Reply #21: UPDATE: Now saying 6 to 9 months

[NewYorkerfromMass]

I guess that end of the story didn't play too well with any incumbent mayors seeking re-election!
Meanwhile, the heat is on for lack of terrorism protection.

"Transit officials said yesterday that service on the A and C lines could be restored to full capacity in six to nine months, substantially revising their earlier prognosis that a fire in a Lower Manhattan signaling room would disrupt service on the lines for as long as three to five years.

The new time frame for repairs will still mean months of confusion and inconvenience on two lines that have an average weekday ridership of 580,000, and hardly diminishes how the fire underscored the vulnerability of a signaling system based on electromechanical switches that were first developed in the 1870's....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/nyregion/26subway.html?ei=5094&en=ef90a79eab94be1c&hp=&ex=1106802000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=

and the Times editorial rightly blames Pataki:

A Subway, Not a Shelter

It started with a very cold night and, probably, a homeless person - one of hundreds hiding in the subway. A fire was lighted somehow and spread, incinerating a small control room. That loss of wires, cables and connections doomed almost 600,000 New Yorkers to various levels of commuter hell for months and possibly years.

The New York City Transit obviously has to make repairs fast, while also shoring up other similar control rooms - there are perhaps a dozen - throughout the city's antiquated subway system. Obviously, the first estimate of up to five years to fully restore the A and C lines was unacceptable. After a storm of criticism, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and city transit officials shortened that estimate yesterday to six to nine months for returning to the old schedule, a vast improvement. But that had better just be the start.

The subway is also no place for the homeless, and it's a sign of the system's shaky state that hundreds of people have been allowed to live in its grapevine of tunnels and passageways. It is not safe for them and, as Sunday's fire makes clear, it is not safe for the millions who ride through those tunnels every single day. The city's police and homeless outreach programs need to be mobilized right away.

Infuriated riders who need to vent their anger should understand that neither the station manager nor City Hall is the right target. The buck really stops at Gov. George Pataki's office. He appoints the people who run the M.T.A., and his proposed budget skimps on the kind of maintenance and infrastructure upgrading that could help prevent the disruptions subway riders are seeing this week.

Mr. Pataki could start getting involved by contacting Lawrence Reuter, president of New York City Transit, and his team to make sure they work harder to communicate with commuters. Garbled announcements and bad advice from transportation workers have added to riders' frustrations in recent days. If the delays are inevitable, the confusion about how to cope with them is not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/opinion/26wed5.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=