Good news for Brooklyn-Manhattan subway service

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ABC's of subway swap
Manhattan Bridge fix changes 7 lines

By HUGH SON

Brooklyn straphangers, get ready for alphabet soup. It might be messy at first, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority thinks that eventually you'll learn to like it.

After 18 long years, repairs on the Manhattan Bridge have finally come to an end, setting the stage for the introduction next week of the most extensive set of subway service changes in decades.

As a result, MTA officials promise, a number of subway lines will run faster, more frequently and with less crowding.

"This is great news for transit riders," said MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow.

Seven lines - the B, D, M, N, Q, R and W - are affected. In addition, the S and Q-diamond trains will be discontinued, officials announced, because the service changes have made them redundant.

In an effort to minimize confusion for the 600,000 daily riders on the affected lines, last week the MTA began passing out brochures and maps in Brooklyn stations and putting up signs in subway cars.

Rather than the agency's somewhat apologetic "Sometimes, you have to go backward to go forward" slogan about weekend track work, these ads excitedly declare "New Subway Service!"

Service can finally be expanded, explained Transit Authority spokesman Charles Seaton, because for the first time since 1986, when the repair work began on the Manhattan Bridge, all four subway tracks over the span will be used.

The MTA made the most of the city Department of Transportation's bridge work by making $33 million worth of infrastructure improvements to the subway lines that use the bridge, Seaton added.

Attorney Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign advocacy group said that while the expanded service would be a boon to many Brooklyn riders, initially the changes could leave them mixed up.

"The D is becoming the W, and the Q is becoming the B, which is not so easy to follow," Russianoff said. "But I think overall it's good news for Brooklyn - particularly for neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, where the N express is going to come roaring back after 18 years."

Soon, riders who board the N at 59th St. in Bay Ridge will be in Manhattan after only three stops.

Craig Eaton, chairman of Community Board 10 in Bay Ridge, said many residents have been eagerly awaiting the return of the N express.

"We're very happy about that," Eaton said. "We've had a lot of complaints from residents about the loss of that express."

Some Bay Ridge residents were upset, however, at the news that the MTA is ending weekend express bus service to the neighborhood because riders will soon have an express train.

But clear winners in the new subway configurations are southern Brooklyn commuters who use the Brighton line. Soon, they will have two options for getting to Manhattan: the Broadway Q line or the Sixth Ave. B line.

February 20, 2004

A Subway Map Remade, in Hopes of Matching Routes and Riders

By MICHAEL LUO

When the first train rumbles across the Manhattan Bridge on Sunday morning, the confusion will begin for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers adjusting to the most significant redrawing of the subway map in decades. The changes come with the nearly two-decade rehabilitation of the bridge finally coming to an end, and four subway tracks, instead of two, will be in use over the nearly century-old bridge for the first extended period since construction began in 1986.

But once thousands of riders overcome their initial confusion, they will settle into new commuting and travel habits. Certain routes will prove popular; others may not. Only in the coming months will transit officials be able to tell whether they have succeeded in their attempt at the arcane art of rail service design.

"It's not like other new products, where you can test-market it and expand it," said Peter G. Cafiero, director of New York City Transit's rail service design unit. "Ultimately, we have to just do it."

The reconfigured subway plan - which will affect 600,000 riders - is the result of more than two years of work. Planners analyzed ridership numbers, origin and destination patterns, demographic projections and computer models. An intriguing picture of how the city has evolved over the last 20 years emerged, and transit agency planners tried to redesign the system accordingly, while also taking into account budget and operational limitations. They admit, however, that it is as much art as it is science.

Among the broad trends they tried to incorporate in their plan: once problem-plagued areas like Union Square and Times Square have become weekend destinations needing more service; an artist enclave known as SoHo turned into a retail hub; growth in Midtown far outpaces that of Lower Manhattan; growth in scattered neighborhoods like Astoria, Prospect Park and Bay Ridge has altered subway demands.

Providing the crucial backdrop to all this: the city's overall resurgence and the transit system's recovery from the depths of the 1980's, has spurred subway ridership. Since 1986, ridership has grown by more than a third, to 1.4 billion trips a year. Perhaps more telling, two-thirds of the growth is in weekend travel, with many riding the subway to shop and dine out.

"Back in 1986, you only rode the subway if you had to," Mr. Cafiero said.

Meanwhile, because of the construction on the Manhattan Bridge, a major disparity has existed between where people in Brooklyn wanted to go and where trains took them. Only half the trains running between the two boroughs were running over the bridge, but about three-quarters of people riding from Brooklyn to Manhattan have been traveling during rush hour by the bridge, bypassing Lower Manhattan.

But the often-delayed work on the bridge, which saddled the system with reduced capacity, presented planners with an opportunity.

Staffers in the transit agency's seven-person rail service design unit began mulling in 2001 what information they needed to form their plan. With the increasing use of the MetroCard, they realized that they had a huge head start over their predecessors who had worked in the era of the clunky token.

"Ten years ago, we relied a lot more on census data info to predict where people were going," said Keith J. Hom, chief of the transit agency's operations planning department. "Now we have MetroCard."

Planners also organized workers in May 2002 to interview more than 2,300 riders on subway platforms in Brooklyn. A major question was what to do with the Brighton line, currently served by the Q train. In 2001, when work was finally completed on the southern side of the Manhattan Bridge and lines were scrambled so work could start on the north, those on the Brighton line suddenly found their trains heading up Broadway, after more than a decade of heading up Avenue of the Americas.

Transit workers asked riders which they preferred. Almost two-thirds, they found, preferred Broadway.

"It goes to a lot of areas that have really grown," said Mr. Cafiero, pointing out that Broadway has evolved into a retail corridor, connecting the hubs of SoHo, Union Square and Times Square.

Corporate offices have also spread out, planners said. "Back in 1986, the biggest office destination was the Sixth Avenue corridor," including places like Rockefeller Center, said Glenn S. Lunden, a transit agency planner.

Examining origin-destination data, they found that 40 percent of riders were heading to Midtown during rush hour, but 20 percent were also heading to what they called The Valley, the area between Canal Street and 28th Street. Less than 15 percent were heading into Lower Manhattan.

This information went to the heart of what planners decided to do for what they call the Fourth Avenue line in southwestern Brooklyn.

Back in 1986, the N train, which ran express to Midtown, was the least used route over the bridge. Since then, however, outlying neighborhoods like Bay Ridge and Sunset Park have increasingly become bedroom communities, and their information showed that residents there overwhelmingly wanted to get to Midtown more quickly.

"Our ridership model shows when we bring the N back on the bridge, it's going to be one of the more popular routes," Mr. Cafiero said.

At the same time, however, a significant proportion of riders still liked the old Avenue of the Americas option. So a centerpiece of their new plan is allowing both options for riders on the Brighton line during weekdays: either an express B train up Avenue of the Americas, or the local Q up Broadway.

Meanwhile, with the replacement of the W train in Brooklyn by the D, planners puzzled over what to do with the W line, which was routed to Astoria beginning in 2001 for operational reasons. They decided to keep it, however, because of how busy the stations in Astoria, Queens, also served by the N, had become. Instead of running to Brooklyn, however, they decided to end it at Whitehall Street in Lower Manhattan.

One of the most controversial aspects is the swapping of the old B and D lines, with their return to Brooklyn. Many residents remember growing up near the lines and will have to remember the switch.

In the end, this was a decision based mostly on trying to simplify things, planners said. The B train in the Bronx currently runs only during the weekdays because of station rehabilitation work along the route and less demand. Planners decided that they wanted to connect this to the weekday-only line in Brooklyn. Planners conceded that they could have simply switched the designation in the Bronx, but they decided that would only confuse riders there.

"There will be initial confusion, but there's a definite benefit in a simpler service plan that is easier to explain to our riders," Mr. Cafiero said.

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Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

February 23, 2004

Subway Rerouting Leaves Many in Confusion

By PATRICK HEALY

As the N train mounted the Manhattan Bridge on its way to Brooklyn yesterday afternoon and sunlight cascaded into the car, the people aboard glanced outside with a look of horror and pressed their hands to the windows, like roller coaster riders desperate to get off.

The most extensive changes to New York's subway routes in decades became a reality yesterday as service over the bridge was expanded, but many New Yorkers and tourists apparently didn't get the memo. They waited at the wrong platforms. They asked for directions and were misdirected by other riders. They backtracked. Oh, how they backtracked.

Some, armed with newly redrawn maps, weaved through stations to catch the D over the Manhattan Bridge for the first time. Others, still clueless, huffed: Where was the Q-diamond? (It is no more, replaced by the B and the Q-circle) What do you mean, the N doesn't stop at Whitehall? (It does, but only at night.) Why can't I take the W? (It has been replaced by the D in Brooklyn.)

The scene aboard one Brooklyn-bound N train was typical. While seasoned riders slept through the N train's new Manhattan Bridge crossing - it used to travel via an underwater tunnel to Brooklyn - others marveled at the crystalline views. Still others, finding themselves on the wrong side of the East River, stood up, checked the maps, waited by the doors and tapped their feet.

"Where are we now?" asked Amy Cacciola, furrowing her brow as the Brooklyn skyline approached.

"Let me out," said David Yarrow, a tourist from Toronto.

Despite the occasional squalls of confusion, service across the city operated smoothly, said James Anyansi, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The real test of the scrambled routes will come today during the morning rush, as larger numbers of the 600,000 riders affected by the changes try to navigate the new system.

Mr. Anyansi said M.T.A. employees would be dispatched at 17 stations across Manhattan and Brooklyn this morning, to hand out maps and offer directions.

"I expect that tomorrow, there'll be some level of confusion," said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, a subway riders' group. "It's a tall order for people to understand, even if they're diligent. It's a lot of alphabet soup to swallow."

Even without the Monday crush of rush-hour commuters, many riders found themselves turned around yesterday afternoon.

There was Ms. Cacciola, who ended up in Brooklyn after trying to ride the N train to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Or a former Manhattanite named Lani, too chagrined to give her last name, who said she waited for the W train in Times Square for 30 minutes before realizing she needed to take the D to get to her destination in Brooklyn.

There was Charlie Lacey, a tourist from Tannersville, Pa., who paced the corridors in the Canal Street subway station while his wife, Patty, stared at the signs as if she were trying to decipher hieroglyphics. "I guess we came at the wrong time, huh?" Mr. Lacey said as he searched for the W train.

And there was Mr. Yarrow and his companion, Pauline Spencer, who laughed as they examined a subway guide they had bought two days ago, now as obsolete as a subway token. They had wanted to take the N train to the World Trade Center site, but found themselves being whisked deeper and deeper into Brooklyn.

"Well, at least we get to see the Brooklyn Bridge," Ms. Spencer said. "Twice. It's a New York moment."

Others fared better, and some even exulted in the changes.

At the Canal Street station, Larry Anderson, 35 years old and fresh from church, grinned down at the train tracks. Most Sundays, he said, the train plunges under the river as it takes Mr. Anderson home to Flatbush. Not anymore. "I get to go over the bridge," he said.

On other platforms, police officers handed out new maps. On one Manhattan-bound N train, a man who understood the changes enlightened others.

For Cynthia Germain of Queens, mastering the new routes brought a surge of triumph. She had to drop off her friends at a Boston-bound bus in Chinatown, but with the Grand Street shuttle no longer in service, Ms. Germain, 27, was not sure what to do. She and her friends hopped on a downtown D train, and hoped for the best. After a few nervous moments, the train stopped at Grand Street.

"All right girls, we're good," Ms. Germain called out. "We're in it to win it."

And with that, she collected her bags, collected her friends and sauntered off into the afternoon.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

February 24, 2004

Even Some Subway Riders Who Got the Word Got a Little Lost

By MICHAEL LUO

Far be it for New Yorkers to plan ahead when they can simply sally forth and figure it out along the way. Despite two months' notice and a day for a trial run, many were still caught unprepared during yesterday's morning rush with all four subway tracks in use over the Manhattan Bridge.

Blame it on procrastination, folly or that special brand of hubris that seems to afflict many of this city's residents.

"I haven't been reading the papers," said Robert Stewart, a federal job-safety inspector, poring over one of the miniature subway maps handed out by transit workers at the DeKalb Avenue station in Brooklyn. "It caught me off guard."

But these are New Yorkers, and Mr. Stewart and others found their way soon enough, often without any help. As a result, the morning rush, the first since the subway map was rescrambled to send more trains over the bridge and give most Brooklyn residents a faster ride to Midtown, went smoothly, except for some minor delays, according to transit officials, although there was still plenty of subterranean confusion to go around.

"I don't think you're fully focused on things until your morning commute," said Gene Russianoff, a lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, a transit advocacy group whose volunteers spent the morning surveying how New Yorkers did at eight critical stations. The survey backed up the claims that the rush hour went smoothly, although he said it found some problems with inadequate announcements on trains and inaccurate information given to riders.

Confessing complete befuddlement, Ivan Parmar, 21, a real estate agent from Borough Park, Brooklyn, stood at the downtown B and N platform at Herald Square yesterday morning, next to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority poster that read in part, "Sometimes you have to go backward to go forward."

The message summed up Mr. Parmar's experience. He had ridden the D from the Fort Hamilton Parkway station in Brooklyn, expecting it to stop at 23rd Street, but found himself at 34th Street, one of the most confusing stations in the system after the changes, having to double back.

"I have no idea how to get there," he said. Before, he had simply taken the W train. "Now it's a D, which is running on the old B line," he said, staring at a map. "I don't even know where the W is now."

It is not as if people like Mr. Parmar were not warned, transit officials pointed out. The first signs came out in December, part of a million-dollar ad campaign. The detailed brochures - 3.3 million in all - followed in early January. And over the last few weeks, transit workers have plastered stations with 17,000 posters. Disembodied voices at platforms also intoned again and again: "Ladies and gentlemen, please plan ahead"

"For the most part, people got the message," said Paul Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit. "It's the people who didn't read."

Many did follow the instructions to plan ahead. Howard Skrill, 41, an art professor at Bronx Community College who lives in Park Slope, said his 12-year-old son, Jonathan, a train buff, spread a new subway map on the kitchen table for his parents yesterday morning to point out what routes would be best for them.

"We were talking about it all morning," he said. As a result, he was ready at the Pacific Street station when a D train, instead of his usual W, pulled in.

In some instances, commuters were not helped by transit workers. Extra personnel were posted at 17 critical stations to answer questions, but a station agent at Grand Street told a Straphangers volunteer that he could take the B or D to Pacific Street in Brooklyn, although only the D now stops there, Mr. Russianoff said. And a worker at Pacific Street told Daniel Botting, another Straphangers surveyor, that he should take the R train to Union Square, when the N train would have been faster, skipping Lower Manhattan.

Like explorers happening upon new lands, many discovered their commuting had suddenly become shorter. Others, however, learned of a new transfer.

After quizzing a transit worker at Pacific Street, Jessica Chatfield, 27, waited for the next D train to rumble up. She used to take the Q directly to her office at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue. "Now I guess I'll take the D, and I don't know where I'm getting off," she said. She did not know yet what to think about the changes. Hopping aboard her train, she said, "I'm about to find out."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company