By Gus Saltonstall
An Upper West Side subway station is out of service through late February due to “structural maintenance,” according to the MTA.
Downtown 1 trains and local 2 trains will skip the West 79th Street stop during the period, the MTA announced on Monday.
The MTA suggested using the nearby 86th Street or 72nd Street stations, and the following routes as travel alternatives.
“For service to this station, take the 1 or 2 to 72 St and transfer to an uptown 1 or 2 local,” the MTA suggests. “For service from this station, take an uptown 1 or 2 to 96 St and transfer to a downtown train.”
The 79th Street 1 train station is one of the original 28 stations to open within the city in 1904. The station is designated as a New York City Landmark and also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
You can check in on updates about the 1 train at the 79th Street downtown station — HERE.
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Sure, of course. Gotta fix the station to prepare for all the Bridge and Tunnel people gonna park in the hood to take the subway to midtown to avoid the “soon to be ruining the neighborhood” congestion pricing
‘Bridge and Tunnel,’ eh? Someone at my gym recently said that the people who live on the UWS are very ‘cosmopolitan’. I nearly burst out in hysterical fits of laughter. Is this still the pervasive attitude up there?
Time to switch to residential permits for street parking. Every major city does it – except NYC.
No such thing as a free lunch
NYC has residents in all 5 boros. Are they all included?
Boston has residential parking, and it hasn’t been the huge success everyone imagined.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/11/patchwork-of-parking-rules-makes-it-tough-to-park-in-boston-councilor-says/
In a low density housing area residential parking permits are one thing, but when you’re talking about high density housing such as UWS and many other areas in Manhattan, that’s another matter.
There just isn’t enough parking space on city streets (more so now that many spots have been taken away by Citibike, bike lanes, car share spots, pedestrian safe zones, etc..)
When Gail Brewer comes out against residential parking you know it’s not a good idea. *LOL*
“A report published in 2019 by then-Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, now a Council member, found all sorts of problems, and concluded that, at best, “the results have been a mixed bag, with some cities left wondering if creating a permit parking program was the right choice in the first place.”
“Case studies show that low, flat-fees do more harm than good by incentivizing further vehicle ownership, as most strongly evidenced in the Boston and Chicago cases.”
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/03/16/albanys-residential-parking-program-wont-be-good-for-new-york-city-analysis
This will not work given population density here. More residents will get cars and some paying for garages will park on the street. After 24 months you will be back to where you are today minus the cost of the permit.
Did you ever ask yourself why there is no residential parking permits? This is one big city. Can we exclude Western Queens, Staten Island? You think drivers there will want to pay for something that’s free and easy? Rules would need to vary by neighborhood. Exclusions for doormen. Sounds like an administrative nightmare.
I suspect that the reason we don’t have residential parking permits is that the City doesn’t have an appetite for the 10-year legal battle with the merchants and NIMBYs it would generate. But it wouldn’t have to be crazy complicated. Divide the city into zones that are maybe 10 blocks by 2 Avenues in size. If you have a vehicle registered to an address in the zone you can get a permit. Charge enough to cover the cost of the program, and give a tax credit for the cost to anyone with an NYS adjusted gross income of (fill in the blank based on your preference).
You’d still have to do some version of alternate side parking so to street sweepers can do their job, but the competition with non-residents would be over. You could probably scale up the amount of meter parking to help merchants and contractors.
Can we stop this incessant refrain about building workers belonging to some deity class of the population such that they are entitled to an exclusion?
Of course, because we all know parking is plentiful here.
they’re gonna try to park from 66th all the way to 125th. Mark my words
Increasing public transport ridership IS the point of congestion pricing. There’s a finite number of parking spots available (unless new parking garages are created) so there can’t be more cars parked on the streets than there are now. Personal vehicle drivers will quickly figure out that it’s futile to come to the UWS expecting to park easily.
Boris,
Most vehicles in CP zone are commercial.
That includes big increases in Uber and Ecommerce (FYI – many gig workers in personal vehicles doing ecommerce delivery)
People who must drive in are typically non-rich and coming from far away without easy access to mass transit.
Like the security staff where I work…
The stereotype of a rich investment banker driving in from Scarsdale is no longer.
They are working from home in the Hamptons….
I think you’re way off in your assumptions. You can’t possibly have facts that back up any of those claims. Just because you know why a few security people where you work drive into the CP zone doesn’t extrapolate to a much larger sample of workers/drivers.
A lot of blue collar workers, for example my coworkers in NYC Parks, live outside Manhattan and commute in from their more affordable boroughs. This congestion pricing places a huge financial burden on the people who keep our city running.
I think it will get worse with Congestion pricing bc they will come here to park instead of paying the extra fees to drive downtown
But where will they park if street parking is already 100% occupied all the time? They can also choose to drive downtown on the West Side Highway, which bypasses the congestion zone, and try to park there.
It’s likely that parking downtown will be just as challenging as parking uptown. There are very few neighborhoods in Manhattan that can absorb an influx of cars. The hope is they will ultimately resort to public transportation. We won’t know how successful this will be until congestion pricing goes into effect. If it causes more problems than it cures, then we have to hope pubic officials react swiftly to deal with it. There’s a lot we have to hope for.
This is a non sequitur. People aren’t going to be able to save $15 by parking daily in our neighborhood. Street parking is already maxed-out and garages do (or will) charge more than $15 for daily parking .
Anyone who thinks parking on the UWS will somehow game the fee will figure out quickly that it doesn’t work. They will change habits or pay the fee.
This is forced social engineering at a cost many people cannot afford both financially and personally. Many sick and homebound people depend on people coming into the City from Queens for a variety of reasons. The MTA has always been a problem with inept leaders.
it’s not “social engineering”, which is almost always used as a pejorative these days. it’s urban planning.
The MTA has had both good leaders and bad.
Many people have a valid reason for needing to get into both Manhattan and the congestion zone. The plan falls apart if exceptions are made.
24/7 shutdown of station with nothing but a vague explanation given. Thanks MTA.
You could have looked at the work done on the northbound side over the last couple months, to satisfy the need for more detail.
They did not shut down the platform for an extended period of time, as they’ve done in the Southbound side.
They certainly shut down the uptown platform for some time. And they certainly did structural work. If you need them to match precisely, have the exact same structural issues, and all of it to be explained in full detail on a poster or in a short website message…call 311 and ask them to address this gross negligence.
Peter, you have your facts mixed-up. The Northbound platform was closed on weekends (Friday 11 pm to Monday 5 AM) to address platform renovations; and last year the South Stairs were closed off for a month to fix replace the stairs; but the North egress remained opended so that access to the platform was possible. Then the North Stairs were shut and South were opened. At NO time was the North Bound Platform completely shut down for an extended 24/7 period lasting more than a weekend.
They should add UWS whining as an Olympic sport. Complaints about the subway are endless, then they do something to upgrade and maintain, and complaints about that!!!
How much different would anyone’s life be if they knew the nitty-gritty details of the structural maintenance being performed? It doesn’t take much imagination to suppose that there might be serious structural deficiencies at any station in a system that’s ineptly managed.
Bring back… ‘TRAIN DADDY’!!!!!! YESSS!
Does anyone believe the incompetent corrupt ‘Organization’ running the MTA have any interest in acting in the best interest of the people? >>You gotta be kidding!
“Train Daddy” did not run the MTA.
Hopefully they are painting, cleaning, renovating the station.
That whole station, uptown and downtown, is in drastic need of improvement. Getting in and out of there in one piece is nearly impossible, most days.
And yet, it would appear you have managed the nearly impossible, most days.
Improvement is indeed needed. Gross hyperbole is useless.
im10ashus has a point…attested to by over 40 years of using theses stations. It is not an exaggeration.
Mission Impossible is my favorite movie franchise – you should check it out. By the fourth movie, it dawned on me that the mission is, indeed, very much… possible.
When you realize the station is 120 years old, you hope there is good maintenance on it.
The title of this is very misleading. Please revise it to state the specific station. By this, it sounds like the whole UWS 1 train is out.
The title says “station”….. which is singular, not plural. So not misleading at all…
Don’t let the picture of the 79th St station inform you. Or the first couple lines in the article.
The lack of communication given to the public is an embarrassment to the MTA. They should consider on creating a community relation department. The original notice stated weekend shutdowns and not full 24/7 through Feb.
But the 86th St downtown No 1 station can’t be used as alternative — it has been closed on the weekends for several weeks — Why?
There are no planned service changes that affect the 86th St station. Stay informed by getting alerts from the MTA or check the website. All the information you need is there.
At least M7 and M11 buses are running on Amsterdam – not forced to reroute for Open Streets /more tables for brunch….
Some kids from a school in the neighborhood said that they are installing gates in the turnstiles, just like the ones made famous in a hilariously appalling video showing like 20+ people going through the turnstile on one fare. Guess we’ll find out soon enough!
Don’t let the skool kids fool ya. The station had planned work scheduled to take place on weekends; however, when they began their work (retrofiting the platforms) they realized that the water damage was much worse. The platforms were structurally compromised. The turnstiles were removed, but that was done so as to allow equipment and materials to enter much easier.
UWS soon to be packed with parked cars once congestion pricing starts this spring.
We are already packed with parked cars.