Another lovely day in New York City. Temperatures reaching the upper 500s, with humidity reaching 8000%. Today, however, in addition to the balmy weather, 45 minutes worth of rain caused a flash flood. A tornado actually touched down in Brooklyn as well, causing damage to Sunset Park and Bay Ridge that will probably result in some SEMA and FEMA money for those folks. We're lucky also, because we don't lose power a whole lot here during storms because the power lines are underground. Yet, with all of that, the public transportation system of the entire city and its surrounding area was crippled.
It took my boss three and a half hours to get to Manhattan from Connecticut. You might be saying to yourself, "Well, that's kind of far to begin with. What about some place closer?" I'm glad you asked. People from Forest Hills and Kew Gardens in Queens (which is no more than 15 miles East of midtown Manhattan and normally takes about 35-40 minutes) took nearly 4 hours to get to work today because both the E and F subway trains were suspended in both directions and the LIRR wasn't running on the Port Washington line. People from Jersey faced equally awful commutes
The MTA (New York's most efficient bureaucracy) actually told people to "just stay home" at one point, as though that were a acceptable solution to the problem. It's not like flooding on the tracks is an uncommon occurance either. This happens at least 3 times a summer. The MTA raised the fares a year and half ago (and phonied their books to show a deficit in order to demonstrate the need for a fare increase) to $2.00 from $1.50. What are they using this money for? I have to believe that if Yankee Stadium can find an effective way to drain the outfield during rainstorms that the MTA can figureo ut a way to minimize delays with effective drainage. No one's saying it should happen over night, but what the fuck are these people doing? Throwing keggers? It's absurd.
Something's got to give here. The traffic around the city is already unbearable, and not only during rush hour. Ask a cab driver and they'll tell you that the only time there isn't any traffic at all in the city is at like 6 AM on New Year's Day. The subways are great, but every time we get a a couple of inches of rain, the tracks get flooded. When that happens, the buses are busting at the seams. The whole system is balancing tenuously and when one small thing goes wrong, everything tumbles over like dominoes.
I don't profess to have the answer. When the Second Ave. line is complete in 20-30 years, maybe that will help ease some of the east side traffic. Who knows? I'd love to see people stop driving to the city as much, but I don't think Metro North and NJ Transit could handle the resulting bump in riders. They'd either need to add a new train line or more trains, both of which are probably logistically very difficult (if not impossible). Maybe more buses and the same amount of trains with fewer cars could help a little bit. But the proposed commuting surcharge for passenger cars isn't going to do anything for many reasons. I believe largely because if we viewed this in economic terms, the curve for driving into Manhattan is very inelastic, almost like a drug addicts view of drugs. If you're addicted to the comforts of driving yourself in the city, it would take a large amount of money to deter you from doing it. Is $8 a day, 20 days a month, 12 mnths a year going to do it? I don't think it would.
All I know is what's happening now isn't working, and something needs to be done soon.
Labels: commuting, MTA
