Bay Ridge

Bay Ridge editor’s nightmare train ride wins him Worst Commute award

March 7, 2018 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The R train has not been kind to riders, according to the transit advocacy group Riders Alliance. Eagle file photo by John Alexander
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A Bay Ridge editor who recently endured a pair of nightmarish two-hour-long commutes home on the city’s transit system on successive nights has been named the winner of the Worst Commute Award by the advocacy group Riders Alliance.

Henry Stewart, editor of Opera News, will be given a chocolate MetroCard as a prize, according to the Riders Alliance, which instituted the Worst Commute contest last month to bring attention to the plight of subway and bus riders. 

Each week, a winner is selected from among contestants who write to the Riders Alliance and describe a terrible experience on a bus or subway train.

Stewart wrote that he endured two terrible commutes last week that each took two hours, twice as long as normal, and that his odyssey included walking more than a mile one night in an unsuccessful attempt to bypass trouble and catch a different train. 

Here’s how Stewart described his commute to the Riders Alliance: 

“On Tuesday night, after working more than 12 hours, the D train was fine, until it stopped dead on the Manhattan Bridge to let an N train behind it go first, which happens all the time, so fine. But then there were no R trains at 36th Street (last place to transfer from the D to the only subway line that runs to my neighborhood). It’s running late nights this week as a shuttle between 59th and 95th Streets in Bay Ridge, so I needed to take an N train to get me to 59th Street. But after the one that cut in front of us on the bridge, the next one was in FORTY MINUTES. So I had to walk to Fifth Avenue and wait for the bus, which arrived 10 minutes late. It took me two hours to get home,” he wrote.

But that wasn’t the end of Stewart’s transit troubles.

“On Wednesday morning, the D was running local in Brooklyn for some reason, stopping in between stations for long delays. It took about an extra 20 minutes to get to work. After so many bad D train experiences in a row, I decided to walk almost a mile, through Central Park, to the N train, at 57th Street-Fifth Avenue, for my evening commute. And I got there to discover signal malfunctions had caused significant delays. I waited about 30 minutes for an N train, which got me to 59th Street in Brooklyn from which I walked home, more than a mile. It took me two hours again,” he wrote.

Leaders of the Riders Alliance said commuters endure a lot to travel on the city’s subways, including overcrowded trains, trains going out of service, express trains suddenly going local, signal problems that cause train delays and train going out of service with no prior warning.

To enter the Worst Commute contest, visit the Riders Alliance page on Facebook, tag @RidersNY on Twitter, or visit the group’s website www.ridersny.org/worstcommute. Use the hashtag #WorstCommute and write in 100 words or less about a bad trip on the subway or bus.

Entries must be submitted by midnight on Fridays. The winners will be announced every Monday.

The Riders Alliance will keep the contest going until Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature pass a long-term plan to fund a major fix-up of the transit system, according to leaders of the transit advocacy group. 

“As a small consolation, the Riders Alliance will reward New Yorkers with a chocolate MetroCard for the worst commute of the week until the governor enacts a sustainable, progressive long-term plan to fund the modernization of the subway,” Danny Pearlstein, director of policy and communications for the Riders Alliance, said in a statement. 

Riders Alliance Campaign Manager Rebecca Bailin said the stories of commuters will get the point across about the need for action.

“New Yorkers know all too well: delays and crowding are a constant feature of our daily commutes,” Bailin said in a statement.

 

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