96th St. MTA Communication Breakdown

Incomplete and confusing

Wrong and contradicts sign above.

Incomplete, doesn't mention that 5 train replaced 2.

Much as I enjoy getting around town on the subway sometimes the MTA can be incompetent to the point of being surreal, as if they are playing head games with their riders.  The uptown platform at 96th Street this afternoon was a perfect example. 

For the last two weekends there has been construction on the 2/3 line in lower Manhattan.  To accomodate the construction the MTA shut down the 3 line and re-routed the 5, which connects with the 2 in Brooklyn and the Bronx, to run locally on the 2 line from Chambers St. to 96th.  That's a little complicated but it is not an unheard of change, and one frequent users can easily figure out.  All the MTA had to say was the 3 isn't running and the 2 is replaced by a local-running 5.

Instead they put up three posters that contradict each other, are incomplete, or are just plain wrong.  My top photo is misleading as I forgot to get the fine print, which explains in detail what trains to take.  Instead of just saying "no uptown trains" it should have said "5 replaces 2 train".  To add to the confusion the downtown 2 train was running!  Did they all pile up at Chambers St.?  Were they renamed 5 trains when they headed uptown?

The middle sign was wrong this afternoon.  The 5 stopped on the express track.  This caused me at least a half-hour wait.  I entered at 86th, but didn't get on the 1 train because I'd just have to transfer to the 5 at 96th.  I knew something was wrong when two 5 trains bypassed the station on the express track.  It took seemingly forever for a 1 train to show up at 86th, and another 15-20 minutes for a 5 to show up at 96th.

For the subway system 96th St. has a decent public address system.  During the long wait for the train the PA system was not used once to explain any changes.  There was one MTA employee who had the thankless job of  walking the length of the station yelling at people on the platform that there was no downtown express service.  The platforms are long, and the trains are loud, so it was a hopeless task.  Not one of the conductors, and I saw a half-dozen trains stop, waited a second to let people back on the train.  Was the PA system broken?

Comments

[Jen]

I was at Chambers Street, waiting for an uptown train, when a MTA employee told me that for uptown local service, I'd have to go to the downtown tracks, but for uptown express service, there'd be a 5 train on the local tracks. The only signs at the platform indicating these changes were handwritten ones intermittently strewn along the pillars. And then I went to check the service advisory bulletin in the map case and like you, noticed there was nary a word about the 5 train replacing the 2. So confusing!

[Trey Desolay]

The MTA has become service advisory-happy over the past couple of years. It's classic ass-covering behavior. The posters aren't meant to be helpful, accurate, or even comprehensible. The only purpose they serve is to satisfy some regulation.

Any time you enter a station on the L line you're faced with so many of these things that all you can do is sigh and hope a train will show up sooner or later.