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amNY Watch: A Six-Month Old Oops »

$160 Million Signs Broken in Less Than Six Months

What’s wrong with this picture?

ltrainsign7.JPG

These signs were supposed to be a reward for L train riders who tolerated years upon years of service outages, overcrowded trains, and delays. Nice to see that they’re working so well by telling me I’ve got 7 minutes to wait for a train that’s already in the station. They’ve been this way all week.

Nice work, MTA.

Previously in MTA Stupidity: Idiots of the Week: L Train Riders, The Real Heroes of the MTA, An MTA Job Posting I’d Like to See, An Important Message from the MTA

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 8:39 am and is filed under Subway Stupidity. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “$160 Million Signs Broken in Less Than Six Months”

  1. October 3rd, 2007 at 11:17 am

    Ha Ha Sound says:

    Those things should not only work properly, but be in every station. I’d love it if they installed them in Astor Place.

  2. October 3rd, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    jukeboxgraduate says:

    Longer than one week. Two weeks ago, they were showing double-digit times - 17 minutes, 22 minutes - and i’m down there PANICKING because I wasn’t aware of any construction - and then two minutes later, here comes the train.

  3. October 3rd, 2007 at 6:18 pm

    Ed says:

    Come on. Did anyone think that the MTA really wanted to know when their trains were arriving?

  4. October 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    Does anybody really know what time it is? « Second Ave. Sagas | Blogging the NYC Subways says:

    […] pointed out yesterday, those signs on the L train platforms, just a few months old, are already fairly useless. As trains enter and leave the stations, the signs proclaim the train is still seven minutes […]

  5. October 4th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    Damian says:

    Even if they were accurate, those signs are pointless considering by the time you see them, YOU’RE ALREADY ON THE PLATFORM. If it says the train’s going to be 2 minutes or 12 minutes, what can you possibly do with that information?

    Now if they could a) make them accurate and b) pipe that information onto their website or something, well THAT would be useful. But given they can’t even get the right time on there, I can’t imagine that ever happening.

  6. October 4th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    Damian says:

    … and don’t even get me started on those fucking recordings telling us the train is arriving. Oh, is THAT what the big metal thing rolling into the station is? A train? Thanks for letting me know, loud-ass robot voice.

  7. October 8th, 2007 at 11:34 pm

    Tom says:

    Its funny MTA spends all of its money looking too update time schedlues, but can’t seem too stop increasing fares on the many customers who make the MTA what it is.

    http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-the-mta-fair-hike.html

  8. October 10th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

    Eric says:

    Damian, it’s a psychological thing. People will wait much more patiently if they have reliable information about when to expect the next train.

    This sort of information is especially useful at 3AM.

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