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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

#231

Post by piva00 »

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.

Replacement busses as other normal major cities around the world?

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

#232

Post by mmariani »

s0rce wrote: post #178
grandmczeb wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same here in the east bay, driving to work in Emeryville takes 15-25 minutes and then add another 5-10min to park, even in the garage. If I bike to work its less than 25, usually around 20 and I can leave my bike in the small garage in the basement or just take it up to my office. Takes me longer to get home since have to climb back up 300ft to my place in Piedmont. The bus is pointless and would take about 20min of…

Spinning is winning. Instead of using high torque shift to easier gears and spin as fast as you can while seating on the saddle. You’re going to get there with fresher legs though a bit hotter in general—it’s a nice cardio—but that shouldn’t be a problem because you’re steps away from your shower.

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

#233

Post by viraptor »

vvillena wrote: post #226
majewsky wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bikes still work on the rain, you only need to dress up a bit. Extreme heat is way more problematic. As you said, it's more of a cultural problem, that can be solved. If we accept that motorbikers need lots of specialized equipment to ride, we can accept that cyclists need a couple bits of extra clothing every now and then.

I guess it depends on the region / type of rain, but there's some threshold where I expect a bike ride to be dangerous and not worth it. (even if I could get covered in another layer of clothes and had a place to store them at work which is another issue)

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

#234

Post by praha14 »

cylinder wrote: post #227
eanzenberg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also strict immigration policies.

Way to subtly blame immigrants for shitty transport. I assure you it’s not immigrants running NY subway and the MTA. they’re not the corrupt politicians pilfering funds away from it either. It’s not immigrants who think they’re too good for the subway so they grab Uber everywhere and have no vested interest in public transport.

The MTA, like most city's public transportation administration, is predominantly staffed by people of color- the DC metro is a whopping 97%. These serve the dual-role as a jobs program, and as such can't be held to the same standard as you see in white countries. Just think, would you be the one to tell a group of black people that their cultural values [1] regarding timeliness, service, and so on are incorrect? Of course not, nobody would, which is why we will continue to have a metro system that embodies those values.

1. https://www.minnpost.com/good-jobs/2017/01/metro-transit-has...

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

#235

Post by nkozyra »

eecsninja wrote: post #127
jdhn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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. What kind of "legacy costs" are you referring to, which would be higher than the cost to build the system from the ground up? > I simply can't see the MTA adopting ticket prices that are based on zones. The outcry wo…

> What kind of "legacy costs" are you referring to, which would be higher than the cost to build the system from the ground up?

The costs (direct and cascading) of displacing essentially all riders for some undetermined amount of time? Tokyo had no choice but to do this.

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

#236

Post by CalRobert »

majewsky wrote: post #219
CalRobert wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They cycle, or take the bus, or walk - similarly car crashes are more likely when it rains but we still build roads.

The obvious counterexamples are the highly successful bike routes in northern European cities.. plenty of rain there.

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

#237

Post by CalRobert »

viraptor wrote: post #233
vvillena wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes still work on the rain, you only need to dress up a bit. Extreme heat is way more problematic. As you said, it's more of a cultural problem, that can be solved. If we accept that motorbikers need lots of specialized equipment to ride, we can accept that cyclists need a couple bits of extra clothing every now and then.

I guess it depends on the region / type of rain, but there's some threshold where I expect a bike ride to be dangerous and not worth it. (even if I could get covered in another layer of clothes and had a place to store them at work which is another issue)

True, but that treshhold is pretty high. SF doesn't exactly have a monsoon season.

There are days when the weather should preclude driving too.

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

#238

Post by apaprocki »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #157
apaprocki wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and do most of those upgrades take place when the Tokyo subway shuts down each night between 1am and 5am? It's hard to replace signal systems on tracks with a train passing every few minutes.

So if the Tokyo subway shuts down each night between 1am and 5am, why can't the NYC subway shut parts down periodically? It's common here in Melbourne to have whole lines shut down during the summer for maintenance or other service changes (e.g. removing level crossings). We hate it but we cope. There's literally no excuse for not maintaining your infrastructure. Every probably can be solved. Shut down a line every n…

It’s not to say that they can’t — it is to say that they don’t due to history and expectations. New Yorkers expect it to run 24/7 because it always has and people routinely make life decisions about where to live and work due to that. You can’t just change it without a pretty drastic social effect that would take years to smooth out.

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

#239

Post by nasredin »

CydeWeys wrote: post #148
skeleton wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are very strong benefits to commuting on a bicycle, a motorcycle will likely be the faster method of commute transport. Although this is probably dependent on your local laws and how much you abide by those laws, as I know lane filtering and such is illegal in a lot of the US.

Not in Manhattan though, and definitely not along my commute. Motorcycles are about as slow as the cars. There isn't room for a full motorcycle to filter through the narrow space between the row of parked cars and the line of slow-moving traffic. Hell, sometimes there's barely room to slip through on a bicycle. And it's flat out illegal for motorcyclists to ride in the bike lane. But yeah, this is more of a special c…

Aren't all lanes in US of a minimum width?

IIRC only California allows lane splitting. So this is a legal issue as well.

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

#240

Post by dx034 »

piva00 wrote: post #230
dx034 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As I mentioned in another comment: what stops NYC from running replacement busses while one of the lines is under maintenance during the night? A bunch of cities do that, for example Berlin, I don't see what stops NYC from doing the same...

The economy of Berlin is based on available transport. Using buses prolongs journeys a lot, e.g. in London the city estimated that a sizeable chunk of people will see a 30+ minute journey reduction due to night tube.

Using replacement buses works but would likely damage 24h businesses and take one of New York's advantages away.

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