WNYC Foresaw Partial Subway Shutdown
Beginning at 4 p.m. Saturday, the MTA started shutting down the outdoor portions of the New York City Subway network because of heavy snow. It’s an extreme step, but will still leave well more than half of the system running.
Almost all service in Manhattan will remain normal, if inadvertently plagued by delays. The well-traveled E and F trains will run out to their terminals in Jamaica, Queens; the A will go as far as Brownsville; and the L will reach as far to Myrtle/Wyckoff Avenues in Bushwick.
But lines that operate substantially outdoors, like the Q, M and Z will shut down entirely. And large portions of the city, like southeastern Brooklyn, the Rockaways and the northeastern Bronx, will be left without subway service entirely, (Since buses stopped earlier in the day and a travel ban was imposed at 2:30 p.m., there will be no way to get around those places except by foot in non-emergency situations).
The operational routes bears an uncanny resemblance to a map WNYC reporter Kate Hinds and our Data News team created last year, after Gov. Andrew Cuomo took the unprecedented and surprising step of closing the entire subway network.
Our point was that Cuomo didn’t need to shut down the entire system the next time a big snowstorm came, preventing people from getting to and from work or from taking other necessary errands. (MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said the authority’s map was not inspired by WNYC’s.)
The Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Service will suspend service entirely, beginning at 4 p.m. NJ Transit stopped running at the end of their runs last night.
