I Want To Go To There

Presumably, you will have some idea where you are going before you even decide to enter a subway station. But it is entirely reasonable to assume that you may not know how to get there. Luckily, there is a handy, full-sized map posted on each subway platform. It has information on all the trains and routes, when local and express trains run, and which routes connect, either directly across the platform, or through a series of tunnels and stairs. Thanks for that, MTA. With a little studying, you should be able to find out how to get from where you are to where you want to be—provided it is a weekday, during daytime hours.

Weekends and late nights are another matter altogether. Expect trains to run both locally and sporadically on evenings and weekends. Posted next to subway maps, a weekend service advisory will tell you which trains won’t be running to which stations, and how to get around those obstacles. Sometimes, there is no good answer. For example, if there is no 7 train to Queensboro Plaza, and no N train from 57th and Seventh Avenue to Queens, how can one possibly make their way to Sunnyside on a weekend afternoon? You tell me. No, I’m serious. Tell me.

More to the point, does anyone know what the MTA officials are thinking when they do shit like this? Like really, no F train service to Fourth Avenue and 9th Street on weekends means no one from South Brooklyn can easily travel to the Lower East Side for fun Saturday night hijinks. Really, MTA? This is what our increasing fares get us? Really?

Note: Never try to take the G train anywhere. It doesn’t matter what it looks like on the map, it’s faster to just go through Manhattan and then head back into Brooklyn. You’re just going to have to take my word for it. This train is like the place where all your lost single socks and ball-point pens end up. It’s the other side of the mirror in all those middling horror movies. It’s a dead zone, kids.

Further complicating weekend service changes are the fact that even those changes are subject to change. Keep a sharp eye for orange service change posters on the subway platform, and heed those directions. When in doubt, follow the crowd, or ask someone not too crazy looking who also appears to be waiting for that train. Again, be prepared for local train service—even on express lines—during weekends; also expect extremely slow-moving shuttle train service to replace regularly slow-moving local service on late nights and weekends, particularly at the ends of subway lines.

Sometimes even your best efforts will fail you. You may enter an uptown A train that should run locally, only to discover after the doors close that the conductor has decided the next stop will be 125th Street. All you can do is cross back over to the opposite platform, and hope the next train stops where you need it to. Or alternately, you could use the opportunity to exit the station and explore some of the hidden culinary wonders of Harlem. That’s gonna have to be your call, though.