Please Stand Clear

In order to "reduce dwell time" in the stations, the MTA is testing a shorter announcement on the 2 and 5 lines. Normally you hear a sonorous male saying "Stand clear of the closing doors, please." The test voice is a female who simply says "Please stand clear." The MTA says they hope to "shave 2-3 seconds off station stops."

MANHATTAN: Trans Woman Pushed Onto Subway Tracks In Possible Hate Crime

Via NBC New York:

A transgender woman was pushed onto the subway tracks at a Greenwich Village station by a man "acting erratically" who demanded to know what she was looking at, police said Wednesday. Authorities said they are investigating the case as a hate crime. The 28-year-old victim was on the southbound platform waiting for the 6 train at Lafayette and Bleecker streets Monday morning when she was approached by the suspect, according to police. He allegedly asked her "What are you looking at?," then ran to a garbage can, where he fished out an empty plastic bottle and threw it at her, according to police. The man pushed the woman onto the tracks, then ran away. The woman was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she was treated for cuts and bruises and released.

RELATED: The Daily News, which is usually relatively good on LGBT items, managed to work Caitlyn Jenner into their lede.

MTA Launches Subway Simulator Game

New York City's Second Avenue subway line has been under construction for most of the time I've lived on the Upper East Side. The line doesn't open until late next year (allegedly) but today the MTA has launched a simulator game of sorts at its information center on 85th Street.

The simulated journey starts on the tail tracks north of the new 96th Street station and enables the virtual operator to guide the train through the tunnels, stopping at the 96th, 86th and 72nd Street stations. Virtual operators with the best times in making the complete journey will be able to post their initials on the leader board, but beware, breaking the rules and erratic driving add time to the score. Passing a red light, speeding, overshooting the platform and enabling the wrong doors to open are among the actions that will add time to the score. Stopping or accelerating abruptly will cause the passenger mood indicator to drop, which also can add time to the score, while a positive passenger mood will subtract time. The three new stations in the simulation were created using renderings as well as the actual materials being used in their construction, so the texture of floor and wall tiles and other materials are replicated in the virtual stations as closely as possible to how they will look when completed.

The first phase of the Second Avenue line is expected to carry 200,000 passengers daily and (slightly) reduce the insane overcrowding on the Lexington line, which famously carries more passengers every day than the entire combined rail systems of Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago.

NYC Subway Ridership At 65-Year High

Via the Wall Street Journal:

New York City’s subway system carried 1.75 billion customers last year, as ridership grew by the highest annual amount in more than 65 years, according to new figures released Monday. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority data show ridership grew 2.6% in 2014—some 5.6 million customers rode the system on an average weekday and six million people rode it on the average weekend. Not that riders need a reminder, but the increased numbers aboard the city’s subway system are a direct reflection of new residential development, redevelopment and growth in certain population areas, according to the MTA’s New York City Transit division. Weekday ridership has risen by more than 500,000 over the last five years, the MTA said, with weekday ridership up systemwide by an average 132,000 last year alone.

Ranked by average daily ridership, these are the five busiest stations in the NYC system.

Improv Everywhere: Pizza Party Train

RELATED: A few years ago the MTA considered outlawing the eating of any food on the subway because the trash causes track fires and draws even more rats. The issue was dropped after platform food vendors and passengers objected.

DJ Dance Party On The NYC Subway

(Tipped by JMG reader Daddy Ray)

Anguish Looms For The Hipster Express

Gothamist has unfortunate news for Billyburg nightlife:

Brokelyn reports that the L will not run overnight between 8th Avenue and Bedford Avenue on weeknights from March 24th to May 22nd. Indeed, it will turn into a pumpkin from midnight to 5 a.m., Tuesdays through Fridays, for six weeks. Hope you don't work in the service industry! And again, there will be no L service between 8th Avenue and Bedford Avenue on weekends from April 11th to May 18th. That joy kicks off at midnight on Saturday and ends at 5 a.m. Monday. The good news is, this track work will improve infrastructure on the L. And as always, there will be shuttle buses at Lorimer, and the JMZ/G trains will (hopefully) be running, but whatever, we're all dead when the East River overflows.

All NYC Mass Transit To Close At 11PM

This includes subways, buses, ferries, PATH, Metro-North, Long Island Railroad, and (perhaps obviously) AirTrain. New Jersey Transit will suspend all rail service until Thursday at 8PM tonight. No re-start time for the MTA has yet been announced. Wherever you are at 11PM, you'll likely be there for 36-48 hours.

UPDATE: Gov. Cuomo has also declared a ban on all non-emergency vehicular traffic beginning at 11PM, warning that those caught on the roads will be ticketed and fined $300.

Cuomo Proposes Rail Link To LGA

During his State Of The State address, yesterday New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed connecting LaGuardia Airport to New York City's rail system via a new AirTrain line. Adding rail service to LGA is an idea that has been pitched and abandoned several times in recent decades.

Cuomo’s plan involves a 1.5 mile long LGA AirTrain running over the Grand Central Parkway, connecting with MTA’s 7 subway line, as well as the Long Island Rail Road’s Port Washington branch at the Mets-Willets Point station. A typical ride from Grand Central Terminal to Willets Point is about 30 minutes via the subway, while the Long Island Rail Road currently only stops at the station during sporting events at Citi Field or Arthur Ashe Stadium. The AirTrain plan was just a small portion of a larger speech given by Governor Cuomo on Tuesday morning, with only a few details set in stone as of yet. The joint Port Authority and MTA project is initially estimated to cost $450 million, and construction could be completed within five years after all approvals are granted, according to a short statement released by the Port Authority.

Cuomo did not elaborate on a source of funding for the project. Next week the MTA is expected to authorize a subway and bus fare increase, raising the single-ride price to $2.75 and the price of a monthly pass to $116.50. Cash tolls on the Verrazano Bridge will rise to $16.00. (The Port Authority operates the bridges and tunnels to Jersey.)

RELATED: AirTrain service to JFK launched in December 2003 after five years of construction that ended up costing nearly $2B. That line, however, is much longer than the one proposed for LGA.

Passenger Sings Willy Wonka To Drown Out Homophobic Subway Preacher

(Tipped by JMG reader Kent)

Officials Rebel Against Port Authority Plan To End Overnight PATH Train Service

Nighttime workers and nightlife fans in New Jersey will soon have no way to get home from Manhattan if the Port Authority gets its way. Via the Jersey Journal:

Several Hudson County officials will join forces with other officials tomorrow to call on the Port Authority to to cancel its proposal to eliminate the overnight PATH service. The press conference, which will include federal, state, and local elected officials, is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Grove Street PATH Station in Jersey City.

A slew of officials are scheduled to attend, including Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, U.S. Rep. Albio Sires, Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, North Bergen Mayor and state Sen. Nick Sacco, Union City Mayor and state Sen. Brian Stack, and state Sen. Sandra Cunningham.

In a report released over the holidays -- and signed off on by Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York -- the Port Authority proposes to eliminate PATH service 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. weeknights as a cost-savings measure. It would also affect hundreds of thousands more people if weekend overnight service were also eliminated, according to a press release. The PATH connects New York City with Jersey City, Newark, Harrison and Hoboken.

Jersey City residents have already suffered through two years of restricted service out of the World Trade Center station due to Hurricane Sandy-related repairs.

NOTE: For those wondering, a cab from downtown Manhattan to Newark will run you about $100 after you add in tolls and tip. It's about $40-$50 to Jersey City.

LONDON: Subway Erasure Singalong

Via the BBC:

A fan of Erasure sparked an impromptu singalong on the London Underground with his own version of the band's A Little Respect. Neil Francis, who sings at venues around Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, was waiting at the Kentish Town station when he decided to break into song. "I love the sound of the acoustics in the tube station, so I thought 'give it some'," he said. "It went mental, and got louder and louder." Mr Francis, who admitted having had a couple of drinks to "wet the whistle", said people asked him to carry on singing once they got on the train.

636K views so far. Hit the link for an interview with him.

Viral Video Of The Day

1.2M views for an impromptu subway platform dance party led by a little girl. Filmed at the Bedford Avenue station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Lea DeLaria Vs Subway Preacher

Via TMZ:

Lea DeLaria (aka Big Boo) was on the train when the proselytizer began preaching at ear-piercing levels. The actress stood up in her "Bad Jew" T and schooled the guy, distracting commuters intently Instagraming, Twittering and Candy Crushing. But the preacher guy fought back ... eventually referencing Sodom and Gomorrah and "the sin of homosexuality." At that point Lea, who is openly gay, throws her hands up and just loses it on the guy.

NYC Subway Breaks Ridership Record

Via the New York Daily News:

If you think the subway is more crowded than ever you’re right: The MTA set a ridership record last month. Subway trains carried 149 million passengers in September — the most of any September in more than 60 years, according to the MTA. The newly available figures also show 6.1 million people rode the subway on Tues., Sept. 23, making it the highest daily ridership since reliable numbers were first recorded in 1985, according to the MTA. The subways swelled during the People's Climate March last month. There were 2.9 million riders on Sept. 21 — the highest for a Sunday since the 1940s, the MTA said.

Twenty years ago the daily ridership averaged a "mere" 3.9M.

New NYC Transit Ads From Pam Geller

Having won a 2012 court battle to place anti-Islam ads on New York City transit, the above banners from blogger Pam Geller began appearing this week on buses and subway platforms. Today Geller agreed to pull the top image from the campaign after receiving complaints from the family of beheaded journalist James Foley. As part of the 2012 ruling, the ads appear alongside a disclaimer from the MTA. Geller is suing again because the MTA rejected one ad from the new campaign because it contains the words "killing Jews."

A Londoner On The New York Subway

"The city’s subway map is dense and needlessly complex. Where in London the Central line (red) is distinct from the Piccadilly (dark blue), which is markedly different from the Hammersmith and City line (pink), New York’s map has designated the same forest green to the 4, the 5 and the 6 lines. The B, D, F and M all rejoice in exactly the same shade of violent orange. And I’m almost entirely certain that the blue of the A, C, and E lines is the last thing you see before death’s sweet embrace. Why would you do this? The whole thing resembles a child’s approximation of a city transit system: it makes no sense. [snip] The signs – a mess of fonts and colours – lack the sweet primness of London Underground’s Johnston font. The inconsistency is startling. The stations are filthy, with peeling paintwork and pockets of such urine-stench that my eyes water, like a rheumy dog’s. The air-conditioning makes the trains a movable icy tundra, furnished with hard, uncomfortable seats. The MTA has forced me to become one of those Brits abroad – the kind that sighs and, with a condescending chuckle, compares everything with 'back home.' This is not the New York of my dreams. This is The Hunger Games." - Bim Adewunmi, writing for the Guardian.

On The Perth Subway

Here's what happened:

An Australian man got his leg stuck in the gap between the platform and the train in a Perth subway, and normally, this story would end with heavy train delays and a severely injured man. But in a surprising display of camraderie and teamwork, the passengers got off the train and literally pushed the car off the tracks, freeing the man. The entire operation only took 10 minutes with everyone’s participation, said Nicolas Taylor to Perth Now News, and credited the rescue efforts to Transperth. ““They did a really good job, they took control and handled it well…When I first saw it I thought we’d be there for hours.”

Inside The Second Avenue Subway

Gizmodo took a tour of the Second Avenue subway and has posted some great photos as well as the video below. The 72nd Street station reminds me of the DC Metro. And that's a very good thing.

New York City's new 2nd Avenue subway line is a construction project of truly monumental scale. Decades of planning and billions of dollars have led to the near-completion of Phase 1 of the tunnel running underneath Manhattan's Upper East Side. Gizmodo was lucky enough to take a tour through a section of the caverns and passages that will soon be a bustling subway line. Boring the two miles of Phase 1's tunnels began in 2010, with the project scheduled to be completed in 2016. It will eventually carry around 200,000 riders between 63rd Street and 96th Street. All four phases of the line, once completed, will run from 125th Street all the way down to Hanover Square at the southern tip of Manhattan. This won't wrap up for many years, however, as funding is procured on a phase-by-phase basis.

(Tipped by JMG reader Peter)

QUEENS: Subway Derails, Multiple Injuries

A Manhattan-bound F train derailed today in Woodside, Queens. Many passengers were evacuated via a tunnel hatch to the street.

At least 19 people were hurt after a train derailed near a Queens subway station on Friday, officials said. About 1,000 people were riding the Manhattan-bound F train when it slid off the track near the station at Broadway and 65th St. in Woodside about 10:30 a.m., officials said. "You could just feel yourself coming off your seat," said Irvelle Cadet, 24, who was riding on the seven-car train to a job interview. "I was sideways at one point. Then the conductor came over the speakers to say it derailed." Transit officials said they will be looking at the speed of the train and the condition of the tracks to determine what caused the derailment.