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  • That is a nuisance. By contrast though, on Sunday, my wife and son accompanied me to the Salute to Israel Day Parade. We took the train and arrived at our designated meeting place at 5th and 55th in about half an hour. A bunch of other folks from my son’s school made the mistake of taking a bus that had been chartered for the kids. 2 1/2 hours later, they arrived. Subway service, especially on the weekends, could be better but it sure beats the alternative.

    Ed Brandwein

    Posted by Anonymous
    on May 9th, 2007 at 11:42 am

  • Serves you right for not taking the LIRR to get to Chelsea. Would have gotten there in ten minutes (and no stops).

    Posted by Forest Hills 72
    on May 9th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

  • $3 on weekends, too. But so much waiting! My wife actually always takes the LIRR back when one of her improv things keeps her in the neighborhood late at night.

    Posted by Steve
    on May 9th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

  • A walk down the Gardens section of Burns, past Nick’s and Bonnelle, into AQUA. The LIRR could be $20 on weekends and it’d be a bargain.

    Posted by Forest Hills 72
    on May 9th, 2007 at 2:55 pm

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The easy way or the subway

Posted by Steve on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007

The GG!I live in Forest Hills in no small part because of the public transportation. Yeah, the morning F train is crowded and stuffy and often crawls through Queens, but it’s an express, it comes often, and on the weekends, it flies. The E and F lines’ convenient inverted L shape gets me to a suprisingly large variety of places I want to go — Midtown, the Theater District, Chelsea, the Village, the LES — without having to change trains. Even if you want to visit Brownstone Brooklyn, sure, it’s a longish trip, but you’ll get there without having to wait God knows how long for a transfer. I work in Midtown East and get to the office in 45 minutes, door to door. My boss lives on the Upper West Side and gets to work in … 45 minutes, door to door.

But sometimes, as anyone around here knows, it’s a little less than great. This past Sunday, I had to get to Chelsea to see my wife’s improv group perform. I gave myself a little under an hour to get there. Simple, right? Well, here’s how my trip went:

  • Arrive at 75th Avenue station to take F, discover that train is not running in Manhattan-bound direction. Signs advise taking train one stop in wrong direction to Union Turnpike, then turning around.
  • Get to Union Turnpike, switch platforms, wait 10 minutes or so for F. Think about taking E train that arrives first, but decide that time saved by taking first train would be negated by longer walk to theater.
  • F proceeds to average about 5 mph to 71st/Continental.
  • Conductor announces that train will be making local stops to Roosevelt Avenue/Jackson Heights.
  • Upon arrival at Roosevelt Avenue, conductor announces that train will be running over E line.
  • Train arrives at Queens Plaza E station with another F train waiting across the platform, doors open. Conductor announces that there is another F train across the platform without explaining why we might be interested in changing to the other train. Nonetheless, half the train gets up and switches. I play follow the leader and do the same, then watch my old train pull out of the station while my new train sits there for five minutes.
  • Rest of the trip went pretty well! The train even started traveling over the F line again.

Lucky for me, improv shows never start on time, so not only did I not miss anything, I had about 10 minutes to mill around before the show started. Maybe next time, I’ll give myself 15 minutes to get there. But in all serious, here’s a little suggestion, MTA: How about keeping it to one service change and/or interruption per trip? Is that really too much to ask? I tell everyone that Central Queens is closer to Manhattan than they think, but still, it’s times like this that I wish I could just hop into a cab without plunking down $40.