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| Re: Tuscarora Almanac for February 12 (1385439) | |||
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Re: Tuscarora Almanac for February 12 |
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Posted by Michael549 on Sat Feb 13 13:55:03 2016, in response to Re: Tuscarora Almanac for February 12, posted by northshore on Sat Feb 13 09:32:05 2016. From a previous message:"The Bowling Green Shuttle renovation was another MTA boondoggle. After spending money to renovate the shuttle station, the service only ran for a short time, then discontinued for budgetary reasons." Basically you have the sequence of events backwards leading you to jump to the wrong conclusions. The Bowling Green shuttle was in operation from 1909 to 1977. For much of its history, the #4 and #5 trains during and for much of the weekdays ran to and from Brooklyn, often during the mid-days both lines ending at the Atlantic Avenue station center platform. This action left the #2 & #3 trains to carry the bulk of the non-rush hours and non-late night Brooklyn ridership. There was usually a mad scramble of riders at the Nevin Street station transferring to and from the Lexington Avenue trains and the Brooklyn local trains. In 1976 the MTA changed the route of the #5 trains where such trains would end at Bowling Green - basically by having both the #5 train and the Bowling Green shuttle share the inner loop track. This did not help the time performance of the Bowling Green shuttle. I believe - but can not put a date on it - that this was when the #4 train was extended to Utica Avenue weekdays in between the non-rush hours, also. Separating the Bowling Green station was under going a long planned renovation that added several new entrances, a completely new uptown platform with a direct from the entrance entrance, an under platform mezzanine and wider pathways among the various platforms. All of these changes were orders of magnitude greater than the then only single historic entrance and exit head-house at Bowling Green-Battery Park and the original single platform and smaller under-platform pathway to the shuttle train. The construction of the new uptown platform required changes to Bowling Green plaza thus ending the "through" street that once existed in front of the Customs House, but resulted in a dramatic new entrance. In order to retain the usage of the Bowling Green shuttle during the construction - riders had to leave the Bowling Green station via its single entry/exit stairway and re-enter the subway platform from a temporary entrance. This added time and frustration. Separate from the happenings in the subway were the happenings at city hall - the mid-1970's fiscal crisis. Then Mayor Koch decided to REDUCE day-time Staten Island Ferry service from a boat every 20-minutes day-times, evenings and weekends to the midnight schedule - a boat every half-hour. The rush hour schedule of boats was also made less frequent. For SIX months - Mayor Kock cancelled ALL ferry service from 12-midnight to 6am - but after an out-cry and a New York Times editorial restored the midnight-late hours service with one boat every hour. On weekday nights the hourly boats started at midnight. On weekends the boats ran from 11am to 7pm every half-hour, and then from 7pm to 11am every hour. A very difficult schedule if one has to work weekends. This basic ferry schedule remained in place for the next 34-35 years. Only now do the ferries run at every half hour at all times, except rush hours. The Bottom Line - catching the Staten Island Ferry becomes an extremely important affair. The changes at the Bowling Green station caused many riders to simply walk the distance to/from the Staten Island Ferry, because missing a boat involves a great penalty. The decision to stop the operation of the Bowling Green shuttle occurred while the Bowling Green station was still under re-construction. Thus the "new shuttle platform" never ever saw any train service. The station was designed the way it was - because the MTA intended to keep running the Bowling Green-South Ferry shuttle, however the circumstances had changed. The usually praised IND subways have several historical "artifacts" that are now seen as "useless" that were a part of the plans during construction - until the ideas and circumstances changed. The mid-1970's renovation and modernization of the Bowling Green station was in my view NOT an MTA boondoggle, but rather a good decent response to the major problems that the original Bowling Green station had. Mike |
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