The New York City Subway

[brianac]

Don't know if this has been posted before but it gives good historical information about various subway stations.



http://www.transitmuseumeducation.org/museumcast/

[brianac]

Token Reminder

Q. How long does the M.T.A. plan to keep its “No Tokens” display (at right) on so many subway turnstiles? The system hasn’t used tokens for ages, and there is no slot for tokens anymore. What purpose does the sign continue to serve?

A. Like chicken soup in the old joke, it can’t hurt.

Tina Fineberg. Associated Press

The real reason, actually, is money. “Eliminating the turnstile customer message ‘No Tokens’ is a costly software change and would require resources that are better utilized on other maintenance functions,” Deirdre K. Parker, a New York City Transit spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

The first automated fare collection turnstiles went online at the Wall Street and Whitehall Street stations in 1994, she wrote. By 1997, all buses and subways accepted MetroCards, and by the end of 2003, tokens had been completely phased out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/nyregion/23fyi.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[stache]

I still miss tokens.

[Ninjahedge]

Costly software change?


BS.

It basically involves someone going out there and changing the message (probably by hand).

THAT is costly...

[BBMW]

The probably have to replace a chip in each turnstyle.

[brianac]

MTA eyes sliding doors on subway platforms to prevent falls onto tracks, litter thrown onto rails

BY Pete Donohue
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Originally Published:Tuesday, February 1st 2011, 4:00 AM
Updated: Tuesday, February 1st 2011, 9:31 AM

DelMundo/NYDN
The MTA is exploring the use of mechanical doors on subway platforms - like those already in use on the AirTrain platform in Jamaica, Queens.

Facebook
Brendan Mahoney was killed by an L train.

What do you think?

Subway platform rails

Should the MTA put protective walls along platform edges?

Yes, too many people die from falling or jumping onto the tracks.No, it will cost too much money and people need to take responsibility for themselves.I'm not sure.

The MTA may install sliding mechanical doors on subway platforms so riders can't fall, jump - or get pushed to the tracks.

The metal-and-glass doors would be part of a barrier along a platform's edge and would open only after a train stops at the station, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority document shows.

The system would help prevent tragic incidents, like the Sunday morning death on the L train tracks of 24-year-old Brendan Mahoney in Brooklyn, officials said.

And it would protect riders from killers like Andrew Goldstein, the mental patient who shoved 32-year-old Kendra Webdale to her death in front of a speeding N train beneath Madison Square Park in 1999.

In 2009 alone, 90 people were struck by trains - and 40 died, NYC Transit stats show. "We are very early in the process of looking at the possibility of installing platform doors that would go a long way toward enhancing passenger safety and station appearance," MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said.

The protective platforms under consideration are increasingly common overseas in cities like London, Paris and Tokyo. They are also in use closer to home at AirTrain stops in Queens and in New Jersey.

Subway riders yesterday said the platform barriers and doors would be a good addition but worried about the costs and whether installation would drive fares up.

"I think it's great but ... I don't know where they'll get the funds to finance that," said Dave Ugelow, a 24-year-old Manhattan law student. "Anything that can prevent people from falling or jumping on the tracks is a good thing."

One plan under consideration is to allow whoever builds the doors to share the revenue from advertising that would go on them.

NYC Transit has drafted a two-page list of requirements for the platform-edge barriers in what is called a "Request for Information" that is due back from manufacturers in March. It asks companies interested in the project to describe their qualifications and how they might proceed if selected.

Proponents say the door would do more than just help protect passengers - it would also help reduce the number of lawsuits and the million-dollar payouts the agency faces each year.

Another added benefit: The doors would prevent trash from being tossed or blown onto the tracks. Hundreds of trains are delayed each month by small fires ignited by sparks from trains and the electrified third rail.

With Al Barbarino

pdonohue@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...#ixzz1CknWQ500

[Ninjahedge]

I think they should where they can, but there are two main problems with this:


1. Some stations simply do not have the room or the geometry that would accomodate something like this. Curved platforms or narrow ones being the main problem.

2. MONEY! Where the hell are they going to get the cas to put these things in on one of the largest metro systems in the WORLD? (Especially after continuous budget problems).

So I am all for it, just not now. They should be focusing more on how to make the subways less maintainence intensive (which repairs would reduce repair and cleaning) than what ones will keep people safer from events that happen so infrequently (given the sheer volume of riders).

[ZippyTheChimp]

Best way to sell it to the public: Possibility to air-condition subway stations.

[lofter1]

They only way that a promise of AC in stations would work is if they install similar separation near the turnstiles and create a fully enclosed AC zone on the platforms. Otherwise any cooled air would escape up and out the staircases. Don't see how it would work any way, considering the numbers of bodies entering and exiting at any given time.

[scumonkey]

cold air sinks

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
That's right.

You don't have to seal up the station. You're not trying to build a refrigerator.

I don't think there's any data, but there's anecdotal evidence (and supported by science) that subway stations, while never comfortably cool, were generally cooler than the streets above. That's obviously no longer the case.

Reason? Probably air-conditioned subway cars. Trains moving through the tunnels are the primary air circulator for the system. Trains now exchange more heat into the tunnels, so the air moving through the system is hotter.

You wouldn't have to do it throughout the system, but there are many candidates - like IND West 4th St, lower level.

[stache]

Parts of uptown #6 at Grand Central are air cooled. HEAVEN.

[Stroika]

Wow, this is quite possibly the most shocking thing I've heard today. To think that with all the problems the subway has funding and maintaining its current operations -- the constant threat of fare hikes; the stations (as at Smith St., or Borough Hall ... or dozens of others) that go unrenovated for years and years; the need to replace aged rolling stock; the constant struggle to keep tracks maintained to allow for smooth train operation; the need for train links to LaGuardia, the 2nd Ave Subway, the Far West Side and possibly elsewhere; scratchitti/graffiti; the general dirtiness of the system; the huge costs associated with employing and retiring the unionized public employees working for the MTA ... and they want to build some utterly unnecessary walls at the edge of every platform? With all of the difficulties the MTA has financing its basic maintenance, to undertake this sort of capital project is the height of folly.

Not to mention that doors like this in busy subway stations (St. Petersburg, Montreal, Paris) often lead to bottlenecks, pushing, and generally unpleasant crowd behaviors that you don't have such a problem with when people aren't so focused on standing around the holes in the wall ... I can't help but see this as a truly uncalled-for, bizarre pipe dream (and let's hope it stays that way).

[GordonGecko]

With all of the difficulties the MTA has financing its basic maintenance, to undertake this sort of capital project is the height of folly.

Not to mention that doors like this in busy subway stations (St. Petersburg, Montreal, Paris) often lead to bottlenecks, pushing, and generally unpleasant crowd behaviors that you don't have such a problem with when people aren't so focused on standing around the holes in the wall ... I can't help but see this as a truly uncalled-for, bizarre pipe dream (and let's hope it stays that way).

I agree. Somewhere in the MTA, there's a group of bored lifelong bureaucrats who have compulsive urges to come up with grand & minimally beneficial pet projects. The payback to cost ratio of this idea approaches zero.

[mariab]

It's Now Legal to Tour the City's Prettiest Subway Station (That's Not Covered in Graffiti)

By Matt Chaban



While it's still illegal to check out the Underbelly Project, the unfinished Brooklyn subway station that a bunch of street artists recently turned into a gallery, New Yorkers need no longer sneak around to see another underground gem.

There is a station hidden beneath City Hall Park, the former terminus of the original IRT subway. Because of its choice location and pioneering significance, the IRT made City Hall Station its most sumptuous stop, a loop of tiled ceilings and wrought-iron columns. It closed, however, in 1945, after longer trains were added and the station could not accomodate them.

The MTA continued to use the station as a turnaround for the 6 train, and daring subway nerds would duck down for a glimpse as the Lex departed the Brooklyn Bridge stop.

All that has changed, however, as Jalopnik points out that riders are now welcome to to take a trip around the City Hall loop. The Observer checked with an MTA spokesman who confirmed that this is indeed now legal.

http://www.observer.com/2010/real-es...vered-graffiti

Featured on WNYE's 'Secrets of New York' today, as well as the subway stop built under the Waldorf especially for FDR. The car that carried him also carried his automobile, which was then transferred to a special elevator to carry him up to the street. All this to hide his illness as much as they could. According to historians interviewed, they think the subway car sitting in that abandoned station, left there since 1945 (when he died) is the one that him & his automobile used. Fascinating.

They also said Grand Central Terminal extends to 97th St.