The wait for subway countdown clocks on the MTA’s lettered lines may be coming to an end.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Thursday began a 90-day test run of new countdown clocks at eight Manhattan subway stations on the N, Q and R lines, Gov. Cuomo announced.
“With this new and updated technology, we’ll help ensure riders have the information they need to get where they need to go,” Cuomo said in a statement.
Riders who use the letter lines have been waiting for years to get real-time train arrival information that is a feature of the numbered lines.
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The MTA was able to jump start the long-delayed effort by using Bluetooth devices and the existing wireless technology in stations.
“In very short order, they developed an easy to deploy, cost-effective system that we think will play a central role in bringing this essential service to more and more of our customers,” MTA Chair and CEO Tom Prendergast said of the agency’s technology team.
The Bluetooth devices are attached to the first and last cars on trains and in stations at each end of the platform.
As trains enter and leave the stations, the system calculates when the trains will pull into their next stop. That is different from the existing system for the number lines, which keeps tabs on where a train is located on the tracks.
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“It would have taken forever if you did it the old-fashioned way,” said Andrew Albert, an MTA board member. “Whatever way they can bring it to riders is a good thing.”
The eight stations with the countdown clocks are between the 23rd St. and Lexington Ave.-59th St. stops.
Riders at the 34th St.-Herald Sq. station felt it was about time they had countdown clocks.
“It’s annoying not to know a train’s coming,” said Say Sheppard, 40, an education consultant in Astoria, Queens.
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He said the countdown clocks he sees on the number lines makes him feel like trains are arriving faster than reality.
“It’s a psychological thing,” he said.
Hillary Peart, 54, from the Bronx, said the countdown clocks on the No. 2 line she uses is helpful, because her train is “always late, always delayed, unpredictable.”
“They need it on the D line too,” she added. “You just stand there and wait until someone manually announces something.”
For Paul Bolcar, 29, from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, a countdown clock will mean he can stop peering down a subway tunnel looking for the headlights of an incoming train.
“It just makes me less anxious,” he said. “As long as it’s accurate — that’s the most important thing.”
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