By Gus Saltonstall
Starting this past weekend, major service changes went into effect for three Upper West Side train lines.
Beginning the weekend of July 24 and continuing every weekend through August 24, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will replace switches in Lower Manhattan that “are past their useful life” along the 1, 2, and 3 train routes.
The new switches will “provide better service reliability and on-time performance,” according to the MTA.
Starting on Fridays as early as 9:30 p.m., and lasting through Monday at 5 a.m., the following service changes will be in place for the next four weekends.
- 1 trains will not run south of 14th Street; service on the line will be suspended between 14th Street and South Ferry.
- 2 trains will not run south of 34th Street.
- 3 trains will not run at all.
“As one of the oldest and largest systems in the world, we are constantly upgrading infrastructure to keep New York moving and we appreciate riders’ patience as we perform this necessary upgrade,” NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said in a news release about the service changes.
If you want to travel farther south than 14th Street over the weekend from the Upper West Side, your other options include taking the C train from multiple stations across the neighborhood, the A or D train from 59th Street, or riding the 1 or 2 train from the 96th or 72nd Street Stations, and then transferring at 42nd Street to one of the many other lines at the station.
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The alternatives are easy to use; if you’re heading downtown, switch to the QNR at Times Square; if you’re heading to Brooklyn, take the shuttle to Grand Central and the 4 or 5 to Brooklyn. The problem seems to be with people who don’t bother reading the well-posted signs or check in advance what service changes are coming up (and there always are on weekends). Then the MTA gets blamed.
Let me put in a quick plug here for their now excellent mobile apps. I almost always check the app for timings, delays, and route changes before heading out to use mass transit. The old apps were difficult to use, but it seems someone was paying attention with this new one.
the new MTA app is quite useful, however somewhat clunky. The subway “transfer” feature–showing you when your train arrives and all the next possibly transfers– is spot on, and really helps.
That explains it. I was in Penn Station last night waiting for a 1 and could see the express people across the tracks. The 2 was boarding for uptown service in the downtown track. An MTA worker kept yelling this and directing people to get in but the customers looked scared.
This only applies on Friday to Sunday.
Yes. I posted on Monday so “last night ” was Sunday
I don’t know of any other rail system in the developed world – and I’ve been on a number of them – that has to shut down major parts of the system over weeks/months to perform maintenance and upgrades. These closures don’t help to make NYC tourist friendly.
That’s because NYC subways run 24/7. Most others do not!
Our oldest subway line & historically most heavily used. Requires heavier maintenance of older parts.
They could do repairs overnight. Washington, DC doesn’t even have overnight service. Why does it have to be done during the day, especially on weekends!!!?
Exactly right, Phoebe! Don’t pay attention to Tom. It is lack of imagination that causes facile dismissiveness
Move to DC!
What a useless comment!
I don’t know any other rail system in the developed world or elsewhere that runs all night every night, either. And most of them are not as old as NY’s system, especially the 1, 2, and 3 lines.
Not to mention that these shut-downs are not for months, they are for four weeks. And only on the weekends. Everything is running during the week.
I’m not so worried about tourist friendly, though – it’s a hassle for all of us! At least when we forget that we read that sign about weekend closures or don’t notice that it was actually relevant to us.
That’s no excuse for inefficient and disruptive work scheduling. The largest system in the world has the largest workforce and should be able to complete these upgrades much faster. When some workers are collecting $200,000 in overtime, something’s wrong.
Cost of Labor (or parts) might be in consideration for when they choose to do repairs (and the urgency of the repair. MTA/City just might have rider data to calculate opportunity cost of closures….
They should just close the trains for 24 hours and do it all in one day.
Which transit app is the best?
I just came back from the country where underground subway used by everyone everyday. few things I noticed plus and big flaws. plus first, excellent train direction, you can change lines anywhere without getting lost, and the announcements are so clear. now the flaws, it gets expensive zone wise. in New York it’s the same rate in all five boroughs. and no airconditionig during heatwave. it was horrible.
Well, that means I have to go to the Brooklyn Museum during the week. Sounds good to me!
We are so tired of that droning, defeatist excuse of how old the system is – yes we know, and it is not the Moon Shot to figure out the systemic upgrade! And if the bureaucrats think it IS the Moon Shot let’s do it anyway! London figured it out years ago, and there are plenty of aging infrastructure examples around the world. We need the will to do the hard things, and the will to fund (or find a billionaire who wants to slap his silly name on a plaque!) Instead of constantly disabling our essential public transportation, not to mention the lost revenue in underserved neighborhoods – let’s drop the cynicism and use our American innovation and can-do to make this happen! We the people, in all the boroughs – we want this!
Thank you, WSR, for posting this most useful information. Very helpful to know.
Doesn’t sound any worse than the “normal” weekend service by the MTA