No Relief In Sight For Straphangers As MTA Announces Service Changes To 14 Lines This Weekend
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Subway riders will need to pack their patience this weekend, 14 lines are affected by service changes due to maintenance and repair work.
CBS2's Andrea Grymes was on the Upper West Side where riders are fed up -- especially because having so many lines affected by weekend work is not out of the ordinary.
They hope the new MTA chairman will be able to help.
"It's impossible, and you have to give yourself like an hour to get where you're going," Martin Hauser said.
This weekend it's expected to be no different.
The MTA said 14 lines are affected by weekend repair work -- including the 2 and the 3 -- which are suspended in Brooklyn every weekend until next spring.
Some riders understand that weekend work needs to get done.
"You can't avoid doing the work because that's only going to make the trains fast, I think just better communication about delays," one woman said.
Many are hoping that help is on the way.
On Friday, Joe Lhota spent his first day in office as MTA chairman and CEO.
Riders say he has a lot to handle.
"He needs to probably work on more trains on the weekend so it can run much better," Monty Hedgepeth said.
"There should be no reason why there's always signal problems. They need to work on communicating with customers," Alex Agrinsoni said.
Lhota ran the MTA for a year in 2012. Governor Cuomo announced his return this week, but said it would not be full-time.
An MTA 'executive director' still to be named will run the day-to-day operations.
Lhota does support overnight shutdowns of subway lines as a way to speed up repairs.
This weekend's work is to maintain tracks, stations, and signal infrastructure.
