I'd Give PATH About a C+

I rode PATH today from WTC to Grove Street and while in general I like riding the line there are some things I don't like. Today they all seemed to gang up on me.

First the 'open air' WTC station. I assume because it's at Ground Zero the planners decided people wanted to look out, but how about some heat? It's all open and I didn't even see any ceiling heaters like Metro-North and the CTA have. It was very very cold in the station this afternoon and it seemed totally callous. Hey, this isn't 1905, it's 2005.

Then the ticket machines. The one I used had a screen that blurbed something like 'Get a round-trip card'. Only I couldn't find that option on the menu. MetroCards, SmartCards and single-rides, but no round trips. So I bought two one-way tickets. On my return I discovered the second one-way ticket was no longer valid. They're only good for two hours after purchase. Since PATH isn't a POP system why in the world would they put a two hour limit on single ride fare cards? It seems senseless but if they have to do it they should at least put a nice big warning on the machine.

There were other annoyances too. When I put the ticket in the turnstile at WTC and the display read "Enter" the turnstile arm wouldn't move. When the display changed back to something like "Insert Ticket" (and I thought I'd just lost my fare) the arm finally freed up and turned and I was able to enter. I never had that happen before anywhere. Maybe the WTC turnstile mechanisms don't like the cold anymore than the riders!

I returned on a Hob-32d Street train. At 32d only two of the turnstiles would allow you to exit. The third had a red "No Exit" display. With quite a crowd of people getting off the train this slowed things up considerably. And does the 30th Street entrance/exit have to be closed on weekends? If you're headed to the street it's so much easier than wending your way through the crowded concourse, up the stairs and then using the combined PATH/NYCT exit and trying to squeeze past subway riders headed in a totally different direction.

All of which reinforces something I've come to believe about PATH: if the U.S. Army ran a subway it would be PATH. (If you've never been in the military don't try and figure this out. LOL )

tommy

Some comments about your thougts:

It's all open and I didn't even see any ceiling heaters like Metro-North and the CTA have. It was very very cold in the station this afternoon and it seemed totally callous. Hey, this isn't 1905, it's 2005.

There actually are heaters on the platforms at the WTC station. If you go to the center of the platform, there is a heat lamp on the ceiling which is very hot I must say. Don't forget that this station was designed to be temporary, and no other PATH station has heat either. Think of this station like Journal Square: covered but still outdoors.

Then the ticket machines. The one I used had a screen that blurbed something like 'Get a round-trip card'. Only I couldn't find that option on the menu. MetroCards, SmartCards and single-rides, but no round trips

The old ticket machines aren't used anymore in some stations (I know they are not used in WTC) because they have been replaced by MetroCard Vending Machines. The old machines only sold the multi-trip QuickCards if I remember correctly. The newer ones they were putting in were the only ones that sold the single-ride and round-trip cards. The MVMs have no problems in the subway so why would it be any different here? Also, not sure about the one-way fare expiring...the regular QuickCards expire something like 8 months after you buy them. I don't understand the need for the expiration date, and they should at least make it 1 year if they need to have one.

When I put the ticket in the turnstile at WTC and the display read "Enter" the turnstile arm wouldn't move. When the display changed back to something like "Insert Ticket" (and I thought I'd just lost my fare) the arm finally freed up and turned and I was able to enter.

The new turnstiles have a lot of problems. Everyday I see people stuck because it won't accept their card and they have to go to another turnstile, this happens to me a lot too. Although I never have gotten one that accepted my card but wouldn't let me in.

And does the 30th Street entrance/exit have to be closed on weekends? If you're headed to the street it's so much easier than wending your way through the crowded concourse, up the stairs and then using the combined PATH/NYCT exit and trying to squeeze past subway riders headed in a totally different direction.

I would also like to see this entrance/exit open more often, I assume it's for security reasons since I don't think it gets much use when it is open.[/quote]

arrow wrote:

When I put the ticket in the turnstile at WTC and the display read "Enter" the turnstile arm wouldn't move. When the display changed back to something like "Insert Ticket" (and I thought I'd just lost my fare) the arm finally freed up and turned and I was able to enter.

The new turnstiles have a lot of problems. Everyday I see people stuck because it won't accept their card and they have to go to another turnstile, this happens to me a lot too. Although I never have gotten one that accepted my card but wouldn't let me in.

Maybe it didn't move because you haven't removed your card - the system is very efficient with its own garbage, 1. collecting expired cards and 2. as far as I can recall, not letting you pass until you haven't removed your still-valid card.
Sometimes the turnstiles may also have a big lag (not so big in fact, max. 30 seconds).

The turnstiles are the only way to get in and out (except for Newark), and sometimes some of them are reserved for the opposite way only.

About the cold open air: I don't know a big deal about NYC subway, but I heard that various portions of the Queens trains are above the ground. I wonder if those areas have stations with heating. And Arrow is absolutely right, it's almost impossible to sit on the WTC station benches due to the heating sources right above them.

Hi Tommy; L-o-n-g time. Good to see you're still around. I really think you just had a run of bad luck. I usually ride PATH during the week at mid-day, and I don't think I've had any of the problems you did. I believe the turnstiles take $1.50 cash also. In fact, I've always thought PATH was a very well oiled machine. And the view out the front of their trains is excellent.

I think you might have enjoyed the ride if you'd gone all the way to Newark. It comes out of the tunnel near Journal Square and runs in the open to Newark. On that ride you run parallel to CSX, NJ Jersey Transit and Amtrak. The round trip is a really good hour of railroad sightseeing. And you see lots of interesting bridges too.

My suggestion: give it another try, another day.

I agree, try it again on another day. I use PATH everyday and seldom have any major problems. The biggest problem I see is that they have door problems all the time. Almost every week there is some kind of problem at Newark and we all have to get off and wait for another train to pull up. Other than that it is run pretty well.

I have been riding PATH since I was a kid (got to go though Hudson Terminal in its last weeks), and on a regular basis for about 20 years, and overall I would say the service gets a B+

One gripe: When trains arrive in Hoboken, particularly on Track 2 (the middle track) I wish the conductors would open the same side first on a consistent basis. Often people wait on one side or the other in anticipation of which side they believe will open first, and when it's the other way, it sometimes results in a cattle drive around the end of the platform, which sometimes has gotten a little dangerous for older people and kids.

Tommy Meehan wrote:I rode PATH today from WTC to Grove Street and while in general I like riding the line there are some things I don't like. Today they all seemed to gang up on me.

Then the ticket machines. The one I used had a screen that blurbed something like 'Get a round-trip card'. Only I couldn't find that option on the menu. MetroCards, SmartCards and single-rides, but no round trips. So I bought two one-way tickets. On my return I discovered the second one-way ticket was no longer valid. They're only good for two hours after purchase. Since PATH isn't a POP system why in the world would they put a two hour limit on single ride fare cards? It seems senseless but if they have to do it they should at least put a nice big warning on the machine.

tommy

It is all explained here:

http://pathrail.com/path/quickcard.htm

As it says, you should have purchased a $3.00 pay-per-ride MetroCard.

And are you saying there was nothing on the MVM screen saying that the single-ride cards were only good for 2-hours?

Was it possible the machine was an MTA one, like for the subways? I know there's a ticketing option for the subway for a single ride within two hours. I haven't been to the WTC station in a few months, and didn't really pay attention to the ticket machines, though.

The Metrocard machines in WTC are setup to sell PATH cards as well as SmartCards. Like Terrapin said, the best thing to do was to buy a $3.00 Metrocard from any of the MVMs.

This is why I give PATH a C+-

Look at what their website says:

"Riders who wish to purchase a 2-trip QuickCard at these stations should purchase a $3.00 Pay-Per-Ride (Regular) MetroCard"

See what I mean? If you want a QuickCard you buy something else. So why doesn't the machine's screensaver say, "Get a $3.00 MetroCard" instead of "Get a 2-trip QuickCard"?

Plus I didn't have my laptop with me when I was at the machine so I couldn't pull up their site for clarification. LOL

tommy

Well that's because now that the Metrocards are accepted, they are trying to get people to change their ways and use the Metrocard isntead if they are only buying 2 trips.

One evening I was waiting for someone at Hoboken PATH and I noticed that the new turnstiles would reject the first Quickcard use after a Metrocard had been used. It happened to me when I entered as well. The person using the Quickcard got "Card Invalid" and had to swipe it again. This process seemed reproducable across all the turnstiles in the bank.

arrow wrote:Well that's because now that the Metrocards are accepted, they are trying to get people to change their ways and use the Metrocard isntead if they are only buying 2 trips.

if they wanted to push the metrocard they could start to push it... but as tommy is saying the message on the machines is outdated

I liked the old turnstiles better, the ones that didn't accept MetroCards. They were much, much more reliable. And the tickets popped out much closer to the actual metal turnpike thingy. On the new ones, the card goes in and pops out at slots that are very close together, so you lose a split second waiting for the bloody thing to come out.

I like QuickCards. I don't want to seem 'em phased out. They're fixing something that ain't broke.

The NYC subway should've used something more like a QuickCard than the MetroCard, which is a little more problematic (although admittedly I don't have much trouble with the MetroCards myself, but a lot of other people do). Also I love the environmentally-friendly aspect of the QuickCards which get sucked into the turnstiles when they're depleted, as another poster pointed out. Compare that to the dead MetroCards littered all over the NYC subway system.

They've been talking about this SmartCard thing for a long time. Are they really finally going to get it up and running or what? Will I still get my discount to $1.20 per trip like with QuickCards?! Dang it, I'd better! If not, then I don't want 'em! To hell with 'em!

On another note -- boring, uncomfortable, old-fashioned, and dingy the PATH may be, for my money, the PATH is the most reliably on-time commuter train system I've ever seen anywhere. Not that I've seen a lot of train systems, admittedly, but it's extremely rare for a PATH train to be late or delayed for any reason. That Hackensack River drawbridge is pretty much the only problem.

I see the originator of the thread neglected to mention who gets the B, A or A+. Mr. McAdoo's old tunnels, IMHO, have held up extremely well with age, like vintage wine, and even bounced back quite readily after the tragedy (with the PA's help of course). Combine that with the continued reliability and OTP of the trains, and I'd push the score into the top range.