east village idiot

I flew up to Vermont over the weekend for a ski trip. Flying seems a little unnecessary, because in the time it takes to leave the house, sit in the airport, take off, fly, land, and get transportation to the mountain, you could easily drive there from New York. But at least I didn’t have the potential to become a perpetrator of an infamous road rage incident after sitting in traffic on the Connecticut Turnpike for two hours.

The flight left JFK at 9:25am on Friday morning. I stayed overnight in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn so I wouldn’t have to get up as early to catch the flight. I was planning to leave for the airport around 7, but it took less time than I expected to get dressed and ready, so I stepped out of the house at 6:45 - 2 hours and 40 minutes before my flight.

Considering that I could get stuck in rush hour traffic, I figured that the most logical means of getting to the airport was via the subway and Airtrain. Not only that, but I’m a poor-ass mofo, and I wasn’t about to spend a crapload of money to sit in rush-hour traffic on the Belt Parkway and possibly miss my train.

So, instead, I would take the C Train to the A Train to the Airtrain. It seemed simple enough, and shouldn’t take more than an hour.

When I got to the C Train platform at Franklin Avenue, I waited less than five minutes for the train. Things seemed to be going smoothly. I got off at the next express stop, Nostrand Avenue, and waited patiently for the next A Train. The train that came was a Lefferts Boulevard-bound train. In my morning grogginess, I failed to notice this until I got on, so I got off at the next stop and waited for an A Train that would actually take me to JFK.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

At 7:15 in the morning - well into what the MTA considers the morning rush hour - I waited 45 MINUTES for the next A Train to pull in.

Not just a Far Rockaway-bound train. Any train. Eight A Trains pulled through in the opposite direction while I waited.

It’s one thing to wait 45 minutes for a train. It’s another to wait 45 minutes and not hear a single announcement informing you that you’ll be waiting 45 minutes, or why the hell an A Train hasn’t come through the station in 45 FUCKING MINUTES AT RUSH HOUR.

Had I known of the delay, I could’ve taken a C Train to Broadway Junction and taken the J Train to Jamaica to connect to the Airtrain there. Problem solved. I was about to exercise that option when an A Train finally arrived, and I crammed into a crowded train with other passengers - who must not have been in much of a hurry, since none of them looked particularly perturbed with the delay.

It’s still unclear why the A Train wasn’t running on Friday morning. There were no service alerts on the MTA website. There were no news stories about it. Unless I missed an invisible train while standing on the platform, there is no explanation for why there was a 45 minute gap in service on the A during rush hour.

At this point, I was already cutting it close. I would barely make it to the airport 45 minutes before my flight. I never cut it that close. I pictured myself tapping my foot impatiently while I stood in line for security, and then scurrying through the terminal to make my flight.

I hopped on the Airtrain at Howard Beach at about 8:20. This train, which is run by the Port Authority, is completely automated and a complete rip-off for a ride not much longer than the Cyclone at Coney Island (at nearly the same cost), but it has never given me any problems. I would simply take the train five stops to the station for Terminal 6, and I’d be good to go.

Little did I know that the Airtrain also has the reliability of a decrepit wooden roller coaster built in the early 20th century.

When the train pulled into Terminal 4, the last stop before my terminal, it stopped. Its doors opened as usual, and then they sat open at the station. Then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It was now 8:40. I figured I was completely and utterly screwed at this point. I called JetBlue and was informed that I had until 30 minutes prior to departure to check in. I had 15 minutes.

“Attention ladies and gentlemen, please clear this train,” I finally hear over the loudspeaker. Where did the voice come from? I have no idea. There isn’t a conductor on the train. It must be the voice of God. ”This train is going out of service and moving in the opposite direction.” I’m pretty sure that’s what the announcement said, but it sounded more like “FIWTYNSJKDNF IOHYWEN WERTRJGNF HFA SDFIH TYHNVXN.”

An Airtrain pulled into the station going in the opposite direction, so I darted across the platform. That train simply runs in a loop to all of the terminals, so I figured I could still make it to Terminal 6 in fifteen minutes. We pulled out and headed around the airport - first at Terminals 2 and 3, then at Terminal 1. Things were moving smoothly.

Then, at Terminal 1, that same voice of God announced that the Airtrain would finally compensate for the broken-down train and head back in the same direction we had just come from. So, we passed through Terminals 2 and 3 again, then Terminal 4, and finally - at long last - Terminals 5 and 6. I ran through the airport and managed to check-in at 8:51, just 4 minutes before I would be shut out of my flight.

The rest of the airport experience is a blur, but it included a ticketing agent who swore I had no chance of making my flight, an angry TSA agent who threatened us, a swarm of parents with strollers who I cussed out for getting in my way, a shuttle bus ride, a mad dash through a “temporary satellite terminal,” and a 25-minute flight delay that made all of that rushing completely unnecessary.

In the end, it took 2 hours and 10 minutes to get from Brooklyn to JFK. So much for rapid transit. Suddenly, LaGuardia isn’t sounding half bad anymore.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am and is filed under Subway Stupidity. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.