How bad is the D?

The D, the bridge jumper

The D is the orange express that runs from Norwood–205th Street in the Bronx, down through Manhattan's Sixth Avenue trunk, and out to Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn — the only line that takes you from the far Bronx to the far southern tip of Brooklyn in a single seat. It shares the orange bullet with the B, F, and M, but it's the one with the furthest reach.

In Manhattan the D is express along Sixth Avenue, and it's the line New Yorkers take to jump from the Upper West Side to the Village to the Financial District without the local grind. Its Manhattan Bridge crossing is one of the great rail moments of the city — a thunder, a rattle, and suddenly the skyline is split in two outside your window as the train surges over the East River.

Rider well-knowns: the D and the N are the two de facto Manhattan Bridge lines, and the bridge is where the D's reputation gets made and broken. When the bridge misbehaves, the D's whole Brooklyn run turns to a ripple of reroutes and delays — 'service change mid-route, listen to conductor announcements' is practically the D's official motto. South of the bridge it runs express to Coney Island, so Brooklyn riders who catch it get one of the fastest beach runs in the system.

The D is high-risk, high-reward. It has the furthest reach of any orange line, some of the fastest express stretches in Manhattan, and a bridge crossing that can go from triumph to tragedy on a Tuesday afternoon. On a good day there's nothing better going to Coney Island; on a bad one you'll wish you'd taken the B.