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The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

nytimes.com

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Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#71

Post by seattle_spring »

oh_sigh wrote: post #65
seattle_spring wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most transit projects are funded at a state level, but the townies outside of cities vote down every initiative because they "don't want to pay fer those gal-dern city slickers and their fancy jerbs." They're blissfully unaware that the city folk subsidize their entire existence through taxes. At least, that's how it works here in Washington State.

People don't talk like that and you're misrepresenting their viewpoints.

Why don't you enlighten us on what their viewpoints are?

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#72

Post by twic »

anonymfus wrote: post #64
pmiller2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how do people get home from the bars? That's my major complaint about BART, that it stops running too early. If I'm out late enough in the city, I can't return to the East Bay easily, so I either end up stressing to get the last train, or end up having to use my car, which has its own stress involved.

In Moscow where Metro is officially closed from 1:00 up to 5:30 there are special night buses and trams for this.

Same in London (buses, not sure about trams). Catching a night bus home from Trafalgar Square along with eighty other people who are also at the wrong end of a big night out is a classic rite of passage for Londoners.

It got a bit less overwhelming when they started running the night buses from all over central London rather than just from Trafalgar Square. It's changed again recently now that some underground lines are 24 hour.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#73

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

wgerard wrote: post #24

It's interesting seeing the ways people work around this, even for people who don't have hard start/end times (e.g. tech employees). I have one friend who uses Citi Bike to get to important meetings I think people who don't live in the city don't realize how (relatively) stressful it can be when the trains are late. Riding the train during peak hours is already a pretty stressful experience: The sardine analogy is ve…

Reading this doubly reinforces how good it is in Sweden where I live now. While trains and buses are notoriously delayed (somewhat frequently), I can look on a phone app and tell when the next one will arrive +- 1 minute.

It’s no Switzerland or Japan, but it’s what a reasonably well run system looks like.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#74

Post by chrischen »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #39
baud147258 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Paris, the rail & subway company instead of "personal injury on a track level", use "people accident". I'd say that most of the lines in Paris are the same.

It's interesting how the euphemism used differs by country. The Dutch railway companies use "collision with a person".

Not really sure that's even a euphemism anymore.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#75

Post by DalekBaldwin »

The fundamental reason for worsening subway service in recent years may be more mundane than we assumed: https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-trains-are-slowe...

It was slowly driving me insane at my last job. Now, I just have to dial in to the morning meeting, then I can work from home for about an hour before heading in to the office, and we've been asked to stay home even for fairly light snowstorms this winter. I wouldn't be surprised if other tech companies in the city are adding more flexibility to their work hours.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#76

Post by cheeze »

pmiller2 wrote: post #63
kgc wrote: post #54

Maybe they should have scheduled maintenance closures that reoccur over the same parts of the day every day. Say, 1-5am?. So, it would be a 20hr/day instead of 24hr/day subway, but would be dependable during those 20 hrs.

Then how do people get home from the bars? That's my major complaint about BART, that it stops running too early. If I'm out late enough in the city, I can't return to the East Bay easily, so I either end up stressing to get the last train, or end up having to use my car, which has its own stress involved.

Uber/Lyft? Cab?

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#77

Post by chrischen »

amaccuish wrote: post #60
Rapzid wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I just got back from Japan and ended up transiting four of the five busiest train stations in the world(we did not visit Yokohama). My takeaway; the US will "never" have great public transit. Other than bus issues in Kyoto due to the amount of tourists visiting shrines(205, 59, etc) it was.. eye opening. BARTs issues and costs are a joke. NYs reliability is a joke. We are not in the same league. Many countries…

Ye moving to Moscow it's been great how cheap the metro is here, and it's reliable and very rarely packed. London is good but the price of Moscow beats it. I know for the underground, all profit is reinvested, maybe that's the problem in America? Many contractors all wanting their share? At the end of the day you just have to accept that while a good public transport system looks like a big loss on paper, it brings s…

There was a report showing that in NY the metro cost several times that of metros in other cities. So it's not just a matter of willing to spend the money, somehow the costs are much more than what they should be.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#79

Post by bsder »

closeparen wrote: post #51
fancyfish wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm throwing darts at the wall here, but I think part of the problem is our sprawl and geographic size/car culture. In the typical US city you have the wealthier suburbanites living in separate towns/counties than the city they work in. This segregates the local funding because no one wants to pay for someone else's projects. And state funding doesn't benefit you as directly (e.g. state highway projects) and probably…

The personal car took over America for a reason: it's the fastest and most pleasant way to get around. Cities only start to seriously entertain public transit when they hit car culture's scaling limits. New York passed those long ago, so the more interesting question is why they can't maintain what they already have. Unlike a typical American city, Manhattan is richer and more expensive than its outlying bedroom comm…

> The personal car took over America for a reason: it's the fastest and most pleasant way to get around.

The personal car took over America because the auto companies waged a campaign to dismantle the transit systems that American cities already had.

"Car culture" and "suburbs" are only something that started in the 1950's after the Eisenhower Interstate System got built.

And ridesharing is showing that people will give up a personal car if there is an alternative.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#80

Post by caminante »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #73
wgerard wrote: post #24

It's interesting seeing the ways people work around this, even for people who don't have hard start/end times (e.g. tech employees). I have one friend who uses Citi Bike to get to important meetings I think people who don't live in the city don't realize how (relatively) stressful it can be when the trains are late. Riding the train during peak hours is already a pretty stressful experience: The sardine analogy is ve…

Reading this doubly reinforces how good it is in Sweden where I live now. While trains and buses are notoriously delayed (somewhat frequently), I can look on a phone app and tell when the next one will arrive +- 1 minute. It’s no Switzerland or Japan, but it’s what a reasonably well run system looks like.

>[Sweden's public transit is] no Switzerland or Japan, but it’s what a reasonably well run system looks like.

Comparing Sweden to NYC isn't fair.

NYC Subway has ~742 stations (v. ~100 in Stockholm) and 1,756M in annual ridership (v. ~328M in Stockholm). This is just for the subway and excludes NY transit bus ridership.

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