fireworks

I wouldn’t compromise my integrity by taking the shuttle to the A train this weekend. Instead, I chose to walk the 10 or so blocks from 225^th street to Isham (it would seem, numerically to be more than 10 blocks – but I really think it isn’t) and got into the station with no problem and at the exact moment an A train was pulling in. No rush, considering that it is the first stop and it usually sits there for a while. Lucky thing I wasn’t rushing too because people poured out and packed the staircases making it difficult to get down to the platform. I didn’t blame them. Of course, these were not only the people who live at or around 207^th street, but also those who live anywhere north of 207^th street and would normally be on the 1 train. Considering that Yonkers, on this side of town, starts at 263^rd street, this meant that an extra nearly-three miles worth of people were getting out of the train at once.

It seemed to me that, with that as a fact, and with the fact of the A train’s lengthy, time consuming run being taken into consideration, that at least some, if not lots of time would have to be taken at the 207^th street stop in order to not necessarily clean to the point of spic-n-span, but at least to do some straightening up before heading back all the way to Far Rockaway, or Ozone Park, or wherever this A train was going. So, you can imagine my shock when on the staircase still, I overheard the conductor’s announcement that the train would soon be leaving the station. Hearing this, I rushed down the steps and onto the train – perhaps knocking into some people along the way. As I suspected, the train was littered, and the floor sticky, with criss-crossing trails of spilled iced-tea and beer making patterns on the floor. It’s all part of the A train, which with each passing day acquires an increasingly “vintage” look.

At Dykman street, it was announced that the next stop would be 175^th street, thus skipping 190^th and 182st. What? Really? Can we really be that far behind schedule? Well, I guess that explains the hurry at 207^th and the lack of any attempt to straighten up the train for its run. But, really? I mean, there is no 1 train service, meaning that everyone who would normally get on the 1 train at 191^st or 181^st has to take the A train in order to go anywhere, so they had to take the elevator and go through that hardship just to get to the A in the first place. Add to them, the regular A passengers – and we just skip them by? It seems wrong, does it not? Forcing everyone onto the A train platform only to skip them. Even if we were behind “schedule” (in quotation marks because such a document has never been spotted posted in any public space), it would seem that any entity with a modicum of sympathy or ability to self-reflect would understand that the badwill wrought by skipping those at 190^th and 181^st will not be worth the apathetic goodwill of those at 175^th who had the train arrive on a mythical schedule.

Consider the following: the A train always – ALWAYS – travels at the speed of a snail between 145^th and 125^th streets. Why? It did so yesterday. Then also, after getting from 125^th street to 72^nd street at about the speed an express train would be expected to run – that is, fast with no interruption, the A mysteriously slowed down and then came to a complete stop between 72^nd street and 59^th. This is never warranted, though it would be slightly less unwarranted if there were a D train up ahead. However, nothing in the A train’s behavior up until that point had indicated that there was a train blocking traffic up ahead. Then, cutting through the tunnel’s darkness was a C train on the local track across the way. When the C train passed, the A got up the energy to finish its journey through to 59^th street. The C and the A entering the station together as though best friends holding hands.

Now, it is possible that the A train was really just stuck there and just so happened to fix whatever problem it was having as soon as the C passed it by (remember the fact that this train was so “behind schedule” that it needed to skip 190^th and 181^st streets). However, it is my theory that something more sinister is at play. Something so superficial and petty so as to constitute a scandal: It is my theory that the MTA designs it so that the two trains enter the station at the exact same moment so as to wow the passengers at the station with the plethora of options presented to them. To give the passengers a feeling of adundance. The passengers already on the train are but a captive audience – bit players in a lame fireworks display – one meant to elicit a small feeling of “wow” from the few while not caring about the groundswell of unhappy rebellion brewing among the many.