Hamptons Subway Initiates White's Bicycles Program

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Sarah Jessica Parker was seen on the Hampton Bays platform waiting to go to Citarella in Southampton. Itzhak Perlman, the famed violinist, was seen on the Bridgehampton train heading for Shelter Island, to start sprucing up his music camp there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Gwen Knowland, our esteemed personal assistant to Commissioner Bill Aspinall, turned 23 last Thursday. The commissioner took her out for a long lunch at The American Hotel in Sag Harbor — a rare treat.

SUGGESTION BOX STILL AT LARGE

The wooden suggestion box that for six years stood by the Hampton Bays turnstiles without incident has still not been returned. This is the first time it has been stolen. We have not bought a new suggestion box yet because we still hope to get the old one back sometime soon, and we don’t want to spend the money for a new one until we are sure the old one is gone for good.

The result is a drop-off to zero in the number of suggestions this past week at Hampton Bays, and this is seriously affecting morale staff at our nearby Hampton Bays headquarters, which counts on these suggestions to keep things up to date.

There was a note Scotch-taped to the spot where the suggestion box was last Thursday. It made no sense: “The place for happiness lies with green, look behind the green machine.” What could that mean?

WHITE BICYCLES

Because our subway stops are about 4 miles apart on average, we are initiating a White Bicycle program as an experiment. Management is buying 40 white bicycles that will be left at each of our station platforms between Amagansett and Shinnecock. The bicycles will be emblazoned “Courtesy of Hamptons Subway” on the front-wheel splash fender when they arrive. After that is completed, straphangers will be welcome to use them provided they return them to that station platform or any other station platforms.

For safety reasons, it will not be possible to allow the bicycles to be carried up and down the escalators. It will be necessary to negotiate them up the stairs.

The board, which approved the White Bicycle experiment by a vote of 4 to 3 last Thursday, acknowledges that this might make using the bicycles difficult for the elderly and infirm, but these people shouldn’t be carrying around bicycles anyway. They could hurt themselves. Watch for the White Bicycle program beginning shortly.

DINING CAR COMING

Most people take the subway for very short trips, but we have nevertheless decided, as a courtesy measure for our hungry passengers, to open a dining car. It will be in the very middle of the train so people can have access to it equally from the front or back, and it will be catered by one of the finest restaurants in the Hamptons, a name that we will reveal next week just prior to the inauguration of the service. The dining car will feature crystal glassware, silver utensils and white tablecloths, as well as waiters and porters in full-white uniforms with those funny white caps. The food will be Northern Italian, and it will be freshly cooked to order, including the handmade pasta.

SPEED BUMPS TO BE REMOVED

The experiment to slow down the overenthusiastic motormen who drive the trains at up to 60 miles an hour on the straightaway with speed bumps between Bridgehampton and Water Mill has failed. As you know, the motormen are unionized so we can’t fire them. The speed bumps were in place from Thursday to Sunday, and by that time a total of three subway trains had to be taken out of service to repair damage and at least nine people had to be taken to the hospital. None, unfortunately, were the motormen. This upcoming week, we are going to try something else. We are banning beer in the motorman’s cubicle.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

In analyzing a ridership study done by Two Brothers Statistical last month, it was noticed that the number of riders going through the turnstiles has not increased, but that the subway cars themselves seem jammed with people.

What we have discovered is that hundreds and maybe thousands of teenagers have been getting on the subway system and then staying on it, going around and around for hours, playing the hit mobile phone game Subway Surfers that’s taken high schools everywhere by storm. The game is so addictive that last month it was banned in local schools. Now it is on the subway.

We did not mind Subway Surfers on the subway, at first, but as more and more kids have begun to play it on the subway, it’s making it harder and harder for regular riders to find seats. We have no law against playing Subway Surfers on the subway. It is not M-rated or contraband or anything, but if kids continue to play Subway Surfers on the subway, we may be forced to institute a law. The activity of playing Subway Surfers on the subway may find its days numbered.

On another matter involving Hamptons Subway, I have exciting news. Hamptons Subway has been selected as the site for a scene in the upcoming movie Superheroes’ Revenge. Five caped superheroes run across the platform, with the bad guys chasing them, and leap into a subway car at the last minute to make their getaway. The subway car pulls out. The scene will be shot between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. next Thursday morning at our Amagansett station. The public is invited to watch the scene being shot while lying flat outside on the ground above and looking down through the air vent grates.

Those wishing to be extras in this scene — straphangers reading newspapers who become surprised — should contact MCDC Studios’ New York office at 212-224-352.