4 ms·

Right because MTA isn't an old broken down mess (I read too many articles about this and I don't even live near NYC)

azemetre 9y ago
It's vastly easier to fix an already established public transit system than implement a new one in the United States. I honestly doubt another subway system will be built in a new city within the next decade, which is pathetic for other reasons.
verylittlemeat 9y ago
I live in NYC and take the trains and buses everyday. There is a huge gulf between being occasionally inconvenienced and just having no other option. Some people get so obsessed with NYC public transport they completely miss the big picture. Yeah your train may be 10 minutes delayed but at least there is a train. The perfect is the enemy of the good. The messy complexity of real life ( including corrupt politicians) is never going to look like something you dreamed up in sim city.
geofft 9y ago
That's just because we have high expectations. Having lived in both the Bay Area and NYC, in NYC we generally expect the MTA to work reliably, frequently, and 24/7, because it usually does. In the Bay Area I had no such expectations: I knew there were trips I just couldn't make by transit in a reasonable fashion, and other trips that I couldn't make quickly. So when the transit systems failed to deliver, I wasn't actually disappointed. For instance, my current commute from voice lessons in the Upper West Side to my apartment in Brooklyn (about 9 miles) is one 30-minute train ride, with a train arriving at least every 5 minutes, plus a 5-minute walk on each side. I'm disappointed when that train doesn't go to Brooklyn on weekends because of construction or something, and I need to make one transfer to another train that also comes within about a minute of me getting to the transfer station. My voice lessons in SF were in Diamond Heights, under 3 miles from my apartment in the Mission. All the commute options involved a bus that comes every half hour, and getting to that bus involved either a transfer from another bus, or walking 15 minutes to take BART one stop. So I would just take a Lyft or a ZipCar, and if the every-half-hour bus wasn't running that day, I wouldn't even notice because I didn't consider it an option. (Sometimes for the return trip I would walk >20 minutes downhill to Glen Park BART, but it's too steep to be a reasonable commute uphill.) And then I moved to Oakland and gave up on going to voice lessons entirely. Both the MTA and the Bay Area transit systems have plenty of room for improvement. The difference is that we think that improvement to the MTA is politically realistic, that covering the city with good, reliable transit is within the realm of possibility because we're so close to being there. That's why we make more noise in NYC. In SF, it didn't feel like there was a point.

It's vastly easier to fix an already established public transit system than implement a new one in the United States. I honestly doubt another subway system will be built in a new city within the next decade, which is pathetic for other reasons.

verylittlemeat 9y ago

I live in NYC and take the trains and buses everyday. There is a huge gulf between being occasionally inconvenienced and just having no other option. Some people get so obsessed with NYC public transport they completely miss the big picture. Yeah your train may be 10 minutes delayed but at least there is a train. The perfect is the enemy of the good. The messy complexity of real life ( including corrupt politicians) is never going to look like something you dreamed up in sim city.

geofft 9y ago

That's just because we have high expectations. Having lived in both the Bay Area and NYC, in NYC we generally expect the MTA to work reliably, frequently, and 24/7, because it usually does. In the Bay Area I had no such expectations: I knew there were trips I just couldn't make by transit in a reasonable fashion, and other trips that I couldn't make quickly. So when the transit systems failed to deliver, I wasn't actually disappointed. For instance, my current commute from voice lessons in the Upper West Side to my apartment in Brooklyn (about 9 miles) is one 30-minute train ride, with a train arriving at least every 5 minutes, plus a 5-minute walk on each side. I'm disappointed when that train doesn't go to Brooklyn on weekends because of construction or something, and I need to make one transfer to another train that also comes within about a minute of me getting to the transfer station. My voice lessons in SF were in Diamond Heights, under 3 miles from my apartment in the Mission. All the commute options involved a bus that comes every half hour, and getting to that bus involved either a transfer from another bus, or walking 15 minutes to take BART one stop. So I would just take a Lyft or a ZipCar, and if the every-half-hour bus wasn't running that day, I wouldn't even notice because I didn't consider it an option. (Sometimes for the return trip I would walk >20 minutes downhill to Glen Park BART, but it's too steep to be a reasonable commute uphill.) And then I moved to Oakland and gave up on going to voice lessons entirely. Both the MTA and the Bay Area transit systems have plenty of room for improvement. The difference is that we think that improvement to the MTA is politically realistic, that covering the city with good, reliable transit is within the realm of possibility because we're so close to being there. That's why we make more noise in NYC. In SF, it didn't feel like there was a point.