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12/04/2004: "Subway Shuffle"
I learned a very important lesson last night. The only question is when it's finally going to sink in.
The lesson, of course: The MTA will do everything in its power to make your life less convenient.
My commute home started well enough. Well, no, that's a lie. My commute home started with a nice shot to the groin from a turnstile when I saw the E train coming into Penn Station and my monthy MetroCard picked just that moment to expire.
I shook it off and scurried over to the vending machine. Still hopeful that maybe, just maybe, I could catch that E train and not wait another 20 minutes for the next one, I pulled out two dollars and got a single ride pass.
Back through the turnstile just as the doors were closing. Fortunately, somebody in the train did something that didn't allow them to close all the way, because they opened back up again. I give no credit to the conductor for this.
Well, I might have credited the conductor with being the only one ever to open the doors for someone rushing for the train, but for what happened when we got to Queens.
At Queens Plaza, as every late night, the conductor on the E train announced that the train would be making local stops. This is because the E train is usually express in Queens, except late nights, so they want to make sure that nobody's waiting around on the platform at Queens Plaza for an R train that won't come until 5 AM.
Anyway, the conductor announces the train is going local. Two more stops to Steinway Street and my house. Five minutes later, we're at Roosevelt Avenue, the next express stop on the line, four stops past Steinway Street.
People were upset, and not just me. A lot of people on that train wanted to get off between Queens Plaza and Roosevelt Avenue, and we all knew that it was going to be a long wait for the next train back that way.
Of course, we were all right. So, we got to wait at Roosevelt Avenue, which has been under construction lately, and where you can see the old look of the station right next to the new look as they simply put new tiles over the old.
That's exciting for approximately 12 seconds. Then you get to watch the Roosevelt Avenue Rat Circus. This actually scared me a little bit, because the rats in this station were clearly starting to figure things out. One was digging, which doesn't seem so harmful, but it's different from rats' usual pattern of scampering around on subway tracks. But the really creepy one was the one who was trying to climb the wall, and actually having a bit of success at it where the wall crooked inward and he could latch on around a corner.
Finally, the train did come, and this time stopped at Steinway. But the damage was done -- yet another reason to loathe the MTA and its perpetual fare hikes and service cuts. And to that one conductor, who again announced "local" at Roosevelt Avenue before someone corrected him and he yelled "Express! Express!" -- I can't wait until the day when they replace you with a computer.
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