Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of October 19 – October 25, 2012
Riders this past week: 16,812
Rider miles this past week: 97,305
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Hillary and Bill Clinton were seen sitting hand- in-hand together in a subway car heading from East Hampton to Amagansett. They rented a house in Georgica last summer, but that is over. Is romance being rekindled?
HEAT IS ON
The heat has now been turned down on all the platforms in the system. There used to be heat in the tunnels themselves, but five years ago, because we saw this as unnecessary since nobody is outdoors in the tunnels (or should not be), we separated that system and turned it off as a salute to saving energy for the environment. In most seasons, you do not notice this. But in the late fall and winter, when the temperature gets near freezing and below, you will feel a blast of cold air on the platforms once in awhile on a cold day, which heralds the coming of the next train.
GIFT TO ALL RIDERS
The last week in October is Birthday Cake Week. Hampton Subway celebrates by giving everybody who uses the subway a slice of birthday cake as they come through the turnstiles. Please bring your own plate and fork as the subway does not have the 10,000 or so plates and forks that would be needed for everybody. If you don’t bring a plate and fork, it will be a big mess, and you can count on it.
UNDERGROUND PARKING
Hampton Subway has begun to break ground, if you can call it that, on a double-decker parking garage beneath the Village of Sag Harbor. Motorists will be able to come out to the Hamptons, park their cars in this garage, and then take the subway to whatever town they wish. This parking garage will not, we repeat, not be open to the general public. We cannot prevent access to it from the entrance on Long Island Avenue, but signs will warn you not to go in unless you plan to use the subway. From inside, you can only exit the parking garage to the subway platform. You won’t have access to the garage otherwise.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA FRANKLIN
Melissa Franklin of Westhampton Beach, our booking intern on the seventh floor of the Hampton Subway Headquarters building in Hampton Bays, turns 18 years old on Friday. Everyone please assemble in the cafeteria to cut the cake and wish her a happy birthday. And let’s give thanks that she is now old enough to work and we can promote her from her internship to an actual paid clerk job.
NEW SPUR?
With the increased traffic in the summertime to Montauk in the last few years, Hampton Subway is considering double-tracking the section of track from Amagansett out to that town. This will involve enlarging the subway tunnel and might take up to two years for the entire 16-mile distance out there, but we should only have to close the service for 19 months if this plan goes ahead. For the other five months, at the end, the trains will be running slower to be looking out for carpenters, painters and tile layers who might be working in those tight quarters.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Hampton Subway is on the move. As you have just read, we are building an underground parking lot for our straphangers in Sag Harbor, and we are planning to enlarge the tunnel between Amagansett and Montauk to accommodate a double track between those stations due to the increase in ridership. Also in the works is a planned subway spur that could link up Water Mill and Noyac, making it easier to get between those two stations without having to “go around the horn.” You’ll read more about that
next week.