MTA Phenomenon

New York, NY - Peter - Wednesday, April 10th, 2002 : goo

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There's a public transportation phenomenon that happens here in Manhattan sometimes; when a particular subway line starts seeing higher numbers of riders, the MTA puts more trains/cars into service on that line. I've noticed that this is particularly true on the 4/5/6 trains that run up the severely congested east side, as that line is the only subway in that highly populated part of town. This phenomenon also becomes apparent during holidays, when it seems that the trains run every 2 minutes up and down the line to help the city cope with the excessive influx of shoppers, visitors, and holiday revelers.

I live on the west side, where many train lines run; here, congestion isn't a particular problem, aside from the usual moments of passing rush-hour crowds and such. Lately, though, I've noticed that traffic has profoundly increased on my neighborhood line, the 1/9,2/3 trains. Perhaps this is due to some post-WTC trend; the 9 train no longer runs, as most of its stations were destroyed ca. 9/11 (none of the trains on this line travel to lower Manhattan since, incidentally); for most of the day, the formerly-express trains run local. All these factors seem to somehow be leading to much more crowding on the trains, as well as the fact that my area is becoming more and more popular of a residential area.

So, all this being said, the MTA has forced some older surplus trains into service, as they do during such times. Now, running up and down the 1/9 route on both the express and local tracks are the old 1950s-era trains, the ones with the red cars. It seems that many of these cars have been in outdoor storage for a long time; their windows have yellowed, and they're rusty all over, often having crackly, patchily primed skins that show damage right through the walls from years of corrosion. Water damage on these cars is also quite obvious, and some tend to smell- not the usual dank, musky subway smell, but the aging scent of inertia.

This morning, my assumptions about the surplus cars was verified; I caught the local to go to work, and it was one of the old red, rusty cars with dirty, hazy windows. Inside, the linoleum floor was buckled, torn and stained. But what struck me as interesting were the advertisements inside the train: An Earth Day '96 poster, as well as a profoundly outdated version of the subway system map, not showing any of the new lines or countless permanent route changes that have occurred in the past 6 years or so. There was also an ad for the long-forgotten movie Sleepers, which proclaimed "coming in June". But what struck me most were all the ads from the beginning of the dotcom heyday. I counted no less than 5 ads for different internet-related schticks, most all of which are now defunct.

It was an interesting step back in time, in many ways. Who'd have thought that public transportation could serve as a kinetic time-capsule, representing a specific slice of time in our increasingly distant past? Quite a pensively reflective way to start the day, indeed.

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