a perfect day in new york is one where there are no service alerts on any of the subway
but a perfect day is hard to come by
so today we are going to talk about these service notices on the subway because as we all know life
is not perfect and it's all about dealing with the things of this world the best we can hello
and welcome to urban caffeine my name is thea and you're watching a channel that talks about
urban culture transit and history if you like new yorking hit that like button living in new york
means living with subway service changes all the time and subway service changes are so disruptive
to the everyday life here in the city to the point where sometimes a 30-minute commute can end up
being an hour long just because of the rerouting and the obstacle course you have to go through
to get to where you're going service changes usually happen on the weekends and weeknights but
sometimes you'll find disruptions on the weekdays during business hours but these changes aren't as
complex as the ones you'll get on the weekend or weeknights for this reason i usually try
not to take the subway on the weekends and stay within my neighborhood or within walking distance
and if i have to be somewhere on the weekends or late at night i usually take a cab a lift or an
uber having said this the weekend is a great time to explore your neighborhood especially if you've
just moved in the area but we can't always avoid service changes that's why we have this video on
top of the additional time travel to your commute these service changes are like those worded math
problems where it's not multiple choice and you have to show your solution take for example
this weekend i ran into this service notice which if you are new to new york it might as well be
like this and mobile apps aren't any better since i had actually lived on the g line for a good two
years i understand these runes which brings me to a very important point to make to really
understand these service changes you have to be familiar with the line that they're talking about
before the age where everyone was carrying around devices with gps in their pockets people were more
aware of where they were where they were going and the subway lines they were taking since they
weren't so dependent on gps i remember living in a city back in 2000 and it was even a larger city
than new york and i did well without gps or phone or map somehow i got around just fine i don't know
how and i don't remember how but i just know that i got around and come to think of it i don't think
i got lost that often it's funny how that works we humans are highly capable in adapting and if
our ancestors from the 90s were able to navigate new york city without the aid of a gps we should
be able to understand these subway alerts first thing to note regarding service notices is that
they aren't always highly visible so look at this area in the subway for reference you'd
think they'd make the service changes more visible but sometimes they're just small pieces of paper
on the wall so pay attention to these pieces of paper on the wall because they could be important
notices for upcoming service changes the affected trains are big and bold if these train lines are
related to you whatsoever then you better read this notice second most important thing check the
date and time the mta puts up these notices before service changes take effect but sometimes they
stay up long after the service change is no longer in effect now let's get to the meat and potatoes
i know the sheer amount of content on this single sheet of paper looks scary but if you look closely
the message is really only a third of the page this portion is in spanish and this is in polish
this is because the f train runs in many hispanic neighborhoods in queens and the g
train runs through greenpoint which is a polish neighborhood in brooklyn the F and G service
changes are presented together because at some point their lines meet up and share stations
and a change to one can sometimes affect the other the f train announcement is pretty straightforward
trains will skip the stations of bergen carroll and smith and 9th in both directions
the g train seems pretty straightforward as well trains will not run between hoyt-schermerhorn and
church to accommodate all these stations that will be skipped by both the f and g trains there
will be free shuttle buses that will be making rounds at these stations the shuttle buses are
basically your new york city buses repurposed they might be one of these buses or these buses
and they will be labeled accordingly i don't have b-roll to show but once you get to a station where
you can transfer from train to bus and vice versa there will be signs that will direct you and these
are usually bright yellow bright pink or some other bright color and these buses are free to use
you don't have to pay you just hop on board and you don't have to worry about telling the driver
where you need to get off at because these shuttle buses will stop at all the stations regardless so
a free shuttle bus takes care of the f train stops that don't have service the bulk of the notice
here is for the poor souls who need to take the g train because according to this not only will the
g train stop service at hoyt-schermerhorn but it will also cut its service in half and this is when
mass confusion sets in because this is actually a pretty important piece of information and it's
written in teeny tiny letters according to this the g train will run to and from court square
and bedford nostrand and another g train will run the second leg from bedford nostrand to
hoyt-schermerhorn so what happens is people will miss this notice since it's so small and they'll
get to bedford nostrand and they're suddenly lost on what to do they actually do this quite a bit on
the g train so regular writers know what's up but the non-regular writers might experience a split
second of panic luckily the transfer is on the same platform you get off one g train and cross
the platform to the other g train and continue your journey sometimes there'll be a sign for
this sometimes there's just a guy on the platform yelling at people to just get on the other g train
but sometimes the other g train might not arrive right away so you're just waiting of course
nowhere on here says the transfer is on the same platform so it seems more complicated than it is
this next portion is talking about how to get access to stations past hoyt-schermerhorn
where the g is not running you can take the a c or f train or the shuttle buses
so what's this deal with the a and c when the a and c are nowhere on these stations
that's because from hoyt you can take the a or c to j street metro tech then take the f train to
stations where it is servicing or you can take the shuttle this last line is talking about what you
can transfer to according to station at bedford nostrand there's the transfer between the two g's
at hoyt-schermerhorn you can transfer between the a c and g trains and the shuttle bus at j street
metro tech you can transfer between the a c and f trains and the shuttle bus and finally at 4th and
9th you can transfer between the f and the shuttle bus i wish these service notices were presented in
a clear concise easy to digest manner like through an infographic but instead we have something like
this and the cruel thing is service changes happen all the time and so you have to learn how to weed
through documents like this i know this kind of sign puts a lot of work on us the passengers but
it is important to learn how to understand them in a perfect world it shouldn't be like this but
this is our reality when you live in new york city and it's up to us to pay attention and digest this
information so what does help a lot is to really get to know the lines that you often take know
where the stations are what stations are on your line so that it's easy to know if your commute
is going to get affected by any of the service notices especially if you just moved into the
neighborhood i think that's one of the top tips when you first move in is to know your subway
line anyway comment down below on your opinion on new york subway service changes i would love
to hear what they are with that said thank you so much for watching don't forget to hit the like and
subscribe button if you haven't already stay tuned for future videos on transportation in new york
city because we've got a lot coming with that said thank you again for watching and happy new yorking