America, is this the best you can do?
It's really an embarrassment. They could've built one from scratch in less time. But I guess ancient escalator technology is too advanced for the MTA.
ligeti said:
Penn Station -- possibly the busiest, most important transit hub in the world. The main escalator to Seventh Ave. has been out of order for over a month. I've read reports suggesting that they are not quite sure how to fix it.
I am speculating that the escalator operations people probably think we'll get used to it and eventually we'll stop talking about it.
And we're going to take down ISIS. Right.
and in the hallway on the 8th Ave side, leading to the A/C/E trains, there has been a construction barrier up for untold months. I'm not even sure what they're repairing. The tile? Floor? Who knows? The only thing I know is that if you cut a passageway to the subway in half, it gets insanely mobbed during rush hour.
Track assignment monitors are often not working. Sometimes they have to be taped together.
Discarded french fries lying for hours on the floor for all to see, including Europeans.
Discarded french fries lying for hours on the floor for all to see, including Europeans.
Mar 9, 2015 at 12:24pm Edited
Garbage receptacles are often overflowing. Possible explanation: elevators are not functioning. Since they can't roll the stuff up and down stairs, they just let it sit there. "It's not bothering anyone, what's your problem?" was the response I got from a Penn Station representative.
ligeti said:
Track assignment monitors are often not working. Sometimes they have to be taped together.
Discarded french fries lying for hours on the floor for all to see, including Europeans.
if you're embarrassed, send your European friends over to Grand Central
I'm not one to do a lot of complaining about mass transit. but there's no way around it. There is no excuse for now horrendous Penn Station is.
For the past 25 years, I have lived and traveled around a number of former Eastern European countries. Their public transit is a dream, yet they are poor countries compared to ours. The US is turning into a dump. Very sad.
Where did they move to?knowlton said:
I have lived and traveled around a number of former Eastern European countries.
Wokka Wokka Wokka
Mar 9, 2015 at 2:47pm Edited
This is not what a superpower looks like. It's what a Third World country looks like. We should not be policing the world. Instead, we should fix our roads, bridges and escalators. Can you imagine the French being clueless about how to fix an escalator at Orly?
Sad.
Sad.
ligeti said:
This is not what a superpower looks like. Maybe a Third World country. We should not be policing the world. Instead, we should fix our roads, bridges and escalators. Sad.
Actually, many third world countries struggle to provide clean water and health care to their citizens (not to mention protection from crime and violence)... but by all means, let's focus on the incredible suffering caused when one of the escalators goes out of service.
One would think that a Cowboys fan would be used to consistent disappointment....
Mar 9, 2015 at 2:54pm Edited
PS: it's not "Under repair." Some simpleton has been trying to figure out what parts to order. For weeks.
Is this the best we can do?
Is this the best we can do?
If people would stop dropping stuff on them, they'd work fine. One coffee cup here, gum wrapper there... Escalators are moving stairs. Stuff that gums them up makes them stop moving...
Seriously. The problem w/ the Escalators isn't the maintenance, but that people have to use them.
The place is a national embarrassment and an abomination. And yet, we have more money for another air craft carriers that no one needs.
Mar 9, 2015 at 3:01pm Edited
People drop stuff all over the world yet infrastructure gets promptly fixed. Only in America are we clueless about what to do.
Mar 9, 2015 at 3:05pm Edited
I rode the tube in London and the Metro in Paris recently. I did not see anything comparable to the squalid, stinking incompetence of Penn Station. What does that tell you?
I know it's not nice to pick on people who are... ummm... differently abled... but I was curious about train stations across the world and I ran into a few reviews. While Penn station led the list I was astonished to find these examples of substandard train stations across the world (some of them actually in Europe!):
Euston station
Not unlike Penn, Euston in central London is a gritty 1960s monstrosity that replaced an innovative earlier structure. The original Euston featured a wrought-iron roof and allowed natural light onto the platforms. The low, flat building constructed afterwards has none of the earlier station's charm. The current trainshed is a dank, underlit bunker, unconvincingly tarted up with some irregularly watered potted plants.
Birmingham New Street
The second-largest city in Britain is saddled with what must be the country's worst railway station. A low-slung concrete slab with a shopping mall and a parking lot plopped on top of it, New Street features half a dozen entrances that never seem to get you to the right location. Despite the name, New Street station is not on New Street – you have to walk through a dingy shopping center to get there.
Brussels central station
The capital of the European Union doesn't exactly put its best foot forward for railway passengers. The Brussels train station, sited entirely underground, recalls Penn in all the worst ways. Cold, filthy, appallingly lit, and stinking of urine, the station is located underneath some of the city's main streets, and therefore has no room to expand capacity as more and more passengers crowd onto its overtaxed platforms.
Termini, Rome
One of the largest stations in Europe and a hub for both international and local rail, Rome's railway terminus is not exactly on the level of the Coliseum or the Forum. Set in a grotty neighborhood east of the Tiber, the late 1940s structure features a long, ominous cantilevered concrete roof that has led Romans to nickname the station il dinosauro, "the dinosaur." Not only is it desperately crowded, but you have to dive past rows of buses to get to the front entrance. And perpetual reconstruction, usually featuring torn-up streets cordoned off with corrugated fencing, never seems to make things easier.
Budapest Deli railway terminal
The Hungarian capital has some sublime examples of civic architecture, including a stunning 19th century railway station designed by the Eiffel company. But much of today's train traffic now comes through this communist-era structure on the other side of town, a poorly maintained mishmash of stained concrete and blacked-out windows.
Euston station
Not unlike Penn, Euston in central London is a gritty 1960s monstrosity that replaced an innovative earlier structure. The original Euston featured a wrought-iron roof and allowed natural light onto the platforms. The low, flat building constructed afterwards has none of the earlier station's charm. The current trainshed is a dank, underlit bunker, unconvincingly tarted up with some irregularly watered potted plants.
Birmingham New Street
The second-largest city in Britain is saddled with what must be the country's worst railway station. A low-slung concrete slab with a shopping mall and a parking lot plopped on top of it, New Street features half a dozen entrances that never seem to get you to the right location. Despite the name, New Street station is not on New Street – you have to walk through a dingy shopping center to get there.
Brussels central station
The capital of the European Union doesn't exactly put its best foot forward for railway passengers. The Brussels train station, sited entirely underground, recalls Penn in all the worst ways. Cold, filthy, appallingly lit, and stinking of urine, the station is located underneath some of the city's main streets, and therefore has no room to expand capacity as more and more passengers crowd onto its overtaxed platforms.
Termini, Rome
One of the largest stations in Europe and a hub for both international and local rail, Rome's railway terminus is not exactly on the level of the Coliseum or the Forum. Set in a grotty neighborhood east of the Tiber, the late 1940s structure features a long, ominous cantilevered concrete roof that has led Romans to nickname the station il dinosauro, "the dinosaur." Not only is it desperately crowded, but you have to dive past rows of buses to get to the front entrance. And perpetual reconstruction, usually featuring torn-up streets cordoned off with corrugated fencing, never seems to make things easier.
Budapest Deli railway terminal
The Hungarian capital has some sublime examples of civic architecture, including a stunning 19th century railway station designed by the Eiffel company. But much of today's train traffic now comes through this communist-era structure on the other side of town, a poorly maintained mishmash of stained concrete and blacked-out windows.
Here's what daytime in the old Penn Station looks like now. Pure and utter travesty.
Where's Rudy when we all need him? In addition to all the infrastructure problems he'd for sure take care of all you commie complainers!
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I am speculating that the escalator operations people probably think we'll get used to it and eventually we'll stop talking about it.
And we're going to take down ISIS. Right.