The vote to cut the program has been delayed.  However, there are a lot of issues at hand here.

One (not the biggest, so f-ing relax) of the issues has to do with high school kids being able to apply for the high school of their choice.  I think it is a great idea.  I wish it existed when I was in high school.  I would have loved the opportunity to attend the high school of my choice.

However, when given the opportunity to make my choice, I would not be pissed if my community said it was my responsibility to get myself there, or my parent’s responsibility.

Why?

Because I could go to the school that is much closer to me if I choose.

As parents, you have two main choices here:

Figure out a way to get your kid to school.  Should be among your most important tasks in life.  No joke.

OR

Pick a closer school and make it your mission in life to make that school a better place.

The transportation issue is an issue because the schools in many areas blow.  They are terrible.  Naturally, you’d want your kid to go across town or to another borough to the better school.

But what about fixing the school near you?

If parents gave a crap, and actually banded together to make the school in their neighborhood a better place, it would not be such a major issue.

Instead they would rather bitch and moan that they cannot continue to rely on the MetroCard welfare program to get their kids to a better school.

I get it.  That school near you sucks.  But it sucks because your community let it suck.  The parents with kids in that school did not say, “Hey, this is f-ed up and we are going to fix it.”

Get off your asses and fix the problem.

Show me a parent that decides to take matters in to their own hands.  The mom that demands the schools be safer, and bugs the crap out of the administration to make it better.  Or the father that volunteers to coach basketball at the high school even though his kids aren’t even old enough to attend high school yet.  Or the community that bands together to repaint the graffiti on the walls of the school.  And the parents that demand teachers that give a crap.

Those are the parents that deserve a FREE MetroCard for their kids to attend a better school until they are able to finish the fight to make their own school better.

If you are not one of those parents, you’ve got no room to complain.

Secondly, there should be a process for kids that have worthless parents to get themselves some MetroCard support.  It isn’t their fault that they were born by losers.

Let the comment frenzy begin.  If you disagree, all the better.  Twitter and Facebook all your friends on over to tell me what an a-hole I am.  Bring it on.

It all culminated with today when I swiped so much that I lost my fare.

I’m hoping that the guy in charge of cleaning the MetroCard slots is on vacation or something.  At my home stop, I have yet to swipe through on the first shot since last Tuesday.

I figured it was my card.  Luckily, my card ran out on Thursday night, so I got a brand new one Friday morning.  Same damn problem.

Today I nearly lost my mind.  I swiped about 10 times, then out of nowhere the turnstile said that my card was “just used.” Yet, I still couldn’t push though.

I had to go to the damn booth and get them to let me in.

Subway maintenance cuts must be getting underway.  Lovely.

If you’re bored, frustrated or just plain fed up with your daily journey on the subway to work and back, what better way to lift your spirits than with a little bit of art to muse over?

The MTA Arts for Transit commissions enable well-established and emerging artists across the United States to gain the attention of hundreds and thousands of city-dwellers and travelers, from unique light boxes to striking posters.

Why limit the showcasing of talented artists to boxed-in art galleries and fancy websites? Subway Art could just be the way forward as millions of people around the world are gagging for something to catch their eye to make their mundane journeys more exciting. The art designs could even give people something more to talk about than late running trains and the forever increasing fares.

Exhibitions across various locations, including the New York City Transit and Long Island Rail Road, include permanent art and rotating presentations. This gives a number of artists the opportunity to have their work displayed within some of the most visited areas across the country. It also means that subway users and staff can expect to see frequent visual changes to keep them on their toes.

What was once seen as graffiti plastered over the bare walls of subway and train stations, has now fast become a unique form of expression that provides something a little more interesting than mere advertisements splattered around.

Across the pond in cultural Europe, the London Underground has been commissioning art and design since 1908. Building on this tradition, a new legacy of art is presented across the Tube network. The large and small scale projects have provided much fascination to customers and staff alike, connecting the history of Transport for London with its ever-evolving future.

So, next time you’re sitting on the Subway, wondering what to have for dinner or why the guy next to you insists on playing his music so loud, take a look at the art around you; each commissioned piece is there for you to interpret in any way that you choose and is likely to give a different perspective each time you look at it.

Subway Art goes miles with you so why not give it a thought? Enhancing the way that we travel in a busy world, the art and design that you will see connects a whole series of themes, from contemporary interpretations of modern day living to decorative attempts to preserve the past.

About Tripbase:

Tripbase eliminates the time-consuming and frustrating online search process by providing travelers with personalized travel recommendations for their next trip.

Tripbase was named Top Travel Website for Destination Ideas by Travel and Leisure magazine in November 2008.
www.tripbase.com

I’m just glad it stepped out of 1998.  It’s a massive improvement that was long overdue.

I’m also interested to see how accurate that little service status widget is in the middle of the page.  Will it get updated right away when trains are being diverted?  Will a simple “sick passenger” even cause an alert?  Or does a whole line need to be backed up?  Guess we’ll see.

And they should make that widget embeddable on other sites such as *cough cough* SUBWAYblogger.  Area news sites would also embed it in their sites.  It is in the MTA’s best interest to make this information as widely available as possible.  They should make something like that available.

I’m a fan of the new site.

Personally, I’m torn.  I can see how it is something that students should have.  Then again, times are tough.  I think that everyone needs to chip in.  I guess I’m on both sides of the issue.

Here’s some things I do know.

1) “I have three kids.  How am I supposed to afford buying them each a MetroCard.”

Nothing makes my blood boil more than this one.  It’s the same excuse used for not having to pay for many services.

Here’s an idea:  Keep your legs closed, get on the pill, put on a condom, and stop pumping out children.  The fact that poor people have more than one kid is absolutely amazing to me.  I can understand making a mistake and having a kid.  However, once you’ve realized the difficulties (personally and financially) of having a kid without the income to support it, what the hell business do you have birthing more?  Grow the F up.

I don’t want to hear that you have so many children you can’t afford to pay for stuff on your own.  That’s a problem YOU created.

2) I love this quote from this NBC post:

Samad Ahmed, 16, who takes the N Train to get to school in The Flatiron District, put it this way: “I mean we’re in a recession. I don’t know how you expect my Dad, who drives a car for a living and works real hard to keep us fed, to take on another burden. It’s unfair.”

Yeah Samad…another burden like YOU.

3) My kid will have to walk too far.

Well, you’re kid is fat.  It will be good for them.  If they’ve got to walk 30 blocks to school, great.  They need it.

I could go on, but I’ll let you pick it up from here.

When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend Cade, he left my apartment without hugging goodbye, walked down Central Park West, and disappeared.

For months, I’d look out for him as I walked around the Upper West Side. We didn’t live all that far apart – my feet must have covered his tracks myriad times. Then he started working at an office downtown near mine.

But we never saw each other again.

Last Friday, I rushed through the turnstile as the subway pulled into the station. I got on a car farther back from the one I usually ride. The train doors closed. I sat and opened a book.

The train stopped. I kept reading. The train stopped. I looked around. The train started, got to a station, and stopped. The conductor announced that there was a delay due to a sick passenger.

I sat and kept reading until the train was taken out of service.

Over the loudspeaker, the announcer yelled to exit. To take the 1 downtown, which wouldn’t get me where I needed to be.

I got out with a sigh and saw Cade. Speaking of not getting where you needed to be…

Two years ago,  I broke up with him, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Cade was the first serious adult relationship I ever had. He made me want normal things that feel crazy when you’re 22 – kids, a house, only one man the rest of my life.

It was new and impulsive and painful. We stayed up too late and together too long. We could never be friends after everything that happened.

Sometimes I thought maybe we’d never really been friends. I told him once I’d just realized we’d never talked about God. Did he believe in a He? Why didn’t I know? He shrugged and said, “Sometimes I feel like I just can’t talk to you.”

Cade and I stood on the platform a few feet apart and said hello. He’s now a strange familiar. Like one of those nameless guys you ride the elevator with each day, some neighbor you hear crying through the bedroom wall.

We talked about the sick passenger and the nature of time.

He said, “I can’t believe this isn’t awkward.”

“Believe me, any hard feelings I ever had have been passed down to someone else,” I replied.

We laughed, and I said, “I’m learning your voice again.” I used to hear it in my sleep.

When the 1 train came, we stood next to each other. We creeped downtown and later saw the 2 train back in service across the platform. We quickly dashed to it and sat next to each other.

I told him this would make an excellent short story, but we needed the tension to rise. Something needed to happen. Perhaps a revelation.

Cade shrugged, and I explained it could be someone else’s revelation. It didn’t have to be one of ours.

We agreed to meet again Sunday.

He bought dinner even when I offered to split it, and then we went to this place a block over for some drinks.

We sat across from each other and Cade said, “I think TBID made a huge mistake when he broke up with you.” I know he doesn’t like me enough to feel he has to say that, so it meant a lot.

As the night wore on, we talked about the separate failed relationships that followed the one we had.

People didn’t love us enough to stay. People said one thing and did another.

When you break up with someone, you sometimes have these fantasies of seeing them again and not giving a damn. This often occurs while listening to Gloria Gaynor.

You see yourself months healed, looking good. Wearing clothes you don’t own. Or clothes you own that suddenly fit you better.

Your ex-love looks the same, not better without you. He or she looks at you longingly as you smile, unfettered by grief or regret.

This fantasy will soothe you in three-minute intervals.

But here’s what really happens: You’ll find each other again randomly. You’ll probably be wearing nothing special. You’ll be exhausted from staying up too late the night before.

Your ex-love will look how you recall, but will gaze at you with more curiosity than longing.

He’ll look pleased to stumble upon the girl who ripped his heart out a few years ago. Then stomped on it. Then blogged about how she stomped on it.

Later, you’ll sit across from each other in the dark and laugh. You’ll remind him he called you fat. He’ll look pained.

He’ll get something off his chest he should’ve said years ago. You would’ve cared then, but now it’s fine. No big deal.

You’ll tell him funny ways he haunted you. He’ll mention that weird sound you used to make.

No one wants exactly those things back. But something like them with someone else someday would be nice.

Afterward, you’ll wait at the subway together for your separate trains. He’ll ask if he can pick the lint off your fuzzy black hat. You’ll say yes.

You’ll look like friends.

His train will arrive. This time he’ll hug you goodbye.

A lot went on in our personal lives the last few months including our company getting diverted to a major new project (unrelated to SUBWAYblogger).  But we promise, we’ll be back very soon.

We’ll be making some posts over the holidays and then get back into the regular groove riiiiigh quick.  Just like the old days.

Thanks for hanging in there, buddy.

In their latest batch of subway car advertisements, a sign clearly illustrates that it is “the right thing to do” when you get up and give your seat to a person with diabilities.  Plus, IT IS THE LAW.  Oooooo the law.

I think SUBWAYblogger’s policy on the whole seat issue has been well established.  However, to sum it up, if you are spry enough to drag your ass down the stairs from street level, stand in the 100 degree heat on the platform waiting for the train, and navigate the flood of people getting on/off the train, you’re good enough to stand.  If you failed any part of that scenario, you probably didn’t make it on the train alive.

There’s a very rare group of exceptions to this rule, so chances are you won’t see me giving up a seat.

But that’s not my point.

Back to the signs.

Is it not a bit presumptive that every person with disabilities wants a seat on the train?  If you’re sitting in once of those specially noted seats, you’re obligated to get up by L-A-W.  Doesn’t that cause a certain level of indignity to be bestowed upon these people?

It’s like asking the woman in line at the grocery store when the baby is due only to find out that she’s not at all pregnant.  Oops.

Isn’t getting up to let the guy with the cane sit down the same thing.

“Hey you with the gimpy leg, come take my seat so I don’t get a ticket from the humanity police.”

You actually see it happen a lot with old people.  A guy sees and old lady get on the train and dives out of the way so she can have his seat.  She is totally ok with standing, but now you’ve just pointed out to her that she clearly looks to ancient and frail to stand there on her own.

It’s all just a lot of politically correct bullshit.  If someone truly can’t manage to stand, all they need to do is ask for someone’s seat.

Not a shock.  The system is built on an ancient infrastructure running fairly modern trains.  So surprisingly, when a train goes by, it can hurt your ears big time.

Just to drive the point home, Columbia University did a little study to make sure.

They officially discovered that the subways have the highest noise level at 80.4 decibels.  Some platforms were over 100.  Just for reference, a chainsaw runs at about 100 decibels.

I know I’ve made fun of the people on the platforms that wear earplugs.  Don’t get me wrong, I still think it is really weird.  But maybe they have the right idea.  A decade from now, maybe those people will be the only ones in town that can actually hear.

This app is freaking awesome.  Just another reason I have to get an iPhone.  I’ll have to steal my buddies phone and install it on there so I can play with it.

According to the website, it doesn’t look like it is out just yet.  It seems they are waiting for Apple to approve it.

You’ve got to watch the video to see how it works.

This little comedic gem was submitted by SB reader Kelsey. Thanks Kelsey!

Warning: If you have not eaten your lunch yet today, you may want to wait until later to read this story. We promise that if you read this story now, you will not be able to eat another thing for the rest of the day. This story will haunt your dreams. You’ve been warned.

It was a typical weekday morning, on my way to work. I had to leave a little earlier than normal because I had an early meeting. It was just about 7AM when I got to the platform. At that time of the morning, it really isn’t that crowded yet. Actually, its pretty empty usually. By 7:30 though, it is packed. So when I have these early meetings, I try to get to the train by 7am.

Anyway, I was just minding my own business reading some emails on by crackberry when I heard a spraying sound. The sound a garden hose makes.

I looked down the platform and saw a water spray coming from the far side of a news stand. The structure was in the way, so I couldn’t see the person doing the spraying just the water jet itself.

I thought nothing of it really. I figured it was a transit worker spraying down the platform. The newsstand proprietors actually do that from time to time to keep the area around them at least somewhat tidy.

A few minutes past when all of a sudden I started to hear some gasps from the area of the spraying.

With that, the person operating the hose came out from behind the stand. It wasn’t a transit worker at all.

No, it was Dana.

Whos Dana? You may know her as one of the subway homeless people that regularly rides the train asking for handouts. She has all of three teeth in her head, and has had a festering leg wound for about a year now. If you’ve seen her, you’d never forget her mostly for her smell. Whatever is happening with that leg wound makes a smell potent enough to make paint peel.

So there she was with the hose in hand. Doing what you ask? (I’m sure many of you know where this is going already)

Ohh she was taking her morning shower of course.

‘ right. She was standing there completely topless giving herself a good rinse in full view of everyone on the platform. She was wearing a pair of mens jeans that kept slipping a bit. Thankfully, they managed to stay on.

But there she was in her droopy, hairy, smelly birthday suit just splish splashing around like the place was her own little birdbath.

So now picture if you will that vial smell now combined with water. Now it had a new damp, musty quality to it as well.

Friend, when I tell you I had that smell in my nose for 24 hours, believe me. I almost ended own life right there.

Thankfully, I was far enough away to not be caught in the splash zone. Others were not so lucky.

How in the world she got her hands on a hose is still a mystery. The only thing I can think is that the night cleaning crew forgot to put the hose away when they were done. There are water spigots on most platforms that will allow a crew to hose down a platform. The hose was clearly hooked up and turned on.

So I guess Dana just took advantage of the situation while she had the chance.

It is a sensory experience that will haunt me forever.

As you may have noticed just about any time on Sunday, SUBWAYblogger was down for no apparent reason. The site was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t even like it was showing a 404 page or anything. Instead it was just a white page, no matter where you tried to go on the site.

Nothing. Just white.

So I’m chatting up tech support and the first guy “investigates” for about 10 minutes then comes back and says it looks like a problem with WordPress. You’re going to have to check out WordPress.org and speak with those folks about how to fix it.

Great, thanks for the help douche bag.

So I poke around the WordPress support forums and the web in general for 6 hours. No joke. I must have tried dozens of things including reinstalling the entire thing from scratch. Nothing.

So then I fire up another chat session with D-bag #2. He pokes around for about 30 seconds and tells me that my server is under “high load” at the moment and the engineers are actively looking into it. I tried to explain to him that the load had nothing do with my site being down. I know this because I have (had) other sites on the same server and they were working just fine. So there was nothing he could do.

Finally, I fired in an email based ticket to tech support basically asking them to do a full restore from backup. I get a response saying that they have absolutely ZERO backups of my site. That’s fucking odd because it says right here that they do weekly backups: http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/kb/index.php/kb/article/000166 . He then pointed out that the article says to check the terms and services. When you look at that, they say they are absolutely not responsible for backups and only do them from time to time! So the article says they’ll do it weekly. But if you want to dig through all the fine print, you’ll see that they’re actually not going to do it at all if they don’t feel like it. Wonderful.

That was the last damn straw.

In the 6 years I’ve been with them, I’ve had the hard drive crash and burn TWICE. Both resulted in total losses of the effected data. I literally dug through Google cached pages to dig out old posts and manually put them back. Of course, I told them after the first one that I would gladly pay a monthly fee to have them automatically run nightly backups of the site. They weren’t interested.

I’ve also had the site temporarily go down a multitude of times due to other “load” issues that had nothing to do with me.

In any event, I’m done with Bluehost for good. I’m moving on to the Cloud baby.

I’ve been wanting to move over to a more robust system like Amazon Cloudfront + EC2 or Rackspace’s Cloud files for a while now. This just gave me the extra motivation.

SUBWAYblogger is now officially powered by the Rackspace Cloud. (ooooooo ahhhhh).

Rackspace/Mosso has an outstanding reputation for quality and customer service. So far their tech people have been 1000x better than Bluehost. The hosting is more expensive, but you really get what you pay for. For $6.00 a month with Bluehost, what could I really expect? Crap.

So now the Cloud will mean that the site is infinitely scalable both in size and traffic. SUBWAYblogger can now pretty much take anything that can be thrown at it.

I’m supper pumped and glad to be back online once and for all.

I’ve been waiting for this for years. Glad it is finally getting done.

Now I can better control the site while riding the subway.

So now that we have a $2.25 fare, your pants just got heavier.  How so?  Well, if you buy a single ride with a $5 bill, you’re going to get back two dollar coins plus 3 quarters.  Awesome.

God help you if you paid for it with a $20.  That’s 17 dollar coins plus 3 quarters.

$20 bill goes in, 20 coins come out.

Granted, even a few days ago, it still would have been 18 dollar coins…but still.  It’s pretty insane.

The bigger problem is going to be the little old ladies that have to break out their coin purse full of nickels to get up to the 25 cents.  You know there ain’t no damn way grandma is going to break another dollar if she doesn’t have to.

At least the machines don’t take pennies!

At 28th Street, my train was stuck in the station because of a door problem. Perhaps some of the motormen that read this blog can chime in on what can cause this.

Clearly it was not something that was going to raise a red flag on this insanely crowded train because they managed to get it fixed after about 15 minutes of waiting.

I was about 3 train car lenghts away from the door that had the issue, so I could see them trying to fix it.  It consisted of one guy hitting the door close button over and over again while the other physically pushed the doors together with his hands.

From what I could see, the doors were closing just fine on their own.  I’m not sure what pushing the doors together by hand was adding to the equation.  I guess he was just trying to get the sensor to engage or something.  If you stepped back and looked, you would have no idea something was wrong with the door because it closed all the way by itself.

After the threee stooges finished slamming the doors together over and over again, we got back on our way.  Of course, we were so far behind that we immdediately had to start skipping stops to get caught up.

A frustrating way to start your Monday.

That happened to me this morning thanks to the damn rubber gaskets on the subway doors.

Of course, it was all because of a damn baby stroller.  I have railed and railed against open baby strollers on the train before, and many of you have said I am being to hard.

Well, first let’s just get the facts straight.  The MTA says that strollers are supposed to be folded up and closed when riding the train.

Anyway, the train was somewhat crowded this morning.  We came to a stop, and this mother started to get off the train.  She got a bit of a late start in her move for the for the door.  I was standing near the door, so I took a step out half way onto the platform.  I was blocking the door open so she could get off with the stroller.

Just as she got clear of the doors, they started to close.  Right into my back.

For the rest of the day, I had a very straight, very neat black line down the left side of my back.

I was talking to a friend today that claimed to have one of the best subway stories ever.  I’m hoping there’s a SUBWAYblogger reader that can backup his story because I’m finding it hard to believe.

He claims he was on an A train down near the Village late one weekend night when two girls got on the train.  They started to dance around the poles like strippers.

This is by no means unusual.  I’ve seen girls and even some drag queens do the dance on the train before.  I’ve even seen dancers that bring their own boombox so they have a good beat.

Well apparently these girls took it to the next level.  The crowd started to egg them on during their performance.  Before you know it, off came the tops.  The dance then continued (topless) for two more stops.

That’s where I started to not believe his story.

Has anyone seen this before?  If so, don’t hold out.  We need to ride that train immediately.

For example, the prerecorded female voice says, “You can transfer to the 1 or 9 train.”

9 train?  Uhhh hello.

And it seems on the older announcements, the male voice was virtually nonexistent.  Wonder how long those will run before someone from the MTA notices.

It’s your last chance to sign up and receive the very first issue of SUBWAY Monthly.

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I truly hate that bullshit.  Get the damn sick passenger off the train and let’s get moving.  I don’t understand why an entire line has to come to a screatching halt because someone pukes on a train.  Even if the person had a heart attack, wouldn’t you want to get them off the train and upstairs as quick as possible?

That morning, my 2 train terminated at 42nd Street Time Square.  Are you kidding me?  That’s the biggest stop in the system and that’s where you are going to terminate?  The kicker was the sick passenger was all the way down at Chambers Street.

There has to be a better way to deal with this crap.

Fleet week sailors with girls in the village.

This past weekend is the only time I ever actually consider joining the Navy.  Everywhere you go on the subway all weekend long, it is nonstop sailors with hot women on their arms.

Getting done up in those dress whites is like some sort of magical hot-girl catnip or something.  They have to fight them off with a stick.

The best part is when you see them riding around in neighborhoods no where near the tourist areas.  Seeing them in groups down in the Village or Time Square is one thing.   Seeing them riding around the East 90′s is another story.

Without fail, every year I see a lone sailor riding back down to the ship from waaaaay uptown.  It’s the arm forces walk of shame, yet there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I’ve never done anything close to any kind of military service.  I’m curious about what it is like on board those ships the day they find out they’ve been selected to come to NYC for Fleet Week.  It must be like Christmas for the single, 18-30 year old men on board.

Keep up the good work boys (and girls).

Photo credit.

I know I have ranted in the past about germs on the subway, but this is taking it to another level.

Personally, I think the whole swine flu insanity is a lot of hype.  Yes, those people died, and that is sad.  The fact still remains that good old fashioned regular flu kills far more people both in raw numbers and percentage.  Almost every case of swine flu in NYC has been reported as mild.

However, even being a super intelligent person such as myself, I have found myself being extra aware of the “germs” around me on the subway.  I know it is crazy.  As I’m standing there thinking it, I’m saying to myself, “You’re being a f*&%ing idiot.”

What’s even crazier is seeing how other people are reacting.  Now when someone lets out a big sneeze, people literally get up and walk away.  They move to another part of the car or go stand on the other end of the platform.

It’s getting pretty crazy.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are more iPhones out on the subway than ever.  All of a sudden, everywhere you look, someone is rocking out on one.  They’re either listening to music, watching a video, playing a game, or all of the above.

So we decided to put together a master list of our favorite iPhone Subway apps.  We’re calling it SUBWAYblogger’s iPhone App Cheat Sheet.

We’ve tried all of these apps, and like them all.  Only the good ones made the list.  Luckily, many of the developers hooked us up with free demos so we didn’t have to buy all of them.  So the ones that made the cut are here.

The Cheat Sheet is exclusively available via email, and is completely FREE.

You will receive a two part series.  Today, you’ll instantly get our list of favorite subway utility apps.  Then tomorrow, we’ll send you our favorite subway/transit related iPhone games.  In the first issue, you’ll also get a link to a free subway map application.

Sign up anytime, and you will instantly receive Part 1  in your mailbox.

We hate all that bullshit spam as much as you do, trust us.  Every time we put up a new email address on this site, we start getting spammed like crazy.  It drives us insane.  So we promise to never SPAM you.  Your information is safe and will not be sold.  You can unsubscribe if you change your mind at anytime.

Sign up today!

Jeanie Colberg was on the 4 train with her young daughter on the way to the hospital yesterday when her water broke.

Luckily, a good samaritan was there to comfort her and calm her down a bit.  At Union Square, EMS workers were there to handle the rest.  She ended up giving birth to a 7 pound baby in the back of the ambulance.

She even gave the baby her middle name, Rochelle, after a transit worker that assisted her.

I don’t know for a fact that she was on the way to the hospital because she was in labor.  If not, it’s a pretty freaky coincidence.

So let’s assume she was in labor, would you really take the 4 train?  I’m personally gonna go with NO.  It’s either 911, or take a cab.  Even if you’re a bit light on the cab fare, I’m pretty sure they’d let you get away with it.