Today us New Yorkers say goodbye to the W train. After just under nine years of identity crises, the train line is being axed by the MTA due to budget cuts. It’s been one of my two trains since I moved into my current apartment, where it’s served me and my fellow commuters rather well.
I know this sort of thing happens now and again with the trains (the 9, the K, etc.) but this one is particularly troubling, mostly because it was unnecessary. Faced with a huge budget, the MTA could have done the most unimaginable of things – raise fares! – but they didn’t. Honestly that seems a little silly, given that their alternatives were to cut services all over the place. So many stations now only have one person there at all times, and that combined with the fact that over half of the security cameras in train stations don’t work, one can’t help but feel a little more unsafe. And trains are going to run less frequently now, so we’ll all be jammed in even more tightly. Faced with such miserable alternative solutions, couldn’t people accept the fact that maybe we need to pay more for public transit? Seems to me you should still be able to give reduced fare tickets to students and people who need them but still charge the rest of us a higher price. The trains can’t be $1.50 a ride until the end of time.
Anyway, that was a bit of a diatribe, but it just makes me sad that the train needs to be cut. A few people on Facebook created an event to ride the last W train down and back, and there’s several for the V as well. Seems only fitting to give the W one last hurrah. So.. see you later, W. You’ll be missed.
Leave a Reply