Wednesday, January 19, 2011
News The F-in' Mess on the F Line
Posted by Henry Stewart on Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 12:59 PM
And the riders at Fourth Avenue are the lucky ones.
Life is harder for passengers at many other stations, which have lost one-side of service altogether. (Better to stand in the rain than not be able to get a train!) Local councilman Brad Lander has a helpful suggestion that could ameliorate the problem, the Park Slope Patch reports: extending the B68 past Bartel Pritchard Square to the Seventh Avenue station, for 15th Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway riders. It would be amazing that the MTA didn't think of this by itself, except of course they didn't—they're the fucking MTA! (Maybe they can enact this plan and add a surcharge for the ride?)
In the meantime, the web is abuzz with gripers. The Times took a coolheaded approach, simply chronicling the extra time that would be added to a commute. It was a smartly pre-emptive tone, as many of the commenters took the opportunity to mock the "yuppie whiners". As Larry writes, in a fairly representative comment, "the only thing I have to whine about is all of these displaced young immigrants to 'Brownstone Brooklyn' from Nebraska who never stop complaining. Get a life, sweetheart, and you poor thing, adding an extra 10 to 12 minutes to your daily commute — why that is utterly outrageous. Perhaps you should sue."
I don't know; I'd be kinda pissed for the inconvenience if I lived a little further on down the line. Thankfully, one of the lovely ladies at Fucked in Park Slope helped explain a bit better why this shit sucks in a lengthy diary of her weekend. Here's just an excerpt:
Saturday, 3PM:Text your dinner party guests and hint to them that “you’ve heard” there might be “something wrong with the trains” and that they should “check it out” before they leave. This will be your tactic for the next 5 months, as you try to trick people into coming to see you. You know that this charade will probably only work one time per friend, so you vow to make this visit count.
Answer frantic texts from your dinner party guests as they want to know “what the fuck is a shuttlebus” (these friends live in Manhattan, of course) and can they take the R train instead? “Funny story,” you text. “R trains aren’t running this weekend, or for the following two weekends LOL.” You wonder if they will ever show up, and regret buying so much wine.
Saturday, 7PM:
Your dinner party guests arrive, saying that they took the N to the 4th Avenue stop and walked in the FREEZING COLD to your apartment. It must have been, like, 75 blocks or some shit. You apologize on behalf of the MTA. You’re going to be doing this a lot.
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