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>[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 h

>[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 ago
So NYC has 7x the number of stations for 5x the number of riders?
- NikolaeVarius 9y ago
  https://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 ago
  The 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.
  - mancerayder 9y ago
    One of the first is a stretch, because the most compared lines were around or before NY's experience. The London Underground had its first line in 1863. Paris, 1900. NY, 1904.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      Maybe we should say "metro system" then, as NYC's first el train was 36 years prior to its first subway. This table has the subway at the world's ninth oldest, which is definitely still one of the oldest considering there's hundreds now: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-oldest-metro-systems.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-oldest-metro...
      - mancerayder 9y ago
        Agreed, although I'd add it's substantially more complicated to dug tunnels under dense cities. The Underground is a substantial feat in that regard. As a tangent, London is adding overground trains as part of its expansion. The Overground is pretty recent (and it shows) as is the fully-automated DLR, and now there's a Crossrail making an appearance. NY hasn't invested in a hell of a lot in overground infrastructure and it feels like that's a logical step in the outer boroughs.
        lhopki01 9y ago
        Crossrail is underground through London. The Overground uses existing rail infrastructure just under direct TFL management so isn't really new. There are a few new sections but they exist only to join up two lines. DLR is possibly the only real example of new overground trains and partly that is because it follows existing rail lines for quite a distance.
  - tokyoguy 9y ago
    not sure what your point was. Tokyo has several subways of a similar styl yet they manage to maintain them, renew, and rebuild while the train is running and stations are in use
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      The point was to explain why the NYC subway system has a relatively high number of stations, in direct reply to someone who was asking why the NYC subway system has a relatively high number of stations. I'm not sure what your point is though.
feiofh398r39rty 9y ago
Moscow metro has 250 stations on 3 times as much area (why did NY get to 750 stations?) and annual ridership of 2.4 billion. Train delays are rare, in my experience maybe one delay of 10 minutes a week (not counting the late night-time when intervals can get to 10 mins).
- BWStearns 9y ago
  Moscow was one of the only places I've spent more than a week riding public transportation and not experienced a delay. Honestly confused as to that particular efficiency given the rest of the city/country's inefficiencies but they're doing something right.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Someone should investigate this. It's really, really strange.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  > Moscow metro has 250 stations on 3 times as much area (why did NY get to 750 stations?) and annual ridership of 2.4 billion. Perhaps area is not a representative metric since you have to factor in population density when deciding where to site stations. Wikipedia says that NYC Subway is 380.2 km (236.2 mi) long while Moscow Metro is 364.9 km (226.7 mi) long, so the two are close in terms of route length. Also, Moscow beats out New York in terms annual ridership: 2.4b vs 1.8b. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List
tokyoguy 9y ago
so compare to Tokyo with ~2100 stations 14 billion annual riders and the trains run on time. NYC has zero excuse
- caminante 9y ago
  Can you provide citation for 2100 stations for Tokyo subway? The wiki says 179 (1/10th your number).[0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro
  - timlod 9y ago
    I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but 'Tokyo Metro' is only a small part of the Tokyo train network. There is also Toei Subway, JR East trains, Minato-Mirai, ...the list goes on. 2100 may work for the entire metropolitan area of greater Tokyo. In any case, the city is massive, extremely well connected by public transport, and services millions of people daily without delay.
    - ajdlinux 9y ago
      Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo#Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo#Rai...) says "There are 882 interconnected rail stations in the Tokyo Metropolis, 282 of which are Subway stations, with several hundred more in each of the 3 surrounding densely populated suburban prefectures. There are 30 operators running 121 passenger rail lines (102 serving Tokyo and 19 more serving Greater Tokyo but not Tokyo's city center itself), excluding about 12 cable cars." I could probably believe the 2,100 number if you include all the surrounding prefectures that are in the broader Tokyo area, and if you count stations multiple times for each railway operator services them (it's not uncommon for a single station in Tokyo to be run by three or five different companies).
      - innocenat 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area#Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area#Rail > There are around 136 individual rail lines in the Greater Tokyo Area, and between 1,000 and 1,200 railway stations depending on one's definition of the area.
stefs 9y ago
well, do all factors scale linearly? if so, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. let's compare it to the subway system of vienna, austria (which is said to have one of the best public transport systems in the world). so here's my personal theory. all numbers - city population count, station numbers, system length and ridership - scale at a pretty much constant factor of 4. there are at least two huge differences though: density - that's ny:28,491/sq mi vs. vie:11,205/sq mi and year of opening is 1904 vs. 1976. i'm pretty sure density is one of the deciding factors here, but let's pretend it's not - as ridership is comparatively lower at 3.99x -, what else might be different is the budget. viennas subway system is excellent but is so far up the curve of diminishing returns that the last few percent of reliability that sets it apart come at a steep price (the city pays with taxes). other factors: vienna has a lot of alternatives in the form of trams and busses (and to a certain extend, trains), which take pressure of the subway. rate of biking is actually low compared to other cities because the public transport system is so good (and cheap). so, some guesses as to why the ny subway system is so much worse: * age: 1904 vs. 1976 - not sure if there's much of a difference as stations, trains and tracks have to be renewed periodically anyway. * density: population density is almost trice as high, but actual ridership scales linearly with the rest * travel distance in a randomized environment with choke points: if you'd assume that entry and exit stations are randomly distributed and the average travel distance is thus 4 times as long, the risk of encountering a malfunction is 4 times as high - and it takes just one to fuck your timetable up. not sure how likely that is, as, i guess, travels tend not to be randomly distributed in real life (i.e. you'll more likely choose a job that's closer to home). * budget: the big question here. is the ny subway public transport system 4 times as expensive as the viennese one? do they employ 4 times as many people? do they have the same level of machinery maintenance?
- hyeonwho3 9y ago
  Many people have written many articles about the NYC subway recently. Because the trains run 24/7, they cannot renovate lines and install advanced train control. Because of the terrible train control, they put simplistic speed limits on trains. Because of all the slow trains the number of passengers per train increases, resulting in more platform delays and medical emergencies.
g_sch 9y ago
I think you may have transposed some digits. According to Wikipedia [0], the NYC Subway has 472 stations. Or 424, depending on how you count. > The official count of stations is 472; however, this tabulation classifies some transfer stations as two or more stations, which are called "station complexes" within the nomenclature of the New York City Subway. If station complexes are counted as one station each, the number of stations is 424. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_stations
- caminante 9y ago
  >I think you may have transposed some digits. I definitely did![0] Should be 472 (as you stated.) Thank you for correcting. [0] http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/ http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/
taobility 9y ago
Shanghai Metro has 393 stations and it's still expanding, with 3.53 billion annual ridership, and it has really rare delay.

berbec 9y ago

So NYC has 7x the number of stations for 5x the number of riders?

NikolaeVarius 9y ago
https://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 ago
The 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.
- mancerayder 9y ago
  One of the first is a stretch, because the most compared lines were around or before NY's experience. The London Underground had its first line in 1863. Paris, 1900. NY, 1904.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    Maybe we should say "metro system" then, as NYC's first el train was 36 years prior to its first subway. This table has the subway at the world's ninth oldest, which is definitely still one of the oldest considering there's hundreds now: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-oldest-metro-systems.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-oldest-metro...
    - mancerayder 9y ago
      Agreed, although I'd add it's substantially more complicated to dug tunnels under dense cities. The Underground is a substantial feat in that regard. As a tangent, London is adding overground trains as part of its expansion. The Overground is pretty recent (and it shows) as is the fully-automated DLR, and now there's a Crossrail making an appearance. NY hasn't invested in a hell of a lot in overground infrastructure and it feels like that's a logical step in the outer boroughs.
      - lhopki01 9y ago
        Crossrail is underground through London. The Overground uses existing rail infrastructure just under direct TFL management so isn't really new. There are a few new sections but they exist only to join up two lines. DLR is possibly the only real example of new overground trains and partly that is because it follows existing rail lines for quite a distance.
- tokyoguy 9y ago
  not sure what your point was. Tokyo has several subways of a similar styl yet they manage to maintain them, renew, and rebuild while the train is running and stations are in use
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    The point was to explain why the NYC subway system has a relatively high number of stations, in direct reply to someone who was asking why the NYC subway system has a relatively high number of stations. I'm not sure what your point is though.

feiofh398r39rty 9y ago

Moscow metro has 250 stations on 3 times as much area (why did NY get to 750 stations?) and annual ridership of 2.4 billion. Train delays are rare, in my experience maybe one delay of 10 minutes a week (not counting the late night-time when intervals can get to 10 mins).

BWStearns 9y ago
Moscow was one of the only places I've spent more than a week riding public transportation and not experienced a delay. Honestly confused as to that particular efficiency given the rest of the city/country's inefficiencies but they're doing something right.
- jacobush 9y ago
  Someone should investigate this. It's really, really strange.
sah2ed 9y ago
> Moscow metro has 250 stations on 3 times as much area (why did NY get to 750 stations?) and annual ridership of 2.4 billion. Perhaps area is not a representative metric since you have to factor in population density when deciding where to site stations. Wikipedia says that NYC Subway is 380.2 km (236.2 mi) long while Moscow Metro is 364.9 km (226.7 mi) long, so the two are close in terms of route length. Also, Moscow beats out New York in terms annual ridership: 2.4b vs 1.8b. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List

tokyoguy 9y ago

so compare to Tokyo with ~2100 stations 14 billion annual riders and the trains run on time. NYC has zero excuse

caminante 9y ago
Can you provide citation for 2100 stations for Tokyo subway? The wiki says 179 (1/10th your number).[0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro
- timlod 9y ago
  I'm not sure about the exact numbers, but 'Tokyo Metro' is only a small part of the Tokyo train network. There is also Toei Subway, JR East trains, Minato-Mirai, ...the list goes on. 2100 may work for the entire metropolitan area of greater Tokyo. In any case, the city is massive, extremely well connected by public transport, and services millions of people daily without delay.
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo#Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo#Rai...) says "There are 882 interconnected rail stations in the Tokyo Metropolis, 282 of which are Subway stations, with several hundred more in each of the 3 surrounding densely populated suburban prefectures. There are 30 operators running 121 passenger rail lines (102 serving Tokyo and 19 more serving Greater Tokyo but not Tokyo's city center itself), excluding about 12 cable cars." I could probably believe the 2,100 number if you include all the surrounding prefectures that are in the broader Tokyo area, and if you count stations multiple times for each railway operator services them (it's not uncommon for a single station in Tokyo to be run by three or five different companies).
    - innocenat 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area#Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area#Rail > There are around 136 individual rail lines in the Greater Tokyo Area, and between 1,000 and 1,200 railway stations depending on one's definition of the area.

stefs 9y ago

well, do all factors scale linearly? if so, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. let's compare it to the subway system of vienna, austria (which is said to have one of the best public transport systems in the world). so here's my personal theory. all numbers - city population count, station numbers, system length and ridership - scale at a pretty much constant factor of 4. there are at least two huge differences though: density - that's ny:28,491/sq mi vs. vie:11,205/sq mi and year of opening is 1904 vs. 1976. i'm pretty sure density is one of the deciding factors here, but let's pretend it's not - as ridership is comparatively lower at 3.99x -, what else might be different is the budget. viennas subway system is excellent but is so far up the curve of diminishing returns that the last few percent of reliability that sets it apart come at a steep price (the city pays with taxes). other factors: vienna has a lot of alternatives in the form of trams and busses (and to a certain extend, trains), which take pressure of the subway. rate of biking is actually low compared to other cities because the public transport system is so good (and cheap). so, some guesses as to why the ny subway system is so much worse: * age: 1904 vs. 1976 - not sure if there's much of a difference as stations, trains and tracks have to be renewed periodically anyway. * density: population density is almost trice as high, but actual ridership scales linearly with the rest * travel distance in a randomized environment with choke points: if you'd assume that entry and exit stations are randomly distributed and the average travel distance is thus 4 times as long, the risk of encountering a malfunction is 4 times as high - and it takes just one to fuck your timetable up. not sure how likely that is, as, i guess, travels tend not to be randomly distributed in real life (i.e. you'll more likely choose a job that's closer to home). * budget: the big question here. is the ny subway public transport system 4 times as expensive as the viennese one? do they employ 4 times as many people? do they have the same level of machinery maintenance?

hyeonwho3 9y ago
Many people have written many articles about the NYC subway recently. Because the trains run 24/7, they cannot renovate lines and install advanced train control. Because of the terrible train control, they put simplistic speed limits on trains. Because of all the slow trains the number of passengers per train increases, resulting in more platform delays and medical emergencies.

g_sch 9y ago

I think you may have transposed some digits. According to Wikipedia [0], the NYC Subway has 472 stations. Or 424, depending on how you count. > The official count of stations is 472; however, this tabulation classifies some transfer stations as two or more stations, which are called "station complexes" within the nomenclature of the New York City Subway. If station complexes are counted as one station each, the number of stations is 424. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_stations

caminante 9y ago
>I think you may have transposed some digits. I definitely did![0] Should be 472 (as you stated.) Thank you for correcting. [0] http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/ http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/

taobility 9y ago

Shanghai Metro has 393 stations and it's still expanding, with 3.53 billion annual ridership, and it has really rare delay.