In Astoria, a Rough Commute After a Train Stalls Under the East River
At 7:30 Tuesday morning, a middle-aged Chinese woman got off the 7 train from Flushing to transfer to the Manhattan-bound N/W subway. She tried to get on the train across the platform. But service was suspended.
When she saw the train was down, she typed a message into Google Translate and handed it to an MTA employee named Jack, who refused to give his last name.
It read: “I am going to die.”
Things weren’t actually that dire — she was simply trying to get to a hospital on 14th Street in Manhattan — and the two eventually worked things out via some hand signals and broken communication.
But it was that kind of commute Tuesday for early-morning riders in Astoria Tuesday as they headed to Manhattan.
At 5:48 a.m., New York City Transit warned on its Twitter account of delays on N and R trains because a work train had stalled under the East River, between Queensboro Plaza and 59th Street.
But that message was lost on about 60 passengers at the 30th Avenue station in Queens, where they waited for their train, apparently unaware of the interruption
A few minutes later, a transit employee announced that passengers should take the Q102 bus or transfer to the 7 train at Queensboro Plaza.
“This transit system f — --ng sucks,” one middle-aged man said to no one in particular before heading down to the street.
Astoria commuters only have one subway line to get to Manhattan, and when a train gets stuck under the East River, the backlog can be extreme.
According to MTA data, about 80% of trips on those lines were completed within 5 minutes of the scheduled time during peak weekday hours over the past year. Stations along the N/W line in Long Island City and Astoria have also been closed periodically over the last few years as part of the MTA’s Enhanced Station Initiative, a plan that has been criticized for upgrading stations cosmetically as opposed to fixing train performance.
An N train approached the station at about 6:30, and most people got on. But as riders sat in tired silence, the conductor warned of “very heavy delays”.
Aaron Cavagnaro, who had to be at work in Manhattan, mulled what to do as the train waited at the 39th Avenue station.
“I’m probably going to end up taking my longboard to Queensboro Plaza,” he said, gesturing toward his skateboard “This happens frequently enough. And I spend enough on a monthly subway pass for this not to happen.”
Mariana Silva had to be at work on the Upper West Side by 7:30. She says she usually takes the N or W to Times Square before transferring to the 1 or 2 trains.
“I guess I’ll text my boss now,” she said.
At 7:22, NYCT Subway Twitter made an update. There would be no N or W service in both directions between 59th Street-Lexington Avenue and R trains would run on the F line.
Some commuters were unfazed.
Mike Gobbo lives in Astoria, and his apartment building runs a shuttle to the Ditmars Boulevard stop, the first one on the N/W line in Queens.
“I always get a seat,” he said. “This is just an off day.”
By 7:25, Frank Piccolo said he was just going to wait it out until service resumed.
“I pay just $2.75 to get from Whitestone to Manhattan,” he shrugged. “Ninety-six percent of the time it runs good.”
But 10 minutes later, his friend convinced him to split a cab.
Throughout the morning, swarms of people were still exiting the 7 train to switch to the N/W, unaware of the changed service.
At 7:46, service into Manhattan on the N/W started again. But at 8, delays were still roiling passengers.
Jim Gallagher from Astoria, checks Twitter before he leaves his apartment in the morning. He watched today’s delays unfold from the comfort of his home.
“I didn’t even bother leaving home until I saw it had cleared up,” he said later.
At Queensboro Plaza, the next train didn’t come until 8:35.
Paola Dutan had no idea about the delays while she waited for the N/W to get to the Upper East Side. She had been waiting only about five minutes before she checked how much it would cost to take an Uber Pool.
She was mulling whether the $6 was worth it when an N train arrived. She gave a relieved smile and got on the train to begin her day.
