A fuzzy voice came through the speakers announcing that the delay was
due to a “signal malfunction.”
Accidents happen. Things
break. But there is a new excuse every day. And sometimes you crawl or stop for long periods of time
with no explanation whatsoever!
I’d accept this “signal malfunction” if it hadn’t become the norm. The days I actually make decent time on
my trip to work are rare! More
often than not, I find myself going stir-crazy sitting in a train car awaiting
barely-audible instructions.
Seriously MTA, what has happened to you?
I’ve also noticed all summer that they’ve been running older
F trains. I don’t know why this
is, but it is a mistake for several reasons. Firstly, these trains seem to have less standing room. This means you end up getting a virtual
lap-dance from the smelly stranger in front of you. It also means that the guy insisting on reading his ipad
while holding his coffee in his other hand is likely to accidentally smack you
in the skull if you are sitting below him. People insist on carrying a lot of stuff with them these
days. There’s always the person
with the oversized backpack, unaware of the amount of space it takes up, or the
person who insists on taking a full-sized bicycle onto a crowded rush hour
train. Modern passengers need
space. It’d be nice if they’d be
considerate and adapt but who are we kidding? That isn’t going to happen.
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| Photo by Allan Raible |
The second problem with the older trains is that they don’t
stop very smoothly. As a
passenger, one often finds oneself lurched about like a rubber ball. As I’ve stated, I am
“differently-abled.” My walking is
affected. I often get a seat
because of this, but when I’m standing, my balance isn’t all that great. So, in these older cars, I find myself
gripping onto the pole for dear life every time the train comes to a jolting
halt. And getting a seat doesn’t
guarantee a lack of injury risk.
One time, I was sitting on an older train and we stopped and my shoulder
got jammed into the patrician at the end of the seat. It hurt.
My hope in bringing this up is that it will become more of a
topic of conversation. It seems to
be something the leadership of the city is ignoring. The decline in the subway system’s performance is not something
we should blindly accept as a given. One hopes the next mayor will do something
to fix the problem. In any case,
the system is no longer as efficient as it should be. We, the public are being held hostage by the powers that be
as they gouge us while delivering lackluster service. It’s time someone spoke up.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Allan Raible – Brooklyn, New York
