101–110 of 118 posts
Did they forget about the G train??
I took the G 4 miles. It took 47 minutes. I am not exaggerating those numbers for comedic effect.
Also in the category of boroughs hard to reach from Brooklyn without a car or undue delay: Staten Island. Today, three of its four bridges prohibit pedestrians and none have subway connections. One of those bridges (to NJ) used to have a pedestrian and cycle way, but a few years after the Streetcar Scandal it was removed as part of an expansion (!) orchestrated by Robert Moses. Look him up to find out more about the…
The history isn't that bizarre. Robert Moses simply despised anyone that wasn't rich, and spent his entire career trying to make the city even more miserable than it already was for the poor. If you're rich, you don't bike to Staten Island, plain and simple -- you drive a glorious automocar. It's ironic because now all the rich people want to bury his highways underground.
Robert Moses is a great example of the problems of unchecked power and hubris, even if ostensibly well-intentioned. But he absolutely democratized Long Island, which was an idyllic enclave of gigantic estates and private beaches before he built the LIE, Northern and Southern State Parkways, Jones Beach, etc.
He pissed off a lot of rich people in doing this.
What did the trolleys provide that today's bus system does not?
That's an important point overlooked by those who are wistful for trolleys. Buses at least can change routes. Trolleys were from a time when few had cars and spending lots of money on a fixed route was efficient. Now it's not.
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A taxi refusing a fare at all (inside or outside) is against TLC rules and the driver will be fined / have their license suspended if you report them.
The fine is tiny, though.
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This story is one of the big reasons LA (despite the weather) is not a great place to live. It has been unwalkable with a few exceptions. Though public transit is being slowly rebuilt from destruction, talk to most Angelenos and they don't even know there is a subway, much less use it. Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't…
> Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't really understand why such a person would live in Hollywood, for example. Walkscore.com gives Hollywood a Walk Score of 97, which is described as a "Walker's Paradise" which means that daily errands do not require a car, or it gives it an 87, which means most daily errands do not requ…
I'm not familiar with Walkscore.com, but somehow I wonder if they base any of the score on ease of commuting to work.
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Another possibility would be to build all the planned subway extensions in Queens; Brooklyn already has good subway service, and a few more lines connecting the two boroughs would not hurt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IND_Second_System While we are at it, let's actually make use of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockaway_Beach_Branch
Build it? With whose money? The city's finances have been a disaster since 2008 and they've only been scraping by with a series of unsustainable tricks. The next mayor will almost certainly be Bill de Blasio, whose top agenda item is basically to spending a lot more money on the city's unionized labor. (His next agenda item is to revive rent control, because the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act apparently hasn't d…
I must be misunderstanding something. Aren't big public works projects a pretty reliable method for achieving this goal?
> Ever try to get from Brooklyn to Queens, two of the most populated boroughs of New York City? Without a car, it's nearly impossible, as most subway lines require one to go through Manhattan first. Could someone explain this to those of us who have never been to New York and whose only knowledge of its subways comes from TV and movies? The impression I get from subway travel as depicted on TV and in movies is that t…
So even a one-seat ride (no transfer) between the "outer" boroughs through Manhattan could take a really long time. Add in a few connections, and fuhgeddaboutit.
The truly awesome thing about NY subway is that it never closes, except in significant weather emergencies, so even in the dead of the night you can get from A to B, if you have to. It could take an eternity, though.
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This story is one of the big reasons LA (despite the weather) is not a great place to live. It has been unwalkable with a few exceptions. Though public transit is being slowly rebuilt from destruction, talk to most Angelenos and they don't even know there is a subway, much less use it. Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't…
> Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't really understand why such a person would live in Hollywood, for example. Walkscore.com gives Hollywood a Walk Score of 97, which is described as a "Walker's Paradise" which means that daily errands do not require a car, or it gives it an 87, which means most daily errands do not requ…
While Hollywood does have the metro and is largely walkable, other vast areas of it are used solely as surface parking lots that look like urban blight to most folks. Expanding to the rest of LA, I see the same complaints over and over, as if turning asphalt jungle into homes and businesses were a bad thing.
The point of that paragraph was that if a person wants to live in suburbia they should not reside in the center of a mega-city.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fine is tiny, though.
Not really. If I recall correctly, three such reports within two years results in the taxi medallion being revoked.