In a $300 million emotional purchase for the subway, the MTA's CBTC (communication-based train control) system will drive the L train starting today.
This means that you'll have a robot conductor in charge of the movement instead of a disgruntled human. When it screws up they can blame technology and not the human beings in control our idiotic train system.
This automated system has been used in Washington D.C. for years, and in other cities across the world. Even the French use it in Paris, which only caused a few full-on protests with hardly any violent drinking or car burnings. However, in New York we're hoping to save at least some of MTA character by giving the computer PA voice a Brooklyn accent ("step away from the gawd-damn doors, y'asshole!") or even more familiar to our ears: pre-programmed static-y gibberish.
Supposedly the CBTC allows the trains to run more often and even closer together, but safely. That's right, they need the modern mathematical prowess of a supercomputer in order to run trains closer than 20 minutes apart.
Heaven forbid the situation where a conductor accidentally falls asleep at the wheel. For an hour.
Photo by joshua.s.a
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