See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Eli Rosenberg
Brooklyn Daily
Longtime Q-train riders are disputing the Straphangers Campaign’s decision to name the Southern Brooklyn subway line the king of the rails last week, claiming that the Brighton local is far from perfect.
Straphangers Campaign officials said the Q’s frequent in-car announcements, low breakdown rates, and clean cars helped it beat out the J–Z and the six-time winning 7 for best subway line in the system, but riders say the train’s weekend schedule can’t be trusted.
In fact, some commuters have decided to ride their bicycle on the weekend because the train has repeatedly left them waiting.
“It’s really annoying on the weekends,” said the commuter-turned-weekend bicyclist Melissa Rocha. “The service is always changing.”
Still, the Q far surpassed its bitter yellow rivals in the R and N train, which saw middling results in the ratings, ending up 10th and 11th, respectively, out of 19 lines.
The Straphangers Campaign saw a bit of a silver-lining in the ratings for the R train.
The Bay Ridge locomotive was tops in the system for the odds of snagging an open seat — though it was near the bottom of the pile in terms of its breakdown rate.
The lowly C train, which until recently ran on subway cars that dated to 1964, was voted the worst line in the system for the fourth year in a row, an ignominious distinction previously thought to be impossible.
Still, advocates said there was hope for the struggling train lines.
“If you ride the Q, you’re going to get a much better ride than on the C or the R,” said Gene Russianoff, the staff lawyer for the Straghangers Campaign. “We try to get the information in the hands of the public and over the years we’ve had an impact on the quality of service. It used to be much worse in the 1980s — and nobody wants to return to that.”
Reach reporter Eli Rosenberg at erosenberg@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2531. And follow him at twitter.com/emrosenberg.