These comments happen all the time, and represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the NYC subway system is for. Namely, getting truly massive numbers of

These comments happen all the time, and represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the NYC subway system is for. Namely, getting truly massive numbers of people (typically 5-6 million per day) to places they need to go quickly, completely around the clock. You can compare apples to staplers by comparing it to other systems that don't do that, but that misses the point. When one actually moves here you start to realize just how the whole thing works, and realize that systems that close at night, or don't have express trains, are just hopelessly inferior and not a valid basis for comparison.