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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

#191

Post by randall »

somberi wrote: post #189

Many readers have quoted the superiority (rightfully so), of Moscow and Tokyo subway systems. Both these systems operate from around 5am till midnight (approx). NYC Subway operates 24 hours. These few hours downtime, make a huge difference with respect to maintainability and upkeep. These 4 hours each day adds up to ~60 full days of maintenance window. Maybe NYC can stop the late-night services for a year or so and I…

Late night tho... that 2am subway home is a lifeline for a lot of folks. I remember getting home at like 4am once thanks to the subway. I could probably live without it, but it wouldn't be as nice.

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

#192

Post by gsnedders »

tim333 wrote: post #176
gsnedders wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the London Underground mostly run to schedule, though, then? Because it's older, arguably as complex (especially the subsurface railway), and not that far below NYC in ridership…

London has spent a lot, reflected in "London's monthly travel cost 'most expensive in world'" headlines. This article has a months travel at US$174 in London vs $118 in NY http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-39806865

AFAIK, London also has zero subsidy for all the TfL managed transport, and most of the (mainline) rail services receive no subsidy too.

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

#193

Post by jac_no_k »

adrianN wrote: post #181
Bahamut wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who currently is on a train to Osaka from Tokyo & who has lived near NYC, one thing I can say is while Tokyo’s system is well run, the rush hour crunch is real - basically everyone is nut to butt on the train. Sometimes you can’t even get on the train and have to wait for the next one.

Luckily trains in Tokyo run in really short intervals during rush hour.

Unless one lives way out in the suburbs and the train ride is 90 minutes. The first thirty minutes into Tokyo isn't too bad. It's the remaining sixty minutes which would shock most Westerners. Not looking forward to summer...

Which is why I bicycle into work. Sure it takes 90 minutes (I'm as fast as the train with all the stops) but my soul isn't squashed out by all the other sad salary men.

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

#194

Post by BillinghamJ »

peter303 wrote: post #109
DalekBaldwin wrote: post #75

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 wi…

The system is a century old with original electromechanical controllers.

So is London’s

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

#195

Post by mpweiher »

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…

> I think people who don't live in the city don't

> realize how (relatively) stressful it can be

> when the trains are late.

So much this. I always thought that the typical characterization of Germany, "the trains run on time" was a put down for how boring and uptight we are.

Then I lived in places where the trains do not run on time.

Oh my god.

Whenever I travelled back to Berlin, I wanted to hug the BVG employees.

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

#196

Post by jac_no_k »

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.

Tokyo transit also stops operating after 1am. I live about 30km outside of the core Tokyo area and I have to leave around 11pm otherwise I'm walking part of the way home.

It is possible to stay at a private club until the train restarts around 5am. Alternates is Internet / Manga Cafes complete with shower rooms, coin operated clean underwear dispensers, and lounge chairs that lie almost flat. Also helpful is the convenience stores that sell dress shirts.

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

#197

Post by baud147258 »

paublyrne wrote: post #49
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.

In London it's "person on the track".

Person on the tracks doesn't exactly imply there was an accident with the person. It just prevent the trains from moving.

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

#198

Post by baud147258 »

lorenzhs wrote: post #50
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.

In part, euphemisms like "personal injury" are used to avoid encouraging copycat suicides. In 2009, a popular German footballer's suicide-by-train received a lot of media coverage. The number of railway suicides more than tripled in the following ~10 days and never declined back to the previous level. See the table in https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienensuizid and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide…

I've heard about the copy-cat suicide (but not under this name), but I did not realise it might be the cause of the use of such euphemisms. Of course one can question the usefulness of the euphemisms, since everyone know what they mean.

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

#199

Post by g_sch »

caminante wrote: post #80
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you may have transposed some digits. According to Wikipedia [0], the NYC Subway has 472 stations. Or 424, depending on how you count.

> The official count of stations is 472; however, this tabulation classifies some transfer stations as two or more stations, which are called "station complexes" within the nomenclature of the New York City Subway. If station complexes are counted as one station each, the number of stations is 424.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_stations

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

#200

Post by ajdlinux »

timlod wrote: post #188
caminante wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide citation for 2100 stations for Tokyo subway? The wiki says 179 (1/10th your number).[0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro

I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but 'Tokyo Metro' is only a small part of the Tokyo train network. There is also Toei Subway, JR East trains, Minato-Mirai, ...the list goes on. 2100 may work for the entire metropolitan area of greater Tokyo. In any case, the city is massive, extremely well connected by public transport, and services millions of people daily without delay.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo#Rai...) says "There are 882 interconnected rail stations in the Tokyo Metropolis, 282 of which are Subway stations, with several hundred more in each of the 3 surrounding densely populated suburban prefectures. There are 30 operators running 121 passenger rail lines (102 serving Tokyo and 19 more serving Greater Tokyo but not Tokyo's city center itself), excluding about 12 cable cars."

I could probably believe the 2,100 number if you include all the surrounding prefectures that are in the broader Tokyo area, and if you count stations multiple times for each railway operator services them (it's not uncommon for a single station in Tokyo to be run by three or five different companies).

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