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Knickerbocker Ave Station Closes For Rehab

Posted by
on August 22nd, 2012 at 12:05 am

Catching up on some transit news over the past few days, MTA NYC Transit announced a few days ago that the Knickerbocker Avenue station on the M Train will be closed for 5 months due to station rehabilitation. This along with 4 other stations are part of a major station rehabilitation project. Here is more via the official press release:

MTA New York City Transit announces the renewal of five stations on the Myrtle Avenue M line set to begin with Knickerbocker Avenue this weekend. Effective 12:01 a.m., Saturday, August 18, Knickerbocker Avenue will close in both directions for station rehabilitation for five months. Central Avenue is also scheduled to close for five months from March through August 2013. Over the next twelve months, Seneca Avenue, Forest Avenue and Fresh Pond Road stations will have important station component work done as well.

At Knickerbocker Avenue and Central Avenue stations, workers will entirely reconstruct the control houses, refurbish the station agent booths, replace the street and platform stairs, install new windscreens, perform structural repairs, install new drainage systems and repair column bases. At Seneca Avenue, Forest Avenue and Fresh Pond Road stations, customers will see improvements to the control houses, stairs, platforms, columns and flooring.

During the station closures, customers may walk or take the bus to the nearest station. In addition to the regular B54 bus during the day, a B54 fare-free shuttle bus will be available during the overnight periods operating every 20 minutes between Broadway and Wyckoff Avenue. We will closely monitor B54 service at all times at the beginning of each closure to determine if service is adequate during rush hours and off peak daytime hours.

Thankfully the area has other stations within short walking distance so the majority of customers should not be majorly inconvenienced.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Service Diversions 08-20-12

Posted by
on August 20th, 2012 at 5:01 am

I have just updated the Service Diversions by removing all of the work that wrapped up as of 5:01 AM. The latest work for the week is front & center.

As always if I see anything interesting or noteworthy, I will tweet about it so follow @TransitBlogger which you can easily do by clicking the button in the sidebar.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Service Diversions 08-17-12

Posted by
on August 17th, 2012 at 9:13 pm

Get an early jump on your weekend travel plans as I have just updated the Service Diversions for this weekend, next week & beyond in some cases.

Follow me on Twitter by looking up @TransitBlogger or clicking the button in the sidebar as I am using it a lot more! Check the diversions page daily as I update it as changes occur, diversions end, etc….

As always, have a safe & wonderful weekend.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Jay St Escalator Breaks Down Often

Posted by
on August 14th, 2012 at 4:33 am

Subway riders don’t consider many aspects of the system their friends. The few things they might are seats, nice cold (in the summer) & warm (in the winter) cars, & oh yes those precious escalators. They come in especially handy when your feet are killing you & the thought of climbing stairs makes you want to scream.

Unfortunately if you use the Jay Street-Metrotech station, you are questioning the quality of your friendship these days. It turns out that a specific escalator in this station had been out of service 33 times within the first 3 months of this year. Sadly it does not end there as this same escalator is out 20% of the time. Tina Redwine of NY1 has more:

Riders were delighted to see this new escalator installed at Downtown Brooklyn’s Jay Street-Metro Tech station about a year-and-a-half ago.

These days, though, riders are not as enthusiastic. In the past month, riders at Jay Street have encountered a broken escalator an average of once every four days.

“Come on now. I suffer from my legs anyway, I have neuropathy. I mean, you’re paying $2.25, you shouldn’t have to go through this,” said a subway rider.

The problem is not new. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s own records show that this escalator, ES 357, shut down unexpectedly 33 times in the first three months of the year and was out of service 20 percent of the time. That is five times longer than the typical subway escalator, which is usually about 10 years old.

Click here for the complete report.

My initial thought when reading this is that this sounds like a lemon. Something is very wrong when a fairly new escalator has a poorer track record versus its much older counterparts. This is completely unacceptable.

The agency says it has no plans to replace the escalator but after awhile, are patchwork repair jobs really the solution? If anything, have it reinstalled since it is still under warranty. Why chance things getting worse which you know it will magically once the warranty expires? Hopefully the agency will reconsider their stance on this.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Select Bus Service Thoughts

Posted by
on August 14th, 2012 at 3:57 am

For those who follow my Twitter feed @TransitBlogger (cheap plug!), you would have seen my Sunday morning tweet about getting to ride Select Bus Service for the first time. I found myself having to get from my best friend’s in the Lower East Side to Midtown to meet up for a ride to a business meeting. Since I was running late, I thought either I cab it or take a chance on the M15’s SBS. I chose the latter & off I was.

I found myself at the bus stop trying to figure out how to pay as I only had cash on me. I admit I was annoyed that I needed to make change but outside of that aspect, buying my fare was painless. The bus came shortly thereafter & we were on our way.

The ride was short & efficient as I got to my destination in under 10 minutes. As I noted on Twitter, I was impressed with my experience. While I did ride on a light day traffic wise compared to most, I can’t help but feel this was one of the better ideas executed by the MTA. Hopefully this is the kind of service people get often. From those who I have spoken with over the years, this seemed to be the case.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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