The MTA giveth and the MTA taketh away. After getting us all used to the more than 100 countdown clocks that have been installed across the subway system the Authority is going to be shutting them all down tomorrow from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Why? To better calibrate them!
Here's how the MTA explains it:
The shutdown is due to system maintenance on the Automatic Train Supervision (ATS-A) system. Although no work is being done on the countdown clocks themselves, the clocks use information from the ATS system in order to calculate the trains’ positions and the time of arrival at the station. Instead of next train information, we will run a text message advising our customers of the outage.
The clocks will be out on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 lines. The 7 line clocks will not be effected and neither will the L line. Since there is no L this weekend.
