Before Your Slushy Commute, A Moment of Appreciation for the MTA
Now, the original title of this post was “Just in time for your commute, the L train is fucked.” At 3:59 I noticed the MTA had posted a service advisory the L trains weren’t running in either direction anywhere between Broadway-Junction and Bedford Ave. What a hell commute that would have been! Less than 20 minutes later, though, they posted that “service has resumed with residual delays,” and now, things seem to be back to normal entirely. If you’ve been keeping an eye on their service updates, this has been going on all day.
Earlier in the day, N service was mostly suspended in South Brooklyn with a note that the NYCT “hopes to resume normal service in time for the p.m. peak,” and it’d seem they’ve done just that. Other than 4 and 5 trains running local, things are more or less entirely normal, which is no small feat given the amount of ice that’s been raining down on us out of the sky all day.
The reason I bring it up, actually, is that a commenter earlier today groused that a reference to working from home on a snow day was “bourgeois,” writing that we should instead “encourage people to tip really well on days like this, and give a smile or thumbs up to the MTA & SDNY employees who are busting their butts while you sit at home looking at blogs.” The post was pretty clearly intended for people who were sitting at their computers during the day—the target audience for any blog, after all—but still, point taken!
The MTA (and more to the point, the MTA’s employees) have been bending over backwards all day to make this inevitably unpleasant commute as smooth as possible, and with pretty impressive results. (We also appreciate their swift response to those stupid “where to stand on the platform” signs, while we’re at it.) In the interest of acting like decent citizens, let’s try to appreciate their efforts on the way home instead of focusing on our freezing feet and the gross wet-coat smell emanating from our fellow passengers. And for god’s sake, if you order delivery later, tip the guy double.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.