Whenever I visit NYC, I get a serious jolt looking at the subway maps and all the new alphabet lines (eek: Revised Subway Map (and Alphabet) Awaits Riders in ’04. It just makes me nostalgic for the good ol’ days which forever remain the good ol’ days.
=YC
I suppose New Yorkers ought to be grateful that the subway – being 100 years old – has an infrastructure that has managed to still stand! The 2004 plan for the N subway (to go back on the Manhattan Bridge) is going to slightly inconvenience my commute, since I’d have to make a transfer to get to work; too bad for me, even if it’ll make the commute of others a lot easier/quicker (since it’ll make the N an actual express train instead of a mere mythologically express train). Not to mention that the N line going across the East River by tunnel has been the oldest detour (20 years of promising the citizenry that the N line will be back on the Manhattan Bridge will finally come to fruition); curiously sad that I’m of a generation that probably doesn’t even realize that the current N line has been a detour.
Of course, confusion surely has been in the roots of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). If one were to check old subway maps from the 1960’s, there would be the IRT (with simple numbered subway lines) and the IND (with their annoying alphabetized subway lines – using such odd designations as “RR” as a line that was somehow different from the mere “R”).
In 2002/3, MTA arranged it such that the W took over the B line in Brooklyn (the W then became the only subway to Coney Island, which frustrates people in other ways, I’m sure). D line was replaced by the Q circle, while Q diamond remained the express train on that line (I think so, anyway, but I don’t live on the Q/D line, so I’ve avoided that much confusion). B and D remained in Manhattan but couldn’t go into Brooklyn. Either way, none of them (B/D/N/R/M/W/Q) made great weekend traveling in Brooklyn during the weekends.
To make the confusion even more stunning, in 2004, MTA will return B and D back to Brooklyn. But, B will be on the old Q/D line and D will be on the old B line (but where – oh where – will the W be?). Exactly why the MTA made this 2004 plan is unknown. Really, the good old days was just three years ago, so it’s not like a whole generation of Brooklynites have forgotten that the B was on the B line and the D was on the Q/D line; so why not keep the B and D where they were in Brooklyn? Is it to confuse people? Is it to make Brooklyn’s immigrant population lost, because the instructions are even more unintelligible? Is it – gasp – a conspiracy against Brooklyn?? Who knows why. Inquiring minds would want to know. Or maybe I’m just rambling.
Lookit here…. someone take a look!
How to Hold Up a Subway Tunnel: Get a Big Hanger
=YC
Oh, yeah, that Atlantic Avenue subway station is the scariest thing to have seen the last past year or two. Instead of walking on concrete, one would be walking on… wooden planks? My thoughts included: “Is this safe? Is this really carrying the weight of several hundred commuters a day?” But, the work has been turning out nice – wider staircases and tunnels. It should be nice once it’s done, but put up with the inconveniences and scariness.