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>"Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority acknowledged that the schedules were not being met, and they blamed overcrowding for the shortfall." N

>"Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority acknowledged that the schedules were not being met, and they blamed overcrowding for the shortfall." No, the overcrowding is the effect of the MTA not addressing massive increases in ridership over an almost 20 year period. The MTA likes to pretend publicly that the ridership boom came out of nowhere and blindsided everyone. However the increase in ridership has been occurring and been every since 1998. "Between 1975and 1998, New York City subway ridership hovered between about 900 million and 1 billion riders annually. The net change between the annual ridership in 1975 and 1997 was about 100 million, an average increase of just over 4 million per year. However, 1997 was a turning point for the relatively stagnant ridership growth experienced by New York City’s subway system. In 1998,just after the introduction of the MetroCard, over 137 million more rides were taken than the year before. The boom continued for the next two years, during which time another 181 million rides had been added to the annual total. Over the next 15 years, the system continued to increase its ridership totals at an average of 25 million more rides per year. In 2015, subway rides totaled more than 1.7 billion."[1] To make the current situation with chronically late trains worse there is no way to know when the next train is coming until you have paid for a fare and are standing down on the platform. Little good it does you then to find out that next train is not for 12 or 15 minutes. The MTA could have put the electronic arrival boards up on the street level by the train entrance so that people could make an alternate choice such as to use a Citibike, taxi, bus or even just walk instead. The MTA decided to reserve that space to sell advertising however. Despite their press release you will not find the next arrival times on any of these. See: http://www.mta.info/news/2012/03/29/digital-urban-panels-debut-manhattan-subway-entrances http://www.mta.info/news/2012/03/29/digital-urban-panels-deb... [1] https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/State%20of%20Subway%20Ridership%20-%20Mar717.pdf https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/State%20of...

joatmon-snoo 9y ago
To make the current situation with chronically late trains worse there is no way to know when the next train is coming until you have paid for a fare and are standing down on the platform. Little good it does you then to find out that next train is not for 12 or 15 minutes. SO MUCH THIS. Fortunately, because the MTA has exposed the live schedule data, Google Maps lets you check this (sadly, it isn't 100% reliable: oftentimes a train will claim to have arrived somewhere, or even be departing from a station, while it's still getting there).
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Fortunately, because the MTA has exposed the live schedule data, Google Maps lets you check this (sadly, it isn't 100% reliable: oftentimes a train will claim to have arrived somewhere, or even be departing from a station, while it's still getting there)." Yes and the issue is that the MTA doesn't make the service disruption data available. See: https://medium.com/transit-app/how-were-bringing-real-time-countdowns-to-nyc-s-lettered-lines-482d3b8f9899 https://medium.com/transit-app/how-were-bringing-real-time-c... Why wouldn't you make this data available? Why stop short? Most likely because it would expose just how many unplanned maintenance disruptions there actually are.
  - tacostakohashi 9y ago
    For much the same reasons as not operating all the trains on your schedule, I guess - apathy, incompetence, mismanagement, under-resourcing, etc. It seems odd to expect a transit agency that isn't good at operating trains to be great at providing data.
felipemnoa 9y ago
>>an average increase of just over 4 million per year. However, 1997 was a turning point for the relatively stagnant ridership growth experienced by New York City’s subway system. In 1998,just after the introduction of the MetroCard, over 137 million more rides were taken than the year before. That is a huge change. Frankly, knowing nothing else I would almost be willing to guess that what accounts for the change is better tracking due to the new MetroCard system.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  I think that's unlikely, prior to the card system you needed to purchase a token and drop it in the slot in the turn style so they could still account for ridership. A more likely explanation is that Metro Cards simply made it a better deal since they now allowed you to transfer between the subway and bus on the same fare and they also offered riders unlimited 7 day and unlimited 30 day options. See: http://www.mta.info/news-subway-bus-new-york-city-transit-metrocard/2014/01/06/mtas-metrocard-turns-20 http://www.mta.info/news-subway-bus-new-york-city-transit-me...

joatmon-snoo 9y ago

To make the current situation with chronically late trains worse there is no way to know when the next train is coming until you have paid for a fare and are standing down on the platform. Little good it does you then to find out that next train is not for 12 or 15 minutes. SO MUCH THIS. Fortunately, because the MTA has exposed the live schedule data, Google Maps lets you check this (sadly, it isn't 100% reliable: oftentimes a train will claim to have arrived somewhere, or even be departing from a station, while it's still getting there).

bogomipz 9y ago
>"Fortunately, because the MTA has exposed the live schedule data, Google Maps lets you check this (sadly, it isn't 100% reliable: oftentimes a train will claim to have arrived somewhere, or even be departing from a station, while it's still getting there)." Yes and the issue is that the MTA doesn't make the service disruption data available. See: https://medium.com/transit-app/how-were-bringing-real-time-countdowns-to-nyc-s-lettered-lines-482d3b8f9899 https://medium.com/transit-app/how-were-bringing-real-time-c... Why wouldn't you make this data available? Why stop short? Most likely because it would expose just how many unplanned maintenance disruptions there actually are.
- tacostakohashi 9y ago
  For much the same reasons as not operating all the trains on your schedule, I guess - apathy, incompetence, mismanagement, under-resourcing, etc. It seems odd to expect a transit agency that isn't good at operating trains to be great at providing data.

felipemnoa 9y ago

>>an average increase of just over 4 million per year. However, 1997 was a turning point for the relatively stagnant ridership growth experienced by New York City’s subway system. In 1998,just after the introduction of the MetroCard, over 137 million more rides were taken than the year before. That is a huge change. Frankly, knowing nothing else I would almost be willing to guess that what accounts for the change is better tracking due to the new MetroCard system.

bogomipz 9y ago
I think that's unlikely, prior to the card system you needed to purchase a token and drop it in the slot in the turn style so they could still account for ridership. A more likely explanation is that Metro Cards simply made it a better deal since they now allowed you to transfer between the subway and bus on the same fare and they also offered riders unlimited 7 day and unlimited 30 day options. See: http://www.mta.info/news-subway-bus-new-york-city-transit-metrocard/2014/01/06/mtas-metrocard-turns-20 http://www.mta.info/news-subway-bus-new-york-city-transit-me...