Transit reports released this week confirmed what commuters have known all along – subway stations are filthy and train delays are way up. According to one of the articles, MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder stated, “We’ve done a good job of keeping the trains clean, but we haven’t treated our stations the same way.” As January comes to a close, I started to reflect on the current state of the Utica Avenue A/C station, one of Bed-Stuy’s heavily dependent express stops. I thought I’d give a review of some activities that stood out of the ordinary.
AM Rush Hour
This month, it appears morning rush hour A trains are arriving in one of two fashions: either you wait ten or fifteen minutes before a train rolls in packed with commuters OR trains arrive every couple of minutes but due to congestion, the trains end up chugging their way from Nostrand Avenue all the way through midtown.
Metrocard Vendor Machine Fail
Imagine you’re trying to purchase a Metrocard using your credit or debit card at the height of the morning rush hour, only to find out that it could only accept cash. No biggie right? You go to another one. That one isn’t accepting credit or debit cards either. You then learn that ALL of the vendor machines throughout the station made a pact not to accept plastic! Even the petite “no cash purchase” machines were on strike. That’s what commuters experienced on Friday, January 15th I’m what you’d call “a swiper,” so I rarely have cash on me. Out of all days, I needed to purchase a monthly card. I was running late and wanted to avoid wasting another 10 minutes by going out of the station to find an ATM. While a long queue started to develop at the token booth, I quickly walked through the emergency entrance with a woman, after she flirted her way through by charming a police officer. But wait – there’s more. By the end of the evening rush hour, all of the machines were only ACCEPTING COINS. If you happen to have $2.25 in change, you were in luck!
Flood Watch
The heavy rain and gusty winds that blew in on Monday January 25th caused headaches for some commuters. By the evening rush hour, the northwest stairway at Stuyvesant Avenue and Fulton Street suffered some minor damage.
It was enough rainwater to flood the mid-landing, where a swarm of passengers had to bottleneck and walk gingerly in a single file to exit the station. The next day, the MTA worked on retiling a part of the mid-landing. By Thursday evening, the entire stairway was closed off for further repairs.
As you know, Bed Stuy is a large neighborhood that is also served by the G, J and Z trains. As a Bed-Stuy resident, what line do you take? How has your subway commute been so far? What are the conditions of your local station?
LOL @ COINS ONLY!
Another proof positive that MTA lags behind. Using the Franklin stop on the C line, I new that my stop was one of the cleaner ones (not by much, though) in Bed-Stuy. The upside is I have been laid off for a few months so I don’t have to deal with these kinds of messes. I do look forward to returning to my profession but not the commute.
thanks gregory. actually, several stations along the brooklyn A/C line aren’t that bad. i’ve seen a lot worse.
The J at Gates can be atrocious when it rains. The top of the landing and even the interior near the booth can fill with water.
When the credit card option goes down, it usually means there’s a server error. Highly annoying.
I had the same problem with the vending machines on 1/15/10, It was not corrected until 1/19/10. I had to walk to the next stop Nostrand Ave in order to buy a monthly card. I wrote a complaint to the MTA when it was still only accepting coins on 1/18/10.