This column originally appeared in On The Way, a weekly newsletter covering everything you need to know about NYC-area transportation.
Sign up to get the full version, which includes answers to reader questions, trivia, service changes and more, in your inbox every Thursday.
It’s happened to all of us: You’re about to get on the train and some unexpected emergency shuts down your subway line.
Now you need to find another way to get where you’re going — ideally without it taking forever or costing a fortune.
Play it out in your head. Does a convenient, alternate route exist?
I’ve been thinking about this for months after an incident derailed my commute. I was leaving WNYC’s office in SoHo at around 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and a train hit someone on the tracks at the 53rd Street R train stop in Brooklyn. While the authorities shut down the line, southbound commuters had to get off at Jay Street-MetroTech and find an alternate route to Sunset Park or Bay Ridge.
Plan A was to follow the conductor’s instructions and continue home by bus. But everyone else did the same thing, so the B37 I managed to squeeze onto immediately filled to capacity.
Over the subsequent hour I spent inching down Third Avenue, every bus stop we passed was packed with people who couldn’t squeeze on but tried anyway. They’d hold open the rear doors and the bus would stall. Several guys on board would scream at them until they finally gave up. And three blocks later, it would happen again.
If you’re wondering, the answer is yes: I was checking Uber and Lyft the whole time. But at that point in the afternoon, Third Avenue and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway were both parking lots. If I had gotten in a car, it would’ve cost me $80 and taken at least an hour to get home.
So instead, I toughed it out on the B37 until the MTA app said R trains had resumed running with limited service. Finally, just as we were approaching 36th Street, I muscled my way off the bus, ran to the train station and boarded the next subway. I was home 12 minutes later.
In New York City, alternative or more personal commuting methods are often romanticized (sometimes by me!). Ferries are nice. It’s been said we’re in a golden age of scooters and unicycles. Citi Bike has been a huge success. And you’ve probably heard about the New Jersey guy who loves driving to his favorite diner in Midtown.
But when it comes to making this city actually function, it’s the subway or bust. The MTA told me an estimated 11,200 straphangers would’ve had to find another way home as a result of the R train’s two-hour shutdown that Wednesday afternoon.
But there was no other scalable substitute. The MTA said the B37 bus, which runs every 20 minutes, can accommodate about 200 riders during that same time period. No Ubers, bikes or unicycles were going to make up the difference.
This is why commuters are despairing about this summer’s G train shutdown, for example. They knew it was coming ahead of time, and the MTA and city officials tried to reassure the public that shuttle buses would be added and rules against double-parking would be more strictly enforced. But riders still have reason to be skeptical that any temporary alternative will work.
As I sat still on the B37 during that Wednesday afternoon in May, I overhead plenty of “f— the MTA,” “f– the subway” and “I can’t believe I paid $2.90 for this.” And I get it.
But in that moment, it was also impossible to ignore how essential, irreplaceable and miraculous the subway system is for this city of 8.5 million people — when it’s working.
Has this happened to you? We want to know about a time your subway line shut down — and how you managed to get where you were going. Tell us your story here.
Curious Commuter
Have a question for us? Curious Commuter questions are exclusive for On The Way newsletter subscribers. Sign up for free and submit your question here.
Question from Mary Jo Mace in Manhattan
I’ve noticed recently that there are private security guards who seem to be on duty at the subway station on 79th and Broadway. I’m wondering why, and if there are other stations with private security.
Answer
The MTA expanded deployment of private security guards at subway fare gates in 2022 to crack down on fare evasion and deter crime in the system. They’re deployed to stations with high traffic, but they certainly aren’t police officers. They don’t have the power to arrest fare beaters — but the MTA has said they prevent people from skipping the turnstiles, especially by sneaking in through emergency gates.
The latest NYC area transit headlines
Listen here:
- The MTA is currently trying to fill 58 vacant subway station retail spaces, in some cases with less-traditional tenants. An example: Los Herederos, an exhibition space and community radio station that’s now open in the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue station. Read more.
- Roughly 47% of city bus riders evaded the fare during the first three months of 2024, according to the MTA, prompting the agency to call for the NYPD to deploy more officers to enforce the fare. Read more.
- A vigilante who regularly calls attention to toll evasion was arrested this week after allegedly ripping off license plate covers from cars assigned to the U.S. Secret Service detail protecting Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter. Read more.
- After previously threatening to shelve major transit projects due to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pause of congestion pricing, MTA leaders said this week they’ll move ahead as if they have the $15 billion for transit upgrades that was supposed to come from the Manhattan tolls. Read more.
- The extension of the Second Avenue subway is one of the projects that was supposed to be financed by the tolls. Hochul earlier this week said she tapped a state infrastructure fund to help advance some of the work on the project — but the money she announced covers less than 1% of the line’s full cost. Read more.
- City officials said this week that thousands fewer overweight trucks are driving on the crumbling triple-cantilever section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, thanks to weight sensors that were activated last year to automatically ticket violators. Read more.
- Fines for toll evaders on the Bronx-Whitestone, Triborough, Throgs Neck and Verrazzano-Narrows bridges — as well as the Queens-Midtown and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels — will drop from $100 to $50. Read more.
- Police said a 15-year-old boy found dead on the roadbed at a Queens subway station last Friday likely died as a result of a subway surfing incident. Read more.
- Six express bus routes that recently expanded weekday service in anticipation of congestion pricing could revert to their old schedules due to the tolling program’s pause, according to an MTA memo. Read more.
- A stretch of roadway in Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge up to West 125th Street will be closed to vehicle traffic on Saturday for Summer Streets, which will continue in various locations through Aug. 24. Read more.