Dear MTA:

As an almost lifetime resident of Manhattan and frequent user of subways and buses, I would like to reassure you that we the people of New York have most definitely noticed changes in service apparently due to your concerted efforts.

Buses, for example, used to arrive at median 20 minute intervals – though of course, one might be lucky or unlucky. These days, they arrive at 30-40 minute intervals – longer at night when it’s less safe to be on the streets giving us time to meet our neighbors or finish that last chapter.  Arriving two or three at a time bumper to bumper allows residents to exercise choice denied in so many other areas of our lives giving one an elusive sense of power. Concerned citizens may wonder whether drivers are in a state of abject loneliness necessitating this, however.

As posted schedules are now useless, one can’t help but conjecture, giving you the benefit of the doubt, that these are meant to confuse a segment of travelers who give up, thus increasing much needed exercise. Wiser minds than ours have also dictated that there are twice as many crosstown buses running than those going north/south. That the new Metrocard machines on highly congested routes scrape off one’s identity photo on some cards is a puzzle for which I have not even a guess.

Subways, in a state of constant repair signified by signs inside stations so that one must enter and exit strengthening knees, have their own similar issues. Those who plan repairs exhibit unique perversity by eliminating any possibility of reaching certain destinations without an additional thirty minutes on several trains often going in the wrong direction. As taxes and fares rise, one can’t help but suspect the $5.00 paper clip syndrome that plagues so much of our government. Of course the quality of that paper clip is likely paramount to our safety.

I myself most often ride the A,B,C, D lines which offer literally four times as many express trains as locals when there are at least four times as many people in need of local stops rather than express. (Last night, in fact, standing at Columbus Circle after 11 p.m., there were FIVE D trains before a local arrived.) Oh, and three E trains for every A or C. Perhaps The Straphangers Association has an answer?

There are so few trains running at night, one is often standing in an almost deserted station at 11 p.m. after theater. Perhaps the MTA runs a chain of self-defense workshops on the side. One can’t help but envy the mothers, wives, and daughters of  organization officials who clearly never have to travel the system after hours.

Vastly limiting trains on weekends when people make attempts to enjoy the city in which we live, causes rush hour jams on a constant basis, giving us ample reason to speak to tourists whose elbows, feet, and backpacks make us so aware of them we may be provoked to commiserate. This leaves strangers with the impression we’re a friendly city.

Just wanted to tell you we understand.

Sincerely,

Alix

Photos from Bigstock