Post by washingtonmetrofan on Sept 24, 2012 18:42:25 GMT
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
Published: September 23, 2012
Published: September 23, 2012
For more than half a century, it has stood out as a singularly vexing flaw of the subway system, a glaring inequity that has frustrated generations of riders and has even puzzled transit officials, who have wondered how the situation ever came to be.
But beginning on Tuesday, once the first travelers make their way between a B train and an uptown No. 6 at Bleecker Street, a daily frustration will have given way to a whimsical remembrance: Here stood New York City’s fussiest subway transfer point, the one that went one way but not the other.
Until this week, only riders on downtown No. 6 trains at Bleecker Street could transfer to the B, D, F or M lines at Broadway-Lafayette. Riders from the other direction would have to switch trains elsewhere — at Jay Street-Borough Hall or Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street in Brooklyn, for example — or suffer the inconvenience of a walk above ground between the Broadway-Lafayette and Bleecker Street stations, capped by an extra MetroCard swipe.
But with the completion of a construction project of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that included a platform extension and the installation of new elevators, the system’s only such incomplete transfer point has been made whole. “It’s the last kink,” said Peter Tashjian, 41, a No. 6 rider from the Upper East Side. “It’s like you’re smoothing out the wallpaper and the last little bubble is pressed out.”
The downtown transfer between the IRT and IND subway lines was built in 1957. In 2005, the authority approved a plan for the uptown one. Its opening, advertised months ago as early summer, has faced persistent delays.
Patience appears to have run out; at the station one afternoon last week, at least two signs announcing the transfer, papered over for now, had been partly uncovered, perhaps by curious travelers, who unwrapped them like Christmas gifts.
Another rider was more direct: He hopped over a mesh fence, descended a staircase and approached a platform at Broadway-Lafayette. It was unclear if he had made his connection without being caught.
About five months ago, Sal Pagano, 19, who commutes to Hunter College from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, took an Instagram photograph of a partly covered sign, adding the caption: “When the rest of that sign is unveiled I’ll save $2.25 every school day.” The message closed with a smiley face.
“It’s the only thing that gets to me,” Mr. Pagano said of the half-transfer as he waited for a downtown D train last week. “This is it.”
If commuters have long groused about the oddity, wondering why the platforms did not face each other like so many others in the system, they are not alone. The transportation authority said last week that it was unsure why they were built like that in the first place.
“There’s no real documentation,” said Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the authority.
One theory, Mr. Ortiz said, holds that because the station was built on a curve along a narrow street, a configuration could not be found to allow the platforms to be built in parallel.
The result has been a two-tiered system of subway travelers: those who know about the quirk and have come up with their own workarounds, and those who do not.
For less knowledgeable travelers, the authority’s station agents at Bleecker Street have been cast in the role of bearers of bad news. One agent, James Barksdale, said the expressions were indelible: Disappointment. Anger. Shock.
“They curse at you, curse at the M.T.A.,” he said. “It is what it is.”
Another agent, Michael Nolan, was approached on Thursday afternoon by a woman sipping from a bottled drink.
“The D,” she said glumly, stepping toward Mr. Nolan’s kiosk.
Upstairs and across the street, he said. The woman grimaced, shuffling out without another word.
“I don’t know why it took them 100 years,” Mr. Nolan said later. The change, he said, will make his job “a lot less aggravating.”
For Katja Hagemann, 34, who recently moved to New York City from Germany, a transfer mix-up was part of an early city education. She walked off a No. 6 train after boarding at Canal Street, a plastic bag of Chinese food hanging from her wrist, hoping to catch a B, D, F or M to get to her English class in Midtown.
“I thought I could get the orange train,” she said. “I only saw exit signs.”
Most veteran passengers appear to be ready to forgive. Mr. Tashjian suggested that with the nuisance corrected, the station could be seen as something of a historic site, where a final relic from the era of tokens and disconnected lines was finally swept away.
For some, though, feelings remain raw. Mr. Pagano, the Hunter student, said he could not soon forget the transportation authority’s handling of the transfer.
An advertisement had promised an opening in early 2012, he recalled. Then spring came and went, and the construction dragged on, and even when it appeared to be finished the barricades remained, and the transit system was still siphoning off that second MetroCard swipe, and the system is so hot in the summer, and why in the world did they make it like this to begin with?
He stopped himself. There was another sign a few feet away, luring riders, finally, to an uptown 6 train, even if a wooden barricade would block the path for a few more days.
Mr. Pagano smiled.
“It’s good to vent,” he said, breathing out a bit. “I feel so much better now.”
www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/nyregion/vexing-flaw-in-the-subway-is-finally-corrected.html?_r=0
The area where the new transfer was completed is a rapidly-developing area known as SoHo. It's like London's West End. This transfer is convenient since the 6 serves the popular East Side business district.
But beginning on Tuesday, once the first travelers make their way between a B train and an uptown No. 6 at Bleecker Street, a daily frustration will have given way to a whimsical remembrance: Here stood New York City’s fussiest subway transfer point, the one that went one way but not the other.
Until this week, only riders on downtown No. 6 trains at Bleecker Street could transfer to the B, D, F or M lines at Broadway-Lafayette. Riders from the other direction would have to switch trains elsewhere — at Jay Street-Borough Hall or Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street in Brooklyn, for example — or suffer the inconvenience of a walk above ground between the Broadway-Lafayette and Bleecker Street stations, capped by an extra MetroCard swipe.
But with the completion of a construction project of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that included a platform extension and the installation of new elevators, the system’s only such incomplete transfer point has been made whole. “It’s the last kink,” said Peter Tashjian, 41, a No. 6 rider from the Upper East Side. “It’s like you’re smoothing out the wallpaper and the last little bubble is pressed out.”
The downtown transfer between the IRT and IND subway lines was built in 1957. In 2005, the authority approved a plan for the uptown one. Its opening, advertised months ago as early summer, has faced persistent delays.
Patience appears to have run out; at the station one afternoon last week, at least two signs announcing the transfer, papered over for now, had been partly uncovered, perhaps by curious travelers, who unwrapped them like Christmas gifts.
Another rider was more direct: He hopped over a mesh fence, descended a staircase and approached a platform at Broadway-Lafayette. It was unclear if he had made his connection without being caught.
About five months ago, Sal Pagano, 19, who commutes to Hunter College from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, took an Instagram photograph of a partly covered sign, adding the caption: “When the rest of that sign is unveiled I’ll save $2.25 every school day.” The message closed with a smiley face.
“It’s the only thing that gets to me,” Mr. Pagano said of the half-transfer as he waited for a downtown D train last week. “This is it.”
If commuters have long groused about the oddity, wondering why the platforms did not face each other like so many others in the system, they are not alone. The transportation authority said last week that it was unsure why they were built like that in the first place.
“There’s no real documentation,” said Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the authority.
One theory, Mr. Ortiz said, holds that because the station was built on a curve along a narrow street, a configuration could not be found to allow the platforms to be built in parallel.
The result has been a two-tiered system of subway travelers: those who know about the quirk and have come up with their own workarounds, and those who do not.
For less knowledgeable travelers, the authority’s station agents at Bleecker Street have been cast in the role of bearers of bad news. One agent, James Barksdale, said the expressions were indelible: Disappointment. Anger. Shock.
“They curse at you, curse at the M.T.A.,” he said. “It is what it is.”
Another agent, Michael Nolan, was approached on Thursday afternoon by a woman sipping from a bottled drink.
“The D,” she said glumly, stepping toward Mr. Nolan’s kiosk.
Upstairs and across the street, he said. The woman grimaced, shuffling out without another word.
“I don’t know why it took them 100 years,” Mr. Nolan said later. The change, he said, will make his job “a lot less aggravating.”
For Katja Hagemann, 34, who recently moved to New York City from Germany, a transfer mix-up was part of an early city education. She walked off a No. 6 train after boarding at Canal Street, a plastic bag of Chinese food hanging from her wrist, hoping to catch a B, D, F or M to get to her English class in Midtown.
“I thought I could get the orange train,” she said. “I only saw exit signs.”
Most veteran passengers appear to be ready to forgive. Mr. Tashjian suggested that with the nuisance corrected, the station could be seen as something of a historic site, where a final relic from the era of tokens and disconnected lines was finally swept away.
For some, though, feelings remain raw. Mr. Pagano, the Hunter student, said he could not soon forget the transportation authority’s handling of the transfer.
An advertisement had promised an opening in early 2012, he recalled. Then spring came and went, and the construction dragged on, and even when it appeared to be finished the barricades remained, and the transit system was still siphoning off that second MetroCard swipe, and the system is so hot in the summer, and why in the world did they make it like this to begin with?
He stopped himself. There was another sign a few feet away, luring riders, finally, to an uptown 6 train, even if a wooden barricade would block the path for a few more days.
Mr. Pagano smiled.
“It’s good to vent,” he said, breathing out a bit. “I feel so much better now.”
www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/nyregion/vexing-flaw-in-the-subway-is-finally-corrected.html?_r=0
The area where the new transfer was completed is a rapidly-developing area known as SoHo. It's like London's West End. This transfer is convenient since the 6 serves the popular East Side business district.
