10 ms·
It's interesting seeing the ways people work around this, even for people who don't have hard start/end times (e.g. tech employees). I have one friend who uses
by wgerard 9y ago
It's interesting seeing the ways people work around this, even for people who don't have hard start/end times (e.g. tech employees).
I have one friend who uses Citi Bike to get to important meetings < 30 blocks away, because they don't trust the subway to get them there on time (and during peak hours, cabs are even slower). I have another who goes pretty far out of their way to avoid the more troublesome lines (the F, specifically). Some have started using the bus much more regularly, because at least the bus doesn't break down for an hour at a time. One manager I know just stopped scheduling any meetings before 11, because they got tired of having people miss meetings or come in late because of the trains.
I think people who don't live in the city don't realize how (relatively) stressful it can be when the trains are late. Riding the train during peak hours is already a pretty stressful experience: The sardine analogy is very real, and it's fairly common for trains to be so packed that I literally don't have room to even put my phone in front of my face (let alone a book or anything else) to pass the time.
Now imagine that, but the train platform is also similarly packed. And people are fighting (sometimes literally) to get onto the packed train. And you'll have to wait for 2-3 trains to pass, because there's no empty space on the trains. And you're late, and you have no idea when you'll get to where you're going because the train ETA board just says "Delay". And when you need to get off the train, you'll have to just pray that people make room for you or you'll have to really force your way through the crowd on your way out.
- m_ke 9y agoI just work from home most days now because of how bad it has gotten. I had to move back to Queens a few months ago near where I grew up and the trip to SoHo that used to take at most 45 minutes is now 60-90 min. A few times I was stuck on the E for around 2.5 hours. Living in the outer boroughs has become a huge disadvantage.
- closeparen 9y agoEven 45 minutes is an enormous amount of commute time for a normal American city. Twice the median. Coastal megacities may be dense in space, but seem to be less dense in travel time than standard Midwestern sprawl.
- chaosbutters314 9y agolol, I can drive from bear mountain to downtown manhattan in 60-90 minutes. Usually that involves finding a carefully chosen parking garage and walking fast, but still quick and painless
- m_ke 9y agoYeah, I'm stuck taking the bus to the E/F, which from what I've heard are the most delayed lines in the city. They also make for a great homeless shelter because they are one of the longer routes and never go above ground. I've had mornings where the first 4-5 cars where full of sleeping homeless people. It's almost as bad as every other street in SF.
- bradleyjg 9y agoThe LIRR is more expensive but it may be worth it. You still have to get from Penn to Soho but at least you have line options.
- CydeWeys 9y agoI purposely live within easy biking distance of the office for this reason, which I'll admit is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Fortunately tech pays well. Between my own bike and Citi Bike I can get everywhere I need to without relying on any form of mass transportation. Biking is frequently the fastest form of transportation, depending start/end point of the trip anyway. It certainly is for my daily commute.
- skeleton 9y agoWhile there are very strong benefits to commuting on a bicycle, a motorcycle will likely be the faster method of commute transport. Although this is probably dependent on your local laws and how much you abide by those laws, as I know lane filtering and such is illegal in a lot of the US.
- CydeWeys 9y agoNot in Manhattan though, and definitely not along my commute. Motorcycles are about as slow as the cars. There isn't room for a full motorcycle to filter through the narrow space between the row of parked cars and the line of slow-moving traffic. Hell, sometimes there's barely room to slip through on a bicycle. And it's flat out illegal for motorcyclists to ride in the bike lane. But yeah, this is more of a special case than generally applicable to most places. On your typical suburban commute you can definitely save time by filtering between rows of parked cars at lights. That just doesn't work here very well.
- nasredin 9y agoAren't all lanes in US of a minimum width? IIRC only California allows lane splitting. So this is a legal issue as well.
- ebragg09 9y agoA minimum width lane really doesn't leave enough room to lane split. It works in places like California because they have significantly wider lanes than the minimum required almost everywhere.
- binxbolling 9y agoPretty good description of the T in Boston as well.
- crag 9y agoWhen I lived in NYC.. lived in Chelsea. Used to walk down to the WTC, to work. Was also one of the few in the office who lived in Manhattan. Everyone else was either Long Island or Jersey. So when bad weather hit, I had no excuse.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y agoReading this doubly reinforces how good it is in Sweden where I live now. While trains and buses are notoriously delayed (somewhat frequently), I can look on a phone app and tell when the next one will arrive +- 1 minute. It’s no Switzerland or Japan, but it’s what a reasonably well run system looks like.
- caminante 9y ago>[Sweden's public transit is] no Switzerland or Japan, but it’s what a reasonably well run system looks like. Comparing Sweden to NYC isn't fair. NYC Subway has ~742 stations (v. ~100 in Stockholm) and 1,756M in annual ridership (v. ~328M in Stockholm). This is just for the subway and excludes NY transit bus ridership.
- berbec 9y agoSo NYC has 7x the number of stations for 5x the number of riders?
- NikolaeVarius 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway Quick Wiki search indicates NYC has about 1,112 km of rail vs Stockholms 105.7 km. So about 8-9 times the distance
- CydeWeys 9y agoThe New York City subway system is old, one of the first in the world. It's not built to modern standards; in a lot of places it was built by cut-and-cover, which means excavating the entire route along the subway and then rebuilding the road essentially as a roof above the subway line. As a result of this lineage it also has quite frequent stops, which are easy to put in when the subway is just a stairway's height beneath the street. To give you an idea, the 1 line stops at 14th, 18th, 23rd, 28th, and 34th Streets. That's five stops in one mile.
- personlurking 9y agoThe other day, I had to take the wrong train in the wrong direction, and switch to another wrong train in the right direction (which only operated this way on that day). It was so counterintuitive that I spent 2 hours or more trying to figure all this out, reading signs, asking station agents and listening to announcements.
- Eridrus 9y agoI live on the F, it's not so bad if you don't have hard start times and can afford to get a car when shit goes real bad. Definitely not something to shrug off for others, but I thinks it's largely a non-issue if you're in tech.
- mayukh 9y agoOfftopic: Audible. Big fan. Perfect for commutes and a lot of situations where having a book/device in front of you is not an option.
- taobility 9y agoThat's another question? Why there is no cell reception in NYC subway? Isn't very common in other countries?
- mpweiher 9y ago> I think people who don't live in the city don't > realize how (relatively) stressful it can be > when the trains are late. So much this. I always thought that the typical characterization of Germany, "the trains run on time" was a put down for how boring and uptight we are. Then I lived in places where the trains do not run on time. Oh my god. Whenever I travelled back to Berlin, I wanted to hug the BVG employees.
- majewsky 9y ago> Whenever I travelled back to Berlin, I wanted to hug the BVG employees. #weilwirdichlieben ;) And of course, everything is relative. German trains are fairly punctual (although there is this famous saying, "the German railway has four enemies: spring, summer, autumn and winter"), but Swiss trains are even more punctual. Not sure if it's true, but I've been told that when the trains depart at Zurich Central at the top of the hour, the power frequency graph makes a small dent because of all the train engines drawing power at the same time.
- mpweiher 9y agoAbsolutely. Public transport in Switzerland is awesome. Not just because of how well it works, but how it is accepted by all. Bankers in Zürich hop on the tram just like everyone else.
- s3nnyy 9y agoAlso, millionaires and politicians use the public transport. But it is unfair to compare Switzerland with other countries due to neutrality, history etc.
- eanzenberg 9y agoAlso strict immigration policies.
- s3nnyy 9y ago