(NYC) Subway Crush No Longer Gets Weekends Off

[marmar]

from the NYT:


By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: July 10, 2011


New York City slows down on the weekends, and its subway is no exception: long waits, jumbled routes, trains that skip stops and sometimes never appear.

Except these days, even if the trains do not show up, riders still do. The weekend subway experience now entails crowded platforms, sardine-tight train cars and a rising tide of complaints as the system struggles with its biggest weekend passenger load in several decades.

Weekend trips have doubled in the past 20 years, far outpacing the growth of ridership during the workweek. Last year, the subway had 5.36 million rides on average during weekends, one of the highest counts on record, transit officials said.

“You would probably have to go back to close to World War II — when people were working six days a week — to find a similar trend,” said William M. Wheeler, the director of planning at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/nyregion/with-weekends-not-sleepy-anymore-subway-faces-a-test.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all