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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

#211

Post by Jaruzel »

closeparen wrote: post #28
nkozyra wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost all cases I think this is a valid critique, but not against the MTA. It's one of the oldest, most complex, largest and among the ten highest daily ridership. To me, it remains an absolute marvel. Of course daily riders do and will forever complain. As someone who riders infrequently and is warned about impending doom, I find myself too often pleasantly surprised.

Ridership remains high because New York is too dense to get around any other way.

I've often thought that for dense cities such as New York, and London, a Monorail would be a good solution to add to the public transit system.

Picture this: Along most of the major roads fit very tall archways every few hundred feet, and place the Monorail on-top. As long as traffic below can continue unobstructed, then the two can co-exist. Additionally add direct-into-building entrances/exits at the monorail platform height (2nd or 3rd storey (US buildings called the 'ground' floor '1st', right?) ). Monorail can be driver-less, and run on clean[1] energy. It seems a bit of a no-brainer to me.

--

[1] For various values of 'clean'.

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

#212

Post by dx034 »

BillinghamJ wrote: post #194
peter303 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system is a century old with original electromechanical controllers.

So is London’s

Most signalling systems in London are fairly new. Rolling stock is the bigger problem with some parts from the 1970s (Picadilly line). New signals were the main reason they could increase frequencies on lines like Northern, Central and Victoria in recent years.

What helps London is that the system shuts down for a few hours each night (except weekends on some lines). That allows most repairs and maintenance to take place without altering schedules.

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

#213

Post by dx034 »

tokyoguy wrote: post #143

it's frustrating to read this thread and watch people make excuses for NYC . NYC is not special. Tokyo has old subways 3-4x the stations and 10x the riders. They manage to rebuild , change tracks, build new ones and generally do the maintainence and upkeep required to keep it running well and on time. NYC's issues are entirely about politics and leadership and nothing to do with anything unique to NYC que more excuse…

NYC is unique in that they are one of the few systems running non-stop. Any maintenance results in delays. Other large systems (Tokyo, Moscow, London) shut down most nights. Those 4-5 hour windows can make a lot of difference.

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

#214

Post by dx034 »

twic wrote: post #72
anonymfus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

London night tube remains weekends only, though. And even then, 30% of passengers are going from/to work. The importance of a 24h subway is not to get drunk people home but to help people working night/early shifts. The main reason London will not get intra-week night tube anytime soon is because of the maintenance issues this causes. The NYC subway was explicitly mentioned when this was proposed.

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

#215

Post by dx034 »

ng12 wrote: post #156
parent5446 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the sole advantages of NYC taxis: they are required by law to take you anywhere within city limits you ask.

Yes, and an NYC cabbie would _never_ willingly ignore a regulation like that.

I don't know a single city where license numbers and the complaint hotline are so prominently placed as in NYC. I believe it was common that cabbies ignored regulation but this appears to have changed in recent years.

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

#216

Post by make3 »

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.

keep it open at night Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, as close at night the other days?

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

#217

Post by majewsky »

mpweiher wrote: post #195
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.

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

#weilwirdichlieben ;)

And of course, everything is relative. German trains are fairly punctual (although there is this famous saying, "the German railway has four enemies: spring, summer, autumn and winter"), but Swiss trains are even more punctual. Not sure if it's true, but I've been told that when the trains depart at Zurich Central at the top of the hour, the power frequency graph makes a small dent because of all the train engines drawing power at the same time.

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

#218

Post by lhopki01 »

mancerayder wrote: post #150
CydeWeys wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should say "metro system" then, as NYC's first el train was 36 years prior to its first subway. This table has the subway at the world's ninth oldest, which is definitely still one of the oldest considering there's hundreds now: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-oldest-metro...

Agreed, although I'd add it's substantially more complicated to dug tunnels under dense cities. The Underground is a substantial feat in that regard. As a tangent, London is adding overground trains as part of its expansion. The Overground is pretty recent (and it shows) as is the fully-automated DLR, and now there's a Crossrail making an appearance. NY hasn't invested in a hell of a lot in overground infrastructure…

Crossrail is underground through London. The Overground uses existing rail infrastructure just under direct TFL management so isn't really new. There are a few new sections but they exist only to join up two lines. DLR is possibly the only real example of new overground trains and partly that is because it follows existing rail lines for quite a distance.

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

#219

Post by majewsky »

CalRobert wrote: post #210
Arbalest wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You say "strangely" but if you spend enough time cycling you'll start thinking that the idea any other mode of transport is faster through a city is strange. It's incredibly frustrating to see governments spend literally 100 times as much money on a rail system as they could on a decent bike network that moves just as many people more equitably.

If a city invests heavily in a bike network instead of a rail system, what happens on rainy days? I imagine that most people would be reluctant to bike to work through rain, and would thus try to fall back to car or rail, thus drastically overloading those modes.

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

#220

Post by mpweiher »

majewsky wrote: post #217
mpweiher wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Whenever I travelled back to Berlin, I wanted to hug the BVG employees. #weilwirdichlieben ;) And of course, everything is relative. German trains are fairly punctual (although there is this famous saying, "the German railway has four enemies: spring, summer, autumn and winter"), but Swiss trains are even more punctual. Not sure if it's true, but I've been told that when the trains depart at Zurich Central at the t…

Absolutely. Public transport in Switzerland is awesome.

Not just because of how well it works, but how it is accepted by all. Bankers in Zürich hop on the tram just like everyone else.

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