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Rain Makes Curtain Call at Subway Stations
By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 11, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 11, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Because it looks to be a truly glorious day today, Gothamist would like to take a few moments to comment about last night's sudden torrential rain. Rain is good - it washes away dog poop on the sidewalk, leaving it fresh and clean to be soiled all over again. But it's not good at some subway stations, when it becomes like a water park ride. Reader Sacha sent us the photograph at top of Penn Station that illustrates the issue. At Columbus Circle's uptown 1 platform, we'd say that 40-50% of platform was huge puddles and pouring rain so everyone was crowded in other places - we took the photograph below at rush hour! It's unclear whether the MTA can do anything besides try to continue its usual maintenance (which they didn't during the 2004 Hurricane Frances subway flooding) and, yes, the MTA's hydraulics are already very overworked, but we're dreamers that there would be some other drainage option.
And for those of you who wait at outdoor subway platforms - how do those coverings hold up? Oh, and some unrelated-to-the-rain water leak caused cell phone outages in Queens, which included passengers at JFK and LaGuardia.
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Hurricane Frances
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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