My previous team was split between Mountain View and New York. We'd travel back and forth. Don't get me wrong: I love the Bay Area. The weather for one thing is simply heaven. We'd often get into debates about this. My argument is that it is cheaper to live in New York than the Bay Area. The main reason for this is that almost anywhere you live in the Bay Area you will have a car. Between car payment, insurance, gas…
You say it's cheaper, then use the example of a $2000 apartment which is an insane amount to pay for housing. Then you (correctly) note that the cheap places are actually really far (and annoying) commutes. BART stations are much cleaner than NYC subway stations, I find the trips much more pleasant. Your startup could also be in SF (not MV) saving you the commute, have you thought about that? Eating fast food Good, h…
Apples to oranges. BART is commuter rail, not transit. Compare BART to Metro North, New Jersey Transit, and the LIRR. NYCT's equivalent is Muni. (My experience is that Muni is pretty clean. But it's often faster to walk than to take Muni.)
Maybe if he jumps out of his building, sprints to the stop, and the subway car just happens to be waiting for him the moment you get there.
Trains on the same tracks run every 2:30 during rush hour. (If you are at a local/express station, then you get a train every minute.)
You have to factor in average wait time (since NY Subways still don't track subway cars like any other good transit system).
All the IRT lines do, as do the B-division lines that have been converted to communication-based train control. Admittedly, you have to be at the station to see the next-train times, which is annoying. But the trains actually do run close to their schedule. (Lately, I've been going home on the train that claims to be at 14th St. at 1:39AM. I've never waited more than four minutes past this time.)
Some of the B-division stations give you an idea of when the next train will come: announcements like "An uptown express train is now at W 4th St."
Even if you can possibly scrape by with less, you're in a culture that actively goes out and pays huge amounts for drinks at bars, measures class by where you live and places you shop
All people are judging you because of the possessions you choose to display. True in New York, true in San Francisco. The only way to overcome it is to not care. If you work for Goldman Sachs then there is probably some culture of pretending to be wealthy. At Google NYC, not so much.
and you'll invariable end up paying some or a lot of money for cabs because of closed subway routes or maybe you just get sick of the dirty, cold subway.
The subway seems about as clean as any other subway in the US. A $2.50 subway ticket buys a lot less cleaning than a $15 commuter rail ticket. Live in the suburbs if everything has to have the appearance of cleanliness. (Manhattan is a lot dirtier than Chicago, though. It's because there's no space for alleys to hide the garbage in.)