NEW YORK, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- A New York subway advocacy group Tuesday announced the first winner of the city's "Worst Commute of the Week" competition.
The Riders Alliance invited straphangers to submit their infuriating experiences underground in order to bring subway riders' grievances to the attention of elected officials. The person with the most traumatizing transit trouble was to receive a chocolate replica of the MetroCard.
The first winner of the award was Jennifer Tang, a librarian from Forest Hills, Queens. Her usual 30-minute commute from Manhattan to Queens became a two-hour ordeal when her train came to a halt, just one stop away from her home.
"By the time the train pulled into the 67th Avenue station, I had to run to a nearby Starbucks in order to pee," she wrote last Friday. "I still have post traumatic (sic) stress syndrome from this incident. Now, before boarding the subway, even if it's for one stop, I use the bathroom before I get on the torture chamber that is the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) subway."
New York's subway has long been the lifeblood of the city. However, the number of delays due in part to the aging infrastructure tripled in the past five years to 70,000 per month, according to a report. About 5.7 million people take the subway on an average weekday.
The MTA rolled out a nearly 1-billion-U.S.-dollar emergency subway repair plan last July, promising to address delays and derailments within one year.
