Due to this morning’s torrential rains, the ENTIRE subway system has shut down, as well as parts of the LIRR and Metro-North commuter railroads. There’s nobody at my office now, which I’m sure will get the person who covers reception in the early morning screamed at by the petty tyrant even though there’s not a damn thing she can do about it.
My subway line has frequent delays due to bad weather (the “F” stands for “Fucked up”), flooding, freezing and the like. But the last time the entire friggin’ system shut down was 1999.
Mind you, the MTA is running a surplus, yet still wants to charge more per ride without actually adding any service.
Will I get arrested if I call the MTA commissioner a son of a bitch?
Amazingly, almost all my students got it although it took me more than 90 minutes to get here from Astoria…
I just decided that discretion was the better part of valor and didn’t bother going in. I was doing research anyway, so if I can bill 4 hours today on Westlaw, I’m good.
In any event, as of noon, the F wasn’t running out here, and the B/Q, which is my other option, still had a tree to be cleared off the tracks.
I made it in to my office after an aborted trip to the subway station (I returned home),a 30-min wait for the A train (later), a long ride in an un-airconditioned A car, and then a walk. Not nearly as bad as many people, but still. It’s really shameful.
I don’t live in New York, but after reading bits and pieces from Alan Weisman’s recent book “The World Without Us” the New York subway system is literally going to be the first thing to go in a disaster.
It’s the water. The book spells out more clearly than most New Yorkers want to know that basically mankind has to keep pumping water out of the subway even on sunny days. It’s kind of a herculean effort to keep the subways going even without a major rainfall.
I have to say, most of the time it’s a really good system. In fact, I have been really impressed at how quickly the MTA gets things running after a major non-weather-related disaster, such as 9/11 and the blackout.
But weather, especially wet and cold weather, really throws it for a loop, and that has to do with the age of the electrics and where they’re located (i.e., in the third rail vs. overhead). Where there are spots where the third rail or switches can get flooded and short out, or freeze, you get trouble. This is especially bad where you have stations where the elevated tracks go underground, or where they run along the ground, such as with the B/Q in Brooklyn, and water has a chance to pool. If the whole system were either elevated or belowground, I doubt it would be quite as bad.
90 minutes? That’s it? Shit, it would take me a four-hour+ flight or at least a week on the road.
Oh, wait. You weren’t talking about that Astoria.
Every company I’ve ever worked at has had trouble with its network connection when it rains, so I wonder if it’s not just the old parts that are causing the problem.
Of course, I’m in sunny California, where builders seem to forget from year to year that, yes, it really does rain here.
And Jesus, yes, it rains in California. I’ve been there during rainy season. Yikes!