east village idiot

A couple months back, the MTA announced that it was going to expand service on the L Train to add more trains during morning rush hour starting in December. With the changes, trains would run 3 1/2 minutes apart.

“Interesting,” I thought at the time. “As much as I’ve complained, service has been pretty consistent in the mornings lately.” There were no massive ten-minute gaps between trains anymore, and the longest wait I had in months for an L Train on a weekday morning was still less than five minutes. So, I was a little baffled on how they’d fit these new trains on the line.

Yesterday, the new service changes went into effect with little fanfare, but plenty of signs in every L Train station touting the service expansion. And while it might be too early to judge the level of service, it sucks so far.

Here’s why: 3 1/2 minutes is not enough time between trains. When the L Trains arrive at 8th Avenue, that means they must turn around each train in less than 7 minutes, or else a delay will ripple all the way down the line. That’s a pretty short amount of time. That means MTA employees must move quickly to keep things moving. And when have you ever seen an MTA employee “move quickly?” One lazy employee, and you’ve got trains sitting at every station in Manhattan for minutes on end before they move.

That’s exactly what has happened so far this week: every morning, the trip across town on the L Train has taken twice as long as it did before the MTA added trains. Sure, the trains weren’t as crowded as they normally are, but I’d rather be in a crowded train that gets me where I need to go than in an empty train that sits in every station for five minutes.

Unsurprisingly, even when the MTA tries to do something positive, they manage to screw it up.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 11:25 am and is filed under Subway Stupidity. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.