The People Ride in a Hole in the Ground

The #30DayWritingChallenge continues today with a popular topic here in NYC. The one thing that unifies a city of immense diversity.

Our subway is falling apart!

And it is doing so in true paradoxical New Yorker fashion: a rapid deterioration of under-invested infrastructure combined with a slow death march full of delays, signal problems and "track maintenance." It's about as torturous as you can imagine:

Passengers opened the train’s windows and pried the doors open as much as they could — about “three inches” — to let in some air. People began removing shirts and pants to try to cool down ... At one point, someone wrote, “I will survive” on the steamy windows.

Oh, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is shutting down the L train line for over a year. April 27 is L-maggedon day. Or the L-pocolypse. There's actually a robust debate underway about what to call it. God, I love this city.

The L train is one of the most heavily utilized routes, transferring people between Brooklyn and Manhattan. You know, two places no one really goes to anymore. Why the shutdown? Well, one big reason is climate change. That thing the Chinese invented that is causing more violent weather -- like Hurricane Sandy, which the MTA is still trying to recover from six years later.

It was nice knowing you, Brooklyn. See you in 2020 (maybe).

When on top of its game, you can get almost anywhere in the city by subway. It's actually pretty fantastic. But that feels rarer by the day and riders have had enough.

The MTA reports that subway ridership began slowing in 2012 and kicked off its current steep decline in 2016. Subway and bus service dropped by a combined 69 million trips from 2016 to 2017. For a system that is massively in debt and needs billions just to stabilize its infrastructure alone, any loss in revenue is a significant problem.

According to a report from state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli:

Subway and bus ridership in 2019 is projected to be 236 million rides lower than the MTA projected three years ago, which could result in a cumulative revenue loss of $822 million between 2016 and 2019, says the report.

Yikes!

So, where is everyone going?

If you thought traffic in this city was terrible before, add what feels like thousands of Uber, Lyft and Via cars to the mix. The MTA blames reduced ridership om the ride share industry, which is a convenient scapegoat for a system that is falling apart, completely mismanaged and the center of a child-like battle of egos between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Per usual, commuters are the ones left suffering. If the subway constantly makes you late for work, why would you keep taking it? That's if you have the means to spend more on a car or cab every day. Most New Yorkers do not so they are left to roll the dice on a daily basis.

The system needs to be fixed. Collapse is not an option given the immense impact it would have on the city's economy -- and all that would trickle down nationally and globally from that mess. But how to do it is the multi-billion dollar question.

The New York Times had an excellent series on this very topic last year. And the new head of the New York City Transit Authority, Andy Byford, recently unveiled his "Fast Forward" plan ... with a $37 billion price tag. There's no shortage of ideas, but who pays for it all? And how?

In the meantime, we'll all continue to swipe our MetroCards, cross our fingers and sing along to this: