While the MTA and cooperative media shovel safety pabulum at the public, subway fear is real and continuing as an F Train incident yesterday showed. Not only are dangers increasing, but it’s more concerning that no help is available. The city says the subways are safe, but are they?
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
Fear on the F Train Shuttle
Around 3:30, the usual F Train Shuttle entered the 63rd/Lex station, made its dip toward 57th Street and came back out, ready to head to Roosevelt Island.
But something went wrong. It traveled a few feet toward Queens before braking hard enough that standing passengers barely escaped falling.
As happens so often in the subway, there was no announcement, and the doors remained closed.
In the front car – with the conductor presumably just behind a locked door – a passenger onboard noticed that an exiting passenger left three bags on the train. Seeing that passenger still on the platform, the well-intended passenger collected the bags and, with the doors still shut, carried them to the open area between cars.
As long as the train remained immobile, he apparently thought he could safely hand over the bags to the man on the platform. But he 40-ish man on the platform had other ideas.
Grasping the side of the train, he swung from the platform into the space between cars, then entered the conductor’s car.
What happened next in an enclosed car with about twenty passengers was terrifying.
The Incident
The man who had swung in from the platform began screaming incoherently. He grabbed a crossbar and swung from it.
With the doors still closed and no exit, at least one passenger considered calling her husband to say, “Goodbye,” as the screaming continued.
Fortunately, the man having either a psychotic episode or under the influence of drugs, soon left the car, heading into the next one.
And after a few more minutes, during which the doors stayed shut and no announcements were made, the F Train Shuttle moved forward again. But the fear lingered.
One Roosevelt Islander tried confronting the conductor after leaving the train, but he or she wasn’t available.
Finally…
You can breathe a sigh of relief once you’re off the train, but why are riders dependent on the shuttle forced to live with increasing craziness with no help available anywhere?
What happens if your worst fears are realized? Just a couple of hours later, a man opened fire on a C Train in Brooklyn. Was it the same guy? And even if not, who else was terrorized as he marched into other cars?
More importantly, why isn’t anyone helping or protecting passengers so far underground?
Whether realistically or not, the city is seen by many as increasingly out of control with the subways leading the way. Doubts about the accuracy of official claims about decreases in crime simmer.
And as we’ve seen on Roosevelt Island, the statistics look better because a considerable number of crimes never get recorded. Is it all just another case of the “official story” padded and produced for a predetermined result?
I Take the Tram Because I Have To
There are people on this Island you learn to recognize long before you ever learn their names. Like the real estate man with the blue goatee, the one whose name I keep forgetting, though I could pick him out of a lineup any time of day.
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