skipped stops

On two consecutive days, the 1 train skipped many of the stops it was supposed to make on my way home. I remember back in the early 2000’s, the last time I lived in the Bronx before a couple of weeks ago, it was during the time of the 1/9 train madness. Incidentally, one of my clues as to who was and was not a native New Yorker was by noticing who acknowledged the existence of the 9 train by when describing the local train service on northern Broadway. For most native New Yorkers, it was my impression that they just never got used to saying 1/9 instead of just 1. For me, it was a calculated stance never to acknowledge the existence of the 9 train because of the patent absurdity of its premise for existence. For the same reasons why I think it is ridiculous for trains to wait in stations for other trains to pull into the station across the platform, I think the idea of skip-stop service is dumb. Skip stop service was not the same as express service. Express service takes people long distances in one stop. Skip stop service just skipped stops. Say you have a certain amount of people who are at 96th street who are going to get on the train and get off at 145th street. There are also a certain amount of people at 96th street who are going to get off at 157th street. Let’s assume that the amount of people in both cases is more or less the same. Now, with skip stop service, those two groups of people cannot get on the same train. Some had to get on the 1 train, and some had to get on the 9 train. So, if a 1 train came first, and the 1 train stopped at 157th street (but not 145th street), then the people who were able to get on would get home slightly quicker than they would have if there were no skip stop service. Meanwhile, the people who live at 145th street and had to stay waiting for their train would get home slightly later than they would have if there were no skip stop service. So in the end, nobody is really convenienced. The only way to ensure real convenience for the most amount of people is to send more trains and keep them running on their schedule without manipulation. The skip-stop service might have made the trains seem less crowded, but platforms were more crowded. Again – unless you are sending more trains, and running them at regular intervals without manipulation, service is not better.

Those were my thoughts as I waited on the platform at 18th street for what seemed like an extended period of time. Because of the skip-stop mentality of the MTA, I know that anytime I have to wait for an extended period of time for a train, not only is it annoying in itself, but I also have to worry that the train is going to pull something weird and not stop at my stop in the name of making up time on the schedule. On Wednesday, what happened was that the train skipped from 72nd to 96th, from 137th to 168th, from 168th to 207th, and then it went regular the rest of the way. This was during rush hour. I was “lucky” this time in the sense that it still stopped at 225th. Obviously, lots of other passengers were not so lucky. Now, those were 6 stops that were skipped (not counting Dykman, which is out of commission until 2011). So, when I was at 18th street, the train ahead of me might have been at 66th street, in order for us to pull off that many skipped stops without catching up to the train preceding us. Why the large space in the first place? What was happening to make that separation take place? It couldn’t just be people holding the doors. Any mechanical malfunction would not have just magically gotten better…

Speaking of which, the next night, me and my family got on the 1 train at 14th street (after enduring some bizarre guitar-based subway performances at the L’s 1st ave stop and then again in the tunnel walkway between the L and the 1) and things started well enough. We got to 18th street in no time, but then we just sat there with the doors open; and sat there. Eventually, an announcement came on saying that there was a problem with the doors. After a short while, the doors closed. I was thinking, “oh, they must have fixed the problem, or else the doors wouldn’t close.” But, once the train set off, it did so at a snail’s pace, and then came to a full stop between stations. Then I was thinking, “I wonder what this has to do with the doors?” the train then proceeded this way for the next 20-25 minutes, until it got to 96th street, when it began running at regular speed. Of course I was happy that the train began running at regular speed and didn’t stop between stations. But, the fact that it, all of a sudden, was without door trouble and was able to run regularly threw into question the whole mechanical issue in the first place. Of course, in order to make up for lost time, the train decided to skip stops uptown. This time I was not so lucky, 225th was to be skipped. And, despite the conductor’s angry, annoyed commandment that there was a train right behind this one, Anna and I decided to get off at 215th and walk up. It was raining and it was midnight. The “train behind this one” passed over us as we crossed over the Broadway bridge.