Early AM commutes on the MTA are not usually as stressful as yesterday. Today was easier but only because I adapted to the ever-changing, never-ending series of lies and gaslighting that the MTA app and website spit out furing the overnight and early AM hours on weekends. I left home believing the next N was in 10. It’s a 6-minute walk. Plenty of time, right, until that 10-minutes until the next train suddenly became three minutes. I am unable to sprint but I try to hurry, only to hear that train arrive 8 minutes earlier than originally scheduled, leaving me in the lurch for over 20 minutes until another train mught possibly show up somewhere around its scheduled time. There are no useful buses in this area anymore. Even if the old Q102 still covered 31st Street from 31st Avenue on down it would likely be on an hourly schedule, and unpredictable at that. The Steinway Street bus that used to get you to Manhattan… remember that? That was handy at times like this but some community group shouted that out of existence. It was a day when Manhattan bound N/R/M trains skipped almost every station in Astoria so you had to go up to Astoria Boulevard. I’ve had decent luck with this maneuver in the past but not this time. The MTA app kept twitching between saying it would be a 1-minute transfer to a Manhattan-bound N, then an 18-minute wait, then back to 1-minute, before finally settling on an 18-minute wait. Long story short my total transit time was nearly 90 minutes and I arrived at my destination shaking, with a headache, and in need of a fresh dose of the anxiety med, which I fortunately stocked up on just the other day. Bottom line: Just get up super early, skip breakfast, get to the station as early as you can and do not look at the app or website or even the digital signs in the station. It’s like the old days when you just didn’t know when a trian might arrive, complemented by inaudible announcements and non-functioning Help Point stationsI could call 511, which I considered doing yesterday, but I suspect their information would be as bad and inaccurate as every other aforementioned source.
Instead of my usual N > R transfer to Courtlandt I had to improvise and get the 2/3 express to Fulton at Times Square. Upon arrival I had climbed more stairs on this journey than I usually do in an entire day. Sure elevators are available at Tims Square but they can be slow and I only had minutes.
Much of the anxiety stems from this place where I work. Being 1 second late is stigmatized and demonized and the fear of fuck for what will happen to you if you are 1 second late is instilled upon everyone here, top down, the day they are hired. This is not a normal operation where you can call ahead and say the trains are fucked and get a pass. You pay for that lateness. It is claimed the MTA documents train delays on some website somewhere but this workplace has no regard for that.
Is it even worth discussing? I’m here, and after today it’s 5 days off.