How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC? • Hacker News Board

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#181

Post by flyinghamster » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

telesilla wrote: post #83

Tade0 wrote: post #11

I'm of the opinion that every 500k+ city should have a subway line. I grew up in a city with one (just one for the majority of my 20 years there) and if there's one thing I miss from that place it's the ability to move at an average speed of 35km/h at any time the trains were operating, especially at 2am on a Friday night after a couple of beers with the guys. The other thing I noticed when I was visiting my family t…

If not a subway at least some form of transport that won't get stuck in gridlock. Three examples I can think of are the Wuppertal suspension railway, Las Vegas monorail (though more of a tourist pull than for the locals) and the dedicated Metrobus lanes in Mexico City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Monorail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Metrob%…

In Chicago, the "L" network also has stretches that run down expressway medians, along with the elevated lines and the subway sections downtown.

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#182

Post by bobthepanda » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

RhysU wrote: post #78

llamaimperative wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then landowners who were “smart” enough to own land where this ends up going in get to reap all the financial upside, instead of the public which actually invested in that infrastructure. Just imagine if the public could capture the (financial) upside it produces, then it could apply that money to do the same thing down the road, then do the same thing again down the road further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He…

> Just imagine if the public could capture the (financial) upside it produces... Like through taxes on the sale of the property or the increased business income it produces? The public will.

In a lot of places, due to tax revolts there are now property tax caps which effectively prevent this from happening.

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#183

Post by 42772827 » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:43 PM UTC

xvedejas wrote: post #15

Tade0 wrote: post #11

I'm of the opinion that every 500k+ city should have a subway line. I grew up in a city with one (just one for the majority of my 20 years there) and if there's one thing I miss from that place it's the ability to move at an average speed of 35km/h at any time the trains were operating, especially at 2am on a Friday night after a couple of beers with the guys. The other thing I noticed when I was visiting my family t…

I'm of the opinion that it depends on density. You could build a subway line in some US cities of 1M and nobody would ride it; you could build a subway line in a city of 50k and everyone would ride it. It depends on whether there is density to support walking directly to many things (businesses, residences, and other transit lines) or not.

Building a subway system after the city is so dense that it will be ridden by “enough” people is exactly the wrong way to create livable urban spaces.

Building a subway is the solution to inducing density, not responding to it.

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#184

Post by wgerard » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:59 PM UTC

acomjean wrote: post #141

jpalawaga wrote: post #46

Something here is not quite right. For example, if you look at the 7th ave line (red line/1,2,3) 18th street and 14th street have similar radii. But anyone knows that 14th street is much more convenient because it's triply serviced by the 1,2,3 with 2,3 being express trains. 18th street is serviced by one train the runs locally. This ignores that you could easily switch to the L, A/C/E, F/M with a short walk. Still,…

Does it include the express trains? (those trains that skip a bunch of stops on certain lines, so they can go faster like the 2) I couldn't figure that out. I remember when I was in NY those trains really moved. https://mta.info/map/5346

I think it includes transfers and express lines. I noticed if I click on a local stop that meets an express line somewhere, the express line stops are still quite a bit darker than other stops.

That's likely why 18th and 14th street are so similar: It only takes a minute or two to get from 18th st -> 14th st.

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#185

Post by CalRobert » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 3:07 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #163

CalRobert wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the ideal scenario you build the subway or other transit when density is low and land is relatively cheap, and THEN you make it high density. Doing it after the fact is much, much harder.

> In the ideal scenario you build the subway or other transit when density is low and land is relatively cheap, and THEN you make it high density Do we have examples of this working? (Genuine question.)

Definitely! Here’s a video with some discussion

https://youtu.be/MnyeRlMsTgI?t=667&si=g-xwXEjLPPobUkzy

There’s photos of subway stops in random fields in china that sometimes get laughs but in actuality china is just smart enough to build the subway and THEN the buildings.

Meanwhile Japanese rail companies own land where they build rail and can make more money on the land than on the trains

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#186

Post by CalRobert » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 3:09 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #164

CalRobert wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the ideal scenario you build the subway or other transit when density is low and land is relatively cheap, and THEN you make it high density. Doing it after the fact is much, much harder.

You don't decide to make things high density out of the blue. People have to WANT to live there.

Well yes, one clear indicator of that is where homes are expensive. Like in places with great transit and amenities.

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#187

Post by ta1243 » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 3:26 PM UTC

balderdash wrote: post #70

acjohnson55 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make much more sense for it to be unified with the MTA subway, with more connectivity. My dream would be a single seat ride from Newark Airport to Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn, via Newark Penn Station and World Trade Center. There was also once a proposal to have the 7 train go out to Seacaucus Junction, which would be huge for accessing the East Side for NJers.

It blows my mind there isn’t the equivalent of the Heathrow express in nyc (even if it was just a regular express train subway)

Taxi companies don't like rail going to US airports. With JFK you have to take one train, then change, then another train, then you're at the equivalent of Paddington. Would be like having to change at Hayes+Harlington. Luton has this, but that's the odd one.

From Newark I think it's a bus to a train station, then a train to NY Penn.

The "default" way to get from Heathrow/Gatwick/Stansted to London is a train from the terminal to the centre, typically multiple options.

The default way in the US is taxi. Massively inefficient, but a lot of people make a lot of money from it. Why have a plane load of people on a single train costing $5k, when you can have 200 taxis costing $20k, generating 4 times the GDP.

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#188

Post by bobthepanda » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 3:59 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #158

RhysU wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just imagine if the public could capture the (financial) upside it produces... Like through taxes on the sale of the property or the increased business income it produces? The public will.

> Like through taxes on the sale of the property That just encourages corporate ownership of property (unless you mitigate that), but overall I don’t know why we’d disincentivize moving closer to a new workplace or into a smaller home once it will do for you.

It also disincentivizes speculation, which is just a flurry of repeated transactions.

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#189

Post by danvk » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

We built a visualization along these lines at Sidewalk Labs back in 2017. It's open source if you're interested in playing around with it: https://github.com/sidewalklabs/router

I particularly liked the multimodal comparison feature. It lets you answer questions like "where does the bus help me get to faster than the subway?" (Answer: basically nowhere.)

Re: How far can you get in 40 minutes from each subway station in NYC?

#190

Post by Scoundreller » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 6:05 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #188

Scoundreller wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like through taxes on the sale of the property That just encourages corporate ownership of property (unless you mitigate that), but overall I don’t know why we’d disincentivize moving closer to a new workplace or into a smaller home once it will do for you.

It also disincentivizes speculation, which is just a flurry of repeated transactions.

Spec can be loooooong term, even longer than natural person