I got an email from Metro-North Tuesday informing me I’d been picked to fill out an e-questionnaire regarding the railroad’s email and text message alerts.

“To help us continue to improve this system, we are asking selected subscribers to complete a brief online survey.  This will take about five minutes to complete and your responses will remain completely confidential,” it wrote. “Please help the MTA make its email and text message alerts more useful by providing the kind of information you need to make travel decisions easier and faster.”

I did the thing and, frankly, gave it low marks because I can’t remember the last time I got an email alert from Metro-North.

I searched my email box for Metro-North, MNR and MTA, and got my weekly CleverCommute news, my monthly Mail N Ride statements, and of course the questionnaire from earlier in the week. My box goes back to October and I didn’t see a single service alert. I haven’t seen one in my spam folder either. Not one!

And today, we’ve got a snowicane/blizzicane/Norbeaster, and nothing from Metro-North either.

So, yes, I suppose the alert service could be a little more useful.

For a much better way to get updates from Metro-North, email their PR people and tell them you’ve got some sort of wacky commuter blog or something. Metro-North’s updates to reporters are timely and informative; it’s odd that the railroad sees its relationship with reporters–most of whom do not ride Metro-North each day, and probably don’t report on it very often–as being much more important than its relationship with riders.

I got this a few minutes ago:

Because we expect ridership will be lighter than usual tomorrow morning, (Friday February 26) Metro-North plans to operate a slightly reduced schedule during the AM peak. About two dozen trains will be affected, either by elimination or combination.  The details will be posted shortly on the website (mta.info)

The trains selected were chosen to impact the fewest people.  As a result of these changes, the maximum additional wait for the next train will be less than 15 minutes.

In addition, customers can expect minor delays due to slow boarding on snowy platforms.

Crews are working and will be working all night to clear platforms, stairs and walkways.  Additionally track workers and signal maintainers are deployed to keep tracks and switches clear.

We will update you if and when conditions change. 

Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I got an alert from CleverCommute either, which relies on riders to submit their own train delay updates to members’ emails. I do get the CleverCommute track report each day, which tells me what track my train is on. Frankly I don’t use this anymore; I pass a departures monitor in Grand Central, which is easier for finding my track then pulling up my Blackberry and opening an email. I don’t know that you could enter Grand Central anywhere and not come in contact with a departures screen.

CC tells you to check the board anyway–PLEASE CONFIRM TRACK BEFORE BOARDING, it reads–which makes the service somewhat useless, at least in my opinion.

Plus, my train has been on the same track for months and months. An alert would be useful should it ever be on another track.

From JerseyJim’s CleverCommute inbox late last week:

[NJTT-MandE] This morning a Gladstone train hit a deer, kept its speed & barely even hit the brakes w/ no delay!! Watch out, there’s a new conductor in town!!!

[From Friday, when TJ was ducking out of town to escape Yankee Hysteria]

Last night was one for the NJ record books, as rail delays stretched through the rush hour, and on into Friday morning.

As I was heading home, the 5:50 p.m. from NY Penn stopped in Summit, as a disabled rush-hour train on the single track in New Providence blocked our progress, and blocked trains all the way back the line. I was lucky enough to disembark in Summit, and got a warm ride home from my wife.

But later, the problems really increased with a power outage. Trains stalled, cancelled, and announcements of 45 min to 1-hour delays. Likewise, commuters were directed to Path trains and Hoboken, to catch trains westward.
from NJT:

“Montclair Line train #6291, the 7:37pm departure is canceled. Passengers may use train #6293 the 8:37pm departure from New York Penn.

“Montclair Line train #6293, the 8:37 p.m. departure from New York Penn is canceled. Passengers may use train #6295, the 9:32 p.m. departure from NYPS.
Nov 05, 2009 08:51:16 PM

According to messages on Clever Commute….delays continued until just past midnight, as problems persisted. Tempers got heated, I can imagine. One Clever Commute customer wants to “arrange a BOYCOTT of New Jersey Transit, until they improve customer service and tell us what is going on.”

A noble effort, I’m sure. In a quick check, not a word of this in the Star-Ledger so far. I guess delays on NJT don’t qualify as “breaking news.”

I wonder if any of those reporters ride the rails?
 

-jerseyjim

While one never suffers from a lack of visible departures screens in Grand Central, I still like the idea of having my track sent to me each evening before I leave work. So I signed up for CleverCommute’s track-alert service several weeks ago. “If you want to know ‘what track is my train on’ for evening trains from Grand Central, you can sign up at our website,” says CleverCommute. “Sign up for as many as you’d like…its another great FREE service from Clever Commute.”

Alas, we’ve not received a single track alert yet. CleverCommute told me a few weeks ago they’re looking into it. Until then, I’m staring at departures screens.

Jeez, what a morning. I was cutting it close this morning, and had to park the steel chariot (I’ve rebranded my bicycle) in the usual bike rack, not against the fence under the overpass, which provides a bit of protection in the rain.

Turns out I had more time than I thought. Way more.

Right around 8:16, the would-be 8:16 could be seen on the horizon beyond Gordo’s, but it never let up its pace and blasted right by the anxious commuters.

So we waited. I grabbed a seat on the three-person metal mesh bench. A portly 20-something was yammering on her cell. She had a yellow plastic grocery bag with a box of oatmeal inside. With nothing else to do, and without the energy to take out my Blackberry or newspaper from my bag, I listened in.

“I went to Donnie’s Facebook page, and it was, like, so weird–it was his four year anniversary! I know, weird, huh? And he had all this weird writing on his Wall, like, 40 days to go! I’m like, what happens in 40 days? He’s joining the Air Force! I’m like, what the hell, like, why the hell did you go to college, what a waste! I mean the Air Force is awwwsummm and everything, but still.

And then I was tawkin’ to Shane. Do you know what Shane is doing? The Peace Corps! I’m like, Donnie’s in the Air Force, Shane’s in the Peace Corps, like, what the f***’s wrong with these people!”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Indeed, serving your country, and the impoverished around the world, is extremely silly–especially if you’re college-educated. Taking the train to some mindless job in the city, however, is noble.]

It was 8:25, and still, no sign of the 8:16. No word of the delay either from the MTA advisory service or Clever Commute.

The blabbing went on, loud enough for people within, oh, 15 feet to hear.

“What wuz I gonna say to you…It was good, what was it gonna be. I’ll come down on Thursday, drive in after work. Steve’s going to Montreal–in that case I’m outtie!!! Four-day weekend at Ashley’s house! Oooo-wooooh!”

Mercifully, the loudspeaker broke the cacaphony with an announcement at 8:29:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the next train arriving on Track 2 will be your express, stopping at White Plains, Harlem 125th Street and Grand Central.”

Undaunted, “Ashley” blabbed on: $80 shoes from Nine West that were going back (”awwwsummm, but, like, $80?”), the laptop she forgot to bring, the party at her house this weekend.

Finally, the 8:16 turned up at 8:33. The rain continued to fall, turning the soil company on the other side of the tracks to mud. Ashley kept up her end of the convo.

“It’s such a shitty morning,” she said. “I should’ve slept in.”

Word up, Ash.

The digital offerings designed to make commuting life easier continue to increase. There’s the Metro-North timetable app over at StationStops.com that the MTA is not all that excited about, and there’s the crowd-sourcing Clever Commute service, where riders share delays and other abnormalities (actually, on the New Haven Line, they’re known as “normalities”) via group emails.

Clever Commute is taking things a step further with a service that emails you the track you should be headed to in Grand Central–and Penn Station, for Jersey and Long Island types–each evening as you leave work.

Clever Commute CEO Josh Crandall says that product is coming out of beta. We’re excited to see how it works, and we will of course report on how well the service works.

Here’s how you sign up:

1. Go to www.clevercommute.com
2. Click on “Find your line”
3. Toward the top right, change “Select provider type” to “Trains (Track Number)”
4. Select “Metro North Track Number Announcements (Beta)” to select your line
5. Enter your sign-up info just as you did when you first joined Clever Commute.

It’s worth noting that I received my emailed service alert from Metro-North yesterday a full minute before getting one from the private-sector venture CleverCommute. There was a signal problem in the Bronx. I heard it on the Grand Central PA system just as I was ducking into the 6:10 last night. The conductor on our train said nothing about it, so I assumed we were in the clear.

When I checked my PDA as we emerged from the tunnel and ascended Blackberry Hill, I saw I’d received the following from the MTA at 5:54:

Harlem and New Haven line trains delayed up to 20 minutes northbound, and 30 minutes southbound, due to switch and signal problems in the Bronx.

I then got this from a CleverCommute contributor at 5:55:

Unknown delay northbound before harlem-new haven lines split.

And this at 5:58:

Signal probs at woodlawn

Of course, one would expect that the railroad would have the most prompt and most informative alerts, though we know that’s not always the case with often digitally-challenged MTA. But this time they got it right–even if my delay only turned out to be 10 minutes.

We’ll see if they keep up the hot streak as the various storms hit in the next 36 hours.

An outgoing 5:59 Harlem line train hit a car some time around 7:35 last night, according to multiple sources on Clever Commute.

“All traffic stopped between Katonah and Gldens Bridge,” writes one. “No fatalities in automobile.”

“Stopped just south of Bedford Hills,” said another. “Train hit unoccupied auto.
No update yet on next steps.”

Much like the train-riding tipplers at BeerTrainFriday.com, the good souls over at Clevercommute.com–they of the real-time service updates sent to mobile devices–are thinking about group happy hours. Drop ‘em a line if you’re interested.

From CleverCommute:

I’ve been thinking about pulling together a “Clever Commute Happy Hour”. Just a casual opportunity to get together on a  weeknight…probably near Penn Station (this time).
Probably in January…but date and venue TBD…I’d hope and imagine that a watering hole near the station would welcome the exposure to this  crowd…but if you have an idea  or a connection to share, please let me know.
Would you attend such an event? I’m looking to  estimate headcount.

Since many find the MTA’s service advisories to be delinquent enough to not even be useful, the Times reports on Clever Commute, a free service with Blackberry updates on delays for New Jersey Transit, Metro-North and the L.I.R.R.

Clever Commute was started by an IT guy named Joshua Crandall in January 2006, who says he simply wanted to meet other commuters (Insert joke about lonely IT guys here.)

Like many citizen-journalism/user-generated content things today, Clever relies on riders to email each other updates, from train delays to someone simply seeing a car with its lights on in the station parking lot.

I just signed up, which took all of about a minute. We’ll see how it works.