House of cards

How 'bout that infrastructure, eh?

Flooding from torrential overnight rains crippled the New York City subway system this morning. Delays of at least 30 minutes were reported on all subway lines, and customers were urged to forgo the subways entirely and take buses if possible. The thunderstorm caused havoc across the region, forcing thousands of people, like the pedestrians who crowded the Manhattan Bridge in both directions, to walk to work or work from home. The National Weather Service warned about scorching heat this afternoon, while in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a small tornado appeared to have touched down this morning, damaging rooftops and toppling trees.

At 9:55 a.m., transit officials warned that the subway system would not be back until noon at the earliest — and possibly not until the evening rush. “We can pump a lot of water out of the system — we do, on a daily basis — but when we have this much rain in the system at one time, our ability to pump the water out into the sewer system is hampered because that system is overwhelmed,” Paul J. Fleuranges, a New York City Transit spokesman, told NY1 News.

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El Jones wrote, “I am stunned how unreliable the New York Transit system is. For the price it must be the most poorly run system in the world; For half the system to be knocked out by a night of heavy rain is embarrassing. Even worse is the announcements/notifications that they give their PAYING customers. I entered the subway today, and there was no announcement, sign, employee, or anything else that would warn me that something was wrong, or which track to use. Once on the track, there was also no announcements or warnings.”

Read the rest.

Comments

[Mark]

1.

And did I hear that they're talking about a two stage increase in fare? I've been gone for a little while so I'm hoping that just happens to be a rumor.

[DJA]

2.

The planned fare increase (to frickin' $3.00 a ride) is hopefully on hold for now. It's beyond infuriating that the MTA apparently can't find the money to make sure that the subway system works when it's raining, but they didn't even blink before giving developer and Bloomberg buddy Bruce Ratner a $114 million blowjob.