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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

#111

Post by NikolaeVarius »

berbec wrote: post #106
caminante wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>[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.

So NYC has 7x the number of stations for 5x the number of riders?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway

Quick Wiki search indicates NYC has about 1,112 km of rail vs Stockholms 105.7 km. So about 8-9 times the distance

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

#112

Post by scarface74 »

Just to put things in perspective.

https://www.moneycrashers.com/worst-us-cities-traffic-commut...

I've been commuting (by car) for 30-60 minutes one way depending on my job for 20+ years in Atlanta. I didn't realize that a 30 minute commute was considered "bad".

It really doesn't bother me. I put on a podcast and enjoy the downtime. I also don't have young kids.

When my 15 year old son has to stay late and I can't get to him,I just tell him to take Uber. My wife and I have agreed to "work hard, play hard". We cherish our weekends.

All that being said, I can understand the difference being stuck outside in the cold at the whims of public transportation and being in your own car.

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

#113

Post by droidist2 »

chrischen wrote: post #74
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, IMO it's not a euphemism if it doesn't make sense to say "if you know what I mean" after it.

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

#114

Post by grandmczeb »

Arbalest wrote: post #105
CydeWeys wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purposely live within easy biking distance of the office for this reason, which I'll admit is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Fortunately tech pays well. Between my own bike and Citi Bike I can get everywhere I need to without relying on any form of mass transportation. Biking is frequently the fastest form of transportation, depending start/end point of the trip anyway. It certainly is for my daily commute.

Strangely enough, even in cities such as mine, which aren't so packed, cycling is still faster. Busses are faster than cars because they don't need to park, but still take 30-35 minutes. I can cycle in in 20 minutes. Note there is no train in my direction. I think this is partially because bicycles are not that popular here, but there are provisions for bikes that go above and beyond cars. Having seen Bruges in Belgi…

I live in Palo Alto and this is frequently true even though biking is definitely an afterthought in most cases. By car, I can get to work in about 30 min (+/-10 with traffic) but can bike there in consistency less than 20.

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

#115

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#116

Post by CydeWeys »

berbec wrote: post #106
caminante wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>[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.

So NYC has 7x the number of stations for 5x the number of riders?

The New York City subway system is old, one of the first in the world. It's not built to modern standards; in a lot of places it was built by cut-and-cover, which means excavating the entire route along the subway and then rebuilding the road essentially as a roof above the subway line.

As a result of this lineage it also has quite frequent stops, which are easy to put in when the subway is just a stairway's height beneath the street. To give you an idea, the 1 line stops at 14th, 18th, 23rd, 28th, and 34th Streets. That's five stops in one mile.

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

#117

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

I have a limiting rule, living in New York, to leave for meetings no later than 1 hour before the start time. It ensures I’m relaxed and on time. It gives me a moment to observe before the action begins. And it forces me to be more judicious about the number of meetings I book. (Granted, this only works since I can be productive on my phone while I wait.)

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by jdhn »

eecsninja wrote: post #104
jorblumesea wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it, many international cities have just as big and complex systems. Trains generally run on time in Paris, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing. Seems just about everyone can do it except us. I think it's a valid question to ask, given that there's nothing exceptional about NYC compared to others in its "weight class".

+1. I'm tired of hearing people make excuses for the NYC subway system such as age and complexity, seemingly ignorant that there's plenty of large cities in other first-world countries in the 10+ million range that do a much better job. Tokyo was bombed to the ground in WW2 and still manages to do better. I think the actual explanation is that the NYC system was not properly maintained during the postwar period, when…

>Tokyo was bombed to the ground in WW2 and still manages to do better.

An argument could be made that that's exactly why it's doing better. Since it got completely destroyed, it could be built from the ground up without the legacy costs that are now plaguing NYC's subway.

>fixed ticket price don't help

I simply can't see the MTA adopting ticket prices that are based on zones. The outcry would be larger than anything seen to date.

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

#119

Post by _m8fo »

CydeWeys wrote: post #110
nl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly added evidence to my view that cycling is a useful form of transit in dense cities. It also added the element of people making deliberate choices in where to live based on transport methods. On the other hand, you have a history of adding comments like this. Good luck with that. Edit: I noticed you are editing your comment. When I replied it read "This comment, as nice as it may have sounded to you, does…

Thanks for getting my intent. I was more trying to acknowledge my privilege in being able to live within cycling distance of work; tech pays well enough to enable that but many other jobs don't. There's lots of people in NYC who can't afford to live even 40 minutes away from work by mass transit, and who suffer a lot when that mass transit starts getting unreliable. And, no surprise, a lot of my coworkers who also bi…

You save $100/month by not needing to take transit, but how much more is housing that's within biking distance? Extending your logic you might as well live within walking distance and save the Citi bike cost, as well.

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

#120

Post by StudentStuff »

borne0 wrote: post #91
jhbadger wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's lived in both Montreal and the Washington DC area (and used Metro for commuting in both), I have to say that a mixture of raised and buried tracks are really the only way to have a practical system if you want it to work beyond the dense downtown area. Many of the more open places in metropolitan Montreal like Lachine don't have any Metro stops due to the expense of digging tunnels to there. In contr…

Yes I totally agree with you, I'd love it if the metro was far more expansive than it currently is in Montreal. For me the solution is to expand the metro system to the west island, south shore, etc but forget about burying it and just put it above ground in a tube. Initially it sounds silly but the current rolling stock and tracks aren't up to the task of dealing with Montreal weather, but maintaining one system is…

Looks like the subway constructed there was done using cut & cover tunnels, which is commonly done today, its only when you get below a certain depth or have preexisting structures that you'd use a tunnel boring machine.

For rail those tend to be fairly reliable, though most rail alignments buy two or three so they can bore from both ends, and have a spare in case it pulls a Bertha (Seattle's recent highway tunneling nightmare).

What is different today is how impacts are considered. Politically savvy communities are able to cause perfectly good rights of way with existing rail to not be used for light rail or commuter rail. Happened over in Bellevue, much to the detriment of the city and its surrounding towns. Microsoft ain't too happy about that one!

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