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What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

nytimes.com

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Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#111

Post by rubicon33 »

spike021 wrote: post #40

I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…

I had the same reaction to this article. It's incredible how horrible SF's system is, and yet, the articles are always about New York's subway. If someone did an in depth comparison of the two it would be incredibly eye opening. The system in SF is garbage.

Thank god we'll be getting a new mayor.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#112

Post by mitchdoogle »

acranox wrote: post #98

What would it take to fix the subway? Money of course. Where's it come from? Who cares, just spend it. Transit is necessary. Tax the businesses that benefit from good transit. Raise the gas taxes, because driving is a luxury if you could have taken mass transit. Boston's transit is a mess too. Some of the problems can be fixed just by throwing money at the problem. The Boston subway breaks down all the time because t…

All problems are easy to solve if one has unlimited money and makes decisions single-handedly.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#113

Post by ghaff »

slededit wrote: post #42
spike021 wrote: post #40

I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…

A tourist won't have the same view because you are unlikely commuting from the Burroughs at rush hour.

In general, transit as observed by an occasional visitor often traveling off-peak tends to a lot different from a daily commuter depending on it to get to work during rush hour. There are probably exceptions but most people with a daily commute find plenty to complain about in just about every city.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#114

Post by esmi »

As non-NYC resident the first thing I though was, "Huh, I wonder what's wrong with New York's subways?" But alas they went straight into solutions so I am still left to wonder what problems they are trying to fix and in what priority. Pretty webpage though.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#115

Post by danudey »

spike021 wrote: post #40

I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…

Conversely: tons of people here in Vancouver complain about our equivalent systems (the Skytrain, usually), whereas people I know who've visited from New York are blown away by how clean, fast, and efficient it is. Trains that come every 90 seconds, no garbage on the tracks, bright, open, airy stations (most are above ground on that line).

NYC is a model of public transit from the perspective of ubiquity, feasibility, and ridership, though, and that's pretty key.

We also visited the SF Bay Area, and it was confusing as hell. The BART? The Muni? The buses? The cable cars? Who uses what? How do we get around? I need different passes? Oh, the tap card works? What's even going on?

I found the BART was very reminiscent in a lot of ways to Montreal's Metro system, but the MUNI (we took the J line? I kept calling it the JUnit, to my wife's annoyance) and it was 'fine', but only because we were a few blocks away. It felt very… rustic. Unmaintained. The raising/lowering stairs thing was a neat solution though.

In short, NYC being better than SF isn't a high bar, but I think we should all be happy that we live in cities that have such transit systems at all. Many large cities in the US don't even have public transit systems that can get people anywhere with any efficiency.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#116

Post by mancerayder »

spyspy wrote: post #59
bobthechef wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connections aren't the problem under discussion. The problem is that it's a crumbling subway system that is having trouble operating at the capacity the city requires. For a city as rich as New York, you would expect something much better.

> having trouble operating at the capacity the city requires. It's not just having trouble. The capacity the city requires is far beyond what it's currently running at. Meeting current demand would've meant planning for it two decades ago. Anyone who lives here will tell you that the subway is wildly unreliable. Huge time gaps between trains, train cars that are dangerously overcrowded, random line shutdowns, local t…

Yes, all of this.

It bears mentioning that prior to 2015 it was not this bad.

In the early 2000's it was common to easily get a seat. I recall the main lines that seemed crowded were the 456 line.

Around 2008 or 2010 they canceled a few lines, reduced bus service, and more. To me what smelled fishy was that the prior year, they had a budget surplus and gave everyone free trips on a Christmas weekend.

Add to that there were less homeless back then, and then complete the picture with the number of homeless people sprawled out in a heap on several seats on a crowded train, and you start to see how people are questioning why they live here.

What's interesting to see is sometimes during rush hour, and if you see a train car that seems less crowded you avoid it either because

a) it's summer and the A/C died in that train car b) you have a homeless or crazy person harassing people or sprawled out, except exuding an unusually strong odor that day.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#117

Post by danudey »

rubicon33 wrote: post #111
spike021 wrote: post #40

I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…

I had the same reaction to this article. It's incredible how horrible SF's system is, and yet, the articles are always about New York's subway. If someone did an in depth comparison of the two it would be incredibly eye opening. The system in SF is garbage. Thank god we'll be getting a new mayor.

You'd think with all those SV billions floating around, there would be enough tax dollars to improve the transit infrastructure.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#118

Post by beisner »

spike021 wrote: post #40

I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…

True, the SF public transit story is abhorrent, so I can see how NYC would seem much better to a SF local. But if you come from nearly ANY other developed country on the planet, the situation in NYC would seem abhorrent. I have been on roughly 40 transit systems across the world, and the NYC subway is hands-down the least reliable. This is including Soviet-era systems in eastern Europe.

In terms of ridership, London, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, etc. are all comparable to NYC, some are just as old (e.g. London, Paris, Tokyo), and none are as broken.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#119

Post by samsonradu »

spike021 wrote: post #40

I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…

As a non-US tourist I find the NYC subway dirty (there was trash on the lines that nobody picked up in weeks), and terribly undocumented (few or misplaced info panels and directions). It’s also very crowded at peak hours but that’s understandable I assume.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#120

Post by chickenbane »

esmi wrote: post #114

As non-NYC resident the first thing I though was, "Huh, I wonder what's wrong with New York's subways?" But alas they went straight into solutions so I am still left to wonder what problems they are trying to fix and in what priority. Pretty webpage though.

If only there were some way to find out information on the problem of New York's subways!

Here you go: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Great comment though.

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