Last time we “Untapped” the G train: the butt of many jokes and the arguable victim of a certain amount of inconvenience (sprinting along the platform) and neglect (few trains, few transfers).
Over the summer, the Straphangers Campaign released its annual report of subway trains, ranking them on criteria such as “cleanliness,” “service regularity,” and “breakdown rate.” For the fourth year in a row, the C train was voted the “worst.” Of course, now we’re intrigued. We set out to find out what could be hiding in plain sight above the C train, from when it breaks off from the tangle of trains at Clinton-Washington Aves station, to when it rejoins other lines again at Broadway Junction.
This time, the trip was 3.3 miles along Fulton Street and supposedly going to take an hour and 7 minutes to walk [Final time: 1 hour and 57 minutes]. Also, note the direction of the route: whereas the subway map makes it look as if we’d be heading southeast, we were actually walking straight east.
And after passing the final leg of my Fulton Street journey in an eerie industrial area, I looked up and had come smack up against the busy Broadway Junction. The C line was no longer alone, and neither was I.
Contact the author at @kaygegay.