The New York Times Book of New York
Page 11
By CARA BUCKLEY | January 7, 2007
Wesley Autrey became known as the “subway hero,” and his story captivated the country.
MAYBE SOME PEOPLE ARE MORE HARD-wired for heroism than others. Like, for example, Wesley Autrey, the man behind a stunning rescue last week in a Manhattan subway station.
People wondered, because they had asked themselves, “Could I have done what he did?” and very often the answer was no. Mr. Autrey, 50, a construction worker and Navy veteran, leapt in front of a train to rescue a stranger who had suffered a seizure and fallen onto the tracks. He covered the stranger’s body with his own as the train passed overhead. Both men lived.
Mr. Autrey, who left two young daughters on the platform when he jumped, later chalked up his actions to a simple compulsion to help another in distress.
But is there something in Mr. Autrey that the rest of us lack? Probably not, experts say. When Mr. Autrey saw the stranger, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, tumble onto the tracks, his brain reacted just as anyone else’s would. His thalamus, which absorbs sensory information, registered the fall, and sent the information to other parts of the brain for processing, said Gregory L. Fricchione, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Mr. Autrey’s amygdala, the part of the brain that mediates fear responses, was activated and sent sensory information to the motor cortex, which sent it down for emotional processing. His anterior cingulate, a sort of brain within the brain that helps people make choices, kicked in, hel ping trigger his decision about how to act, Dr. Fricchione said.
That Mr. Autrey served in the Navy most likely played a role, too—he had been trained to act quickly in adverse situations. Acts like jumping in front of trains to rescue strangers are easier for people who are prepared, said Michael McCullough, a psychology professor at the University of Miami.
Considering that people tend to act more altruistically toward those who fall within their perceived group, Dr. Post said, it was notable that differences in race—Mr. Autrey is black, Mr. Hollopeter is white—didn’t enter the picture.
“Not only is he going beyond the narrow interest that we all seem to have toward our children, but he is reaching out toward a shared common humanity. And he’s doing it across a racial line,” Dr. Post said. “And I think that’s really impressive.”
Vast Bus System Planned For New York
By R. L. DUFFUS | March 14, 1926
NEW YORK CITY’S GREAT-GREAT-grandfathers journeyed up and down their island by means of stagecoaches. Then came horse cars, steam railways, elevated railways, electric surface lines and subways. Now the stagecoach is about to return on a large scale, through it will be propelled by gasoline-burning rather than hay-burning horsepower, and will be called by the newfangled name of motorbus.
At present, according to the figures recently given out by Frederick T. Wood, president of the Fifth Avenue Coach Company, only 6 percent of the passengers in New York City’s transportation systems are carried in buses, whereas 39 percent are carried on surface lines. But it is not impossible that a few more years may see these percentages reversed.
“Surface tracks in the city,” Mr. Wood has said, “cost $550,000 a mile. Buses now accommodate 67 passengers and when one bus breaks down, there is no tie-up in the system as when a trolley car is out of order. There is no powerhouse trouble, and in the event of a parade of torn-up street the bus can detour.”
Surface tracks in the city cost $550,000 a mile.
The plans call for a little less than 300 miles of bus routes—287.6, to be exact—in the four boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. In Manhattan, the buses will not go south of the City Hall, principally for the reason that no more traffic could be squeezed into that area without the aid of a bootjack. The traveler will be able to go as far north as Inwood on the west side, or as far as 126th Street and First Avenue on the east side.
Tracking the Slowest Buses
October 25, 2006
THE STRAPHANGERS CAMPAIGN AND TRANSportation Alternatives, two transit advocacy groups, yesterday announced the fifth annual Pokey Awards, which are intended to single out the city’s slowest buses.
The award is based on data collected by volunteers who time their rides on bus lines in each borough. To calculate the speed of the bus, the total time from the beginning to the end of the route is divided by the number of miles covered.
The groups also gave an award for the least reliable routes, expressed as a percentage of the buses on the route that arrive in bunches or with major gaps in service, or that start significantly behind schedule.
SLOWEST BUS ROUTES, all in Manhattan.
(Average m.p.h. in parentheses)
M14A—14th Street from West Village to Lower East Side (3.9)
M34—34th Street crosstown (4.2)
M23—23rd Street crosstown (4.3)
M27—49th and 50th Streets crosstown (4.4)
M14D—14th Street, Chelsea to the Lower East Side (4.4)
LEAST RELIABLE
M1—Fifth and Madison Avenues, East Village to Harlem (27.6)
M3—Fifth and Madison Avenues/St. Nicholas Avenue, East Village to Upper Manhattan (25.0)
B15—(Brooklyn) Marcus Garvey Blvd./New Lots Avenue, Bedford-Stuyvesant to J.F.K. (24.7)
M7—Columbus/Amsterdam/Lenox/Sixth/Seventh Avenues, Union Square to Harlem (24.6)
Bx41—(Bronx) Webster Avenue/White Plains Road, Wakefield to the Hub (24.2)
Trying to Get Buses To Crawl a Little Faster
By SEWELL CHAN | March 30, 2005
The Straphangers Campaign presents an annual “Pokey Award” to the slowest bus in the city. In 2003, the award went to the M23.
AFTER WATCHING NEW YORK CITY BUS speeds struggle to the point where some Manhattan buses crawl at 4 miles per hour—only slightly faster than the average human walks—transportation planners now think that if they can make buses move even 10 percent faster, they can revolutionize travel in the five boroughs.
That’s right, just 10 percent.
New York City Transit, whose buses run on some of the most congested streets in the world, says it would be delighted to achieve even half of those speed gains. Thus, 10 m.p.h. could become 11 m.p.h. The agency has teamed up with the city and state Transportation Departments on a $2.9 million study of bus rapid transit, as the improvements are broadly known in the transit world.
“Anything would be an improvement because most people can walk faster than the buses run,” said Beverly L. Dolinsky, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the transit agency’s parent.
The study, begun last July, started with 100 of the city’s busiest streets. Planners selected 36 bus corridors and presented them for comment at public workshops across the city in December and January. Next month, they will narrow the list to 15 corridors; they intend to begin a demonstration project on 5 routes by 2007.
Keith J. Hom, the chief of operations planning for the transit agency, views the city’s roads as a contested battlefield, with pedestrians, cyclists, automobiles, taxicabs and trucks vying with mass transit for control of every spot, from the center lane right to the curb. Progress, they say, can be measured only in small increments.
Perhaps the best-known feature of bus rapid transit is what planners call “intelligent transportation systems.” A device will transmit a bus’s position and speed, through centralized computers, to a traffic light as the bus approaches. The traffic light will then remain green for, say, 10 seconds longer than usual, or change from red to green 10 seconds sooner than usual, to allow the bus to pass.
Double-Decker Bus Makes Trial Run, Delighting Riders And Avoiding Branches
By MARTIN ESPINOZA | September 28, 2008
The MTA double-decker bus arrives next to a 1939 model. The new bus combines the efficiency of high-capacity with a low-floor entry and exit.
BECAUSE OF A HEIGHT ISSUE—WHICH WOULD seem to be a built-i
n obstacle—the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has had to put off its plans to test its double-decker bus on two routes, including one that traverses Fifth Avenue.
The reason? Tree branches on Riverside Drive and Fifth Avenue are in the way.
Instead, the authority is currently limiting the trial to one route, the X17J from Staten Island to Manhattan.
Even on a good day, it can take about an hour and 45 minutes to complete its journey, from Huguenot Avenue on Staten Island to East 57th Street in Midtown, during peak commuting hours.
Gabriella Pettinato got out of bed determined to track down that bus. As her husband drove, she watched for the 13-foot-tall, 45-foot-long behemoth.
She spotted it near the Staten Island Mall.
“We drove two stops ahead of it to make sure I made this bus,” said Mrs. Pettinato, an accountant, sitting on the upper level of the coach as it approached the Goethals Bridge. “Anything different is exciting.”
Most of the passengers who first boarded the bus headed straight for the upper level, lowering their heads as they walked up the narrow stairs. While the height clearance on the first level is 5 feet 11 inches, the upper level’s clearance is only 5 feet 7 inches.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has had to put off its plans to test its double-decker bus on two routes. The reason? Tree branches on Riverside Drive and Fifth Avenue are in the way.
Yara Lantigua, a planner for a New York media company, had no trouble making her way to the front seat on the upper level.
Ms. Lantigua said she got up a little earlier to make sure she caught the bus, which started its run from Huguenot Avenue and Woodrow Road at 7:16 a.m. A wide smile revealed her excitement as the bus rolled along the Staten Island Expressway.
“I like sitting in front,” Ms. Lantigua said, putting on her sunglasses. “I like to know what is happening.”
On These Commuter Buses, Passengers Hold All Calls, or Else
By MIKE RICHARD | September 4, 2008
THE NEW JERSEY COMMUTER BUS HEADING to New York City one day last week rolled to a stop on the side of the highway. The morning holdup was caused by a passenger who was talking on her cellphone.
“I’ve got all day, ma’am,” the driver announced into his microphone, with the bus idling, about half an hour from the Lincoln Tunnel. “I’ll wait till you’re done.”
“Cell phone use restricted to emergency use only.”
Nearly 50 passengers heard the warning, which the driver said was aimed at “the woman seated behind me in the third row by the window.” The woman, embarrassed by the sudden attention, hurried to wrap up her phone conversation.
Once the bus started rolling again toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal, she said to a passenger next to her, rather sheepishly: “I had to cancel an order. Sorry … but what’s the big deal?”
One of the few upsides to commuting from the suburbs—aside from being able to afford a bigger home—is the ability to take care of personal business, or business business, on the way to work. But Lakeland Bus Lines has signs on its buses that warn: “Cell phone use restricted to emergency use only.”
Leo Homeijer, vice president of operations for Lakeland, based in Dover, N.J., said the cell phone rule was put into effect about 10 years ago because of complaints from drivers and passengers. He said that of all the grievances his company heard, inconsiderate cell phone use topped the list.
“Eighty percent of the time, cell phones don’t bother people,” he said. “But let’s face it, people who talk on their cell phones are basically talking loudly. Some people and drivers handle it differently. Do I wish that my drivers could be more diplomatic about it sometimes? Probably.”
One day recently, a woman being particularly loud on her phone was asked by a bus driver—this driver used the word “please”—to stop. The woman shot back, “No, I think I’m going to make one more call—to your boss at Lakeland!” The driver, exasperated by the brief exchange but doing his best to remain calm, responded, “Feel free.”
Courtney Carroll, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Transit—which transports the greatest number of commuters in the state on its bus and train lines—said that while cell phones were not banned on its carriers, common courtesy was stressed. And a Long Island Rail Road passenger was arrested on assault and harassment charges after an argument with other passengers who annoyed him with their phone chatter. The passenger, John Clifford, was acquitted.
Quill Dies of Heart Attack; T.W.U. President Was 60
By MURRAY SCHUMACH | January 29, 1966
MICHAEL J. QUILL, PRESIDENT OF THE Transport Workers union, died of a heart attack 28 days after he had led his union into a transit strike that paralyzed the city for 12 days.
With the 60-year-old union leader when he died in his apartment on the 37th floor of a luxury apartment house was his wife, Shirley, who had been with him in many of his stormiest labor controversies.
After a priest administered the last rites in the apartment at 15 West 72nd Street, and while more than a dozen policemen stood in awkward silence, Mrs. Quill suddenly cried: “No! It can’t be. It can’t be.”
Mr. Quill, one of the most colorful of modern labor figures, had been involved in a series of events that made him a national figure this month. Three weeks ago, when the transit strike was in its fourth day, he collapsed in the Civil Jail of congestive heart failure. He had been ordered to jail for refusing to obey a court order to call off the strike.
He emerged from the hospital only last Monday and held a news conference the next day in which he displayed all of the native Irish wit, lilting that marked his public appearances.
One of the first to express sorrow was Mayor Lindsay, with whom, during the complex transit negotiations, he had clashed. The mayor issued the following statement:
“Michael Quill’s death marks the end of an era. He was a man who was very much a part of New York. My sympathy goes to his wife and family.”
Mr. Quill was dead before any doctors could get to him, though they came quickly. Dr. Hyman Zuckerman, Mr. Quill’s personal physician, said later that Mr. Quill was in bed and napping when his wife checked on him shortly after 5 p.m.
2005: Biking And Car-Pooling Together
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER | December 21, 2005
SHIVERING, INTREPID AND OCCASIONALLY befuddled, New Yorkers faced down the first citywide transit strike in a quarter-century, walking, biking and car-pooling through their city as transit workers and the state agency that employs them remained locked in intransigence.
As people competed for the quickest or most creative way to get to work, and businesses struggled in one of the most important retail weeks of the year, the conflict between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its largest union moved into the courts. The initial decisions went against the union, with a State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn calling the strike illegal, ordering union members back to work and imposing a $1 million fine against the union for each day it is on strike.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decried the strike as “thuggish” and “selfish” and declared that negotiations—in which the city does not participate—should not resume until the 33,700 subway and bus workers return to their jobs.
Mass confusion reigned on many major arteries, where police halted vehicles with fewer than four occupants. North of 96th Street on the Upper West Side, cars were backed up for miles as drivers begged strangers to hop into their cars. Other commuters had less fortuitous journeys.
Rashi Kesarwani, 23, began her journey from Prospect Heights as well, but trudged for almost two miles along a desolate strip with few drivers to the Long Island Rail Road Station on Atlantic Avenue to get a train. When she arrived in Jamaica, Queens, she waited for 90 minutes in a line that wound through 10 blocks.
“I could not feel my toes or my fingers by the time we entered the train station,” said Ms. Kesarwani, whose commute ended three and a half hours after it began, with a 12-block walk to her job in Rockefel
ler Center.
Mayor Bloomberg made his way, somewhat crankily and looking tired, across the Brooklyn Bridge, recalling Mayor Edward I. Koch’s triumphant march in 1980, when he joined New Yorkers flowing into Manhattan during the city’s last transit strike.
1980: City Faces First Day of Strike With Aplomb
By CLYDE HABERMAN | April 2, 1980
ON THE DAY NEW YORK WAS SUPPOSED TO come to a halt, it didn’t.
It crawled in some spots, to be sure. It fretted mightily in others, but then it always does that. It even grew downright surly on occasion.
But Day One of the Transit Strike reinforced a semi-truth that tends to make New Yorkers feel better about themselves—that no matter what the adversity, they can handle it wit aplomb.
For the most part, they did so in a spirit of buoyancy and adventure. If there was a prevailing wisdom it was that good cheer was possible because (1) many people stayed home on the first day of Passover, (2) public schools were closed, (3) it was an incandescent day, or (4) all of the above. Of course, that produced an inescapable corollary: Things are likely to get only worse.
“Today, it’s ha ha ha,” said Officer John Maronna, on patrol outside City Hall. “It’s only a matter of time, and it’s going to change.”
People had to get to work, and they did. Brigades of foot soldiers in the latest urban war came over the Brooklyn Bridge—happy warriors, even though crowding on the footpath produced several brushes between pedestrians and bicyclists who did not have horns, bells or whistles.
But people like John Donovan, a mail supervisor who works on Canal Street, wondered why he normally spends a dollar a day for the privilege of riding bumpily in a hole in the ground. “I was just thinking of why I don’t do this more often,” he said. stepping off the bridge and onto Park Row, “All these health spas that they have—why, you can’t beat walking.”