That subject came up over the weekend. I was at a Shavuot lunch on Tuesday and for some reason the ice breaker was to tell a commuting story. The story I told can be read in my post "Ridiculous," from August 8th, 2007. Anyway, we were talking about the subways, and someone who gets up like three hours earlier than I said that he likes the Downtown-A-Experience-Guy too. Az we were musing about what he says on his way back to Manhattan; does he say "this is the uptown A experience...?"
But that's not the point of this post. I'm going on another rant about the public transportation system. Many of you take the B or D train a couple of stops every day; I take it two stops between Rockefeller Center and Columbus Circle. My rant is not regarding the frequency (or infrequency, to be more precise) with which those trains come, but rather the timing. As everyone knows, the A and D trains run on the same track at 59th street, az many times you'll be on the D train going uptown and it will stop just before the Columbus Circle station. It's a bit frustrating when you want to get on an A train and that train is the very reason you're own train has stopped, but there's nothing to be done about that. My problem is actually more of a psychological one. Now, I assume that there is some absurdly complex algorithm for determining when which trains should go where and how often they should come, but this just doesn't make any sense. Probably at least once a week I'll be on a D train that is waiting at the 7th avenue stop (one stop before Columbus Circle). It might wait for a few minutes, not really a big deal. But then it will stop again as it's approaching 59th street because of an A train in front of it! Now I want to ask a couple of questions:
1. If there's an A train in front of the train now, what was it waiting for at the 7th avenue station?
2. If the D train was going to have to wait for an A train to move anyway, why didn't it just continue waiting until the A train would have been gone?
See that's just screwing with you, you know? You're waiting for the subway doors to close and you're relieved when they finally do. But then you end up waiting again in between stations! Just have us wait only once.
Anyway, it will be a moot point pretty soon because I won't be taking the B or D train any longer come June 20th. It's quite probable that my ability to post will be curtailed for at least a little while as well. Hameivin yavin.
But that's not the point of this post. I'm going on another rant about the public transportation system. Many of you take the B or D train a couple of stops every day; I take it two stops between Rockefeller Center and Columbus Circle. My rant is not regarding the frequency (or infrequency, to be more precise) with which those trains come, but rather the timing. As everyone knows, the A and D trains run on the same track at 59th street, az many times you'll be on the D train going uptown and it will stop just before the Columbus Circle station. It's a bit frustrating when you want to get on an A train and that train is the very reason you're own train has stopped, but there's nothing to be done about that. My problem is actually more of a psychological one. Now, I assume that there is some absurdly complex algorithm for determining when which trains should go where and how often they should come, but this just doesn't make any sense. Probably at least once a week I'll be on a D train that is waiting at the 7th avenue stop (one stop before Columbus Circle). It might wait for a few minutes, not really a big deal. But then it will stop again as it's approaching 59th street because of an A train in front of it! Now I want to ask a couple of questions:
1. If there's an A train in front of the train now, what was it waiting for at the 7th avenue station?
2. If the D train was going to have to wait for an A train to move anyway, why didn't it just continue waiting until the A train would have been gone?
See that's just screwing with you, you know? You're waiting for the subway doors to close and you're relieved when they finally do. But then you end up waiting again in between stations! Just have us wait only once.
Anyway, it will be a moot point pretty soon because I won't be taking the B or D train any longer come June 20th. It's quite probable that my ability to post will be curtailed for at least a little while as well. Hameivin yavin.
