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> Critics say it is bad service that is driving people away. One datapoint: I live in Rhode Island. Recently I attended a concert in Brooklyn. The obvious way

> Critics say it is bad service that is driving people away. One datapoint: I live in Rhode Island. Recently I attended a concert in Brooklyn. The obvious way to travel there was Amtrak to Penn Station and MTA (train or bus) to the final destination. However, I was warned that MTA service is unreliable. I decided to drive. Next time I probably won't go at all.

dionidium 8y ago
That's really silly and a sign of how overblown this story has become (in some contexts). You would have been fine. When a system like the NYC Subway gets 20% worse for everyday commuters, that's a really big deal and something those commuters are going to talk about a lot. But a NYC Subway that's 20% worse than it was 10 years ago is still a massive, complex, incredible, useful machine, no matter how much New Yorkers complain about it. And, so, should they complain? Yeah! There's nothing wrong with expecting more from the MTA. But these stories are generating comments like yours here and that's absurd.
- ricardoreis 8y ago
  A NYC Subway that's 20% worse than it was 10 years ago By what metric?
  - BorgHunter 8y ago
    On-time performance has dropped dramatically in the past ten years. In the following article, look for the graph titled, "On-time performance by line, 2007 to 2017". https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw...
    - ricardoreis 8y ago
      Thanks very much for the link. But eyeballing that chart suggests an average deterioration significantly worse than 20 percent.
  - dionidium 8y ago
    Delays, primarily. Overcrowding, secondarily.
    - ricardoreis 8y ago
      Numbers, please. (That's what "metric" means, btw).
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - throwaway427 8y ago
        Numbers may not tell the whole story, obviously: https://outline.com/KLsxf3 https://outline.com/KLsxf3
        dionidium 8y ago
        Yes, and it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes of thinking about the issues to realize that most of the commentary on the topic makes very little sense. Experiential measurements aren't so easily calculated, I'd say. Just a few examples: - Would you rather have a train that arrives one minute late every single day, for a 0% on-time record, or a train that arrives on time 3 out of every 5 times and then is 20 minutes late the other two? How many articles on the subway distinguish between the two types of lateness? It matters a lot. - You might read that Atlanta's MARTA, for example, has a better on-time performance record than the NYC Subway. Well, that's great, but it's also got rush-hour scheduled headways of 10 minutes, scheduled off-peak headways of 20 minutes or more, and no service entirely at many stations after 9PM (no trains run at all after 2AM). So something that's "late" in New York City still comes before the scheduled train in Atlanta (when the trains there come at all). [0] - The NYC Subway also has 10 times as many stations as MARTA and 17 times as many miles of track. They say the best camera is the one you have on you. Something like that applies here, too. What's the on-time record for a train that doesn't exist? MARTA is a random comparison, but it's not uncommon for writers of screeds about the subway to offer up comparisons to other systems devoid of any of the kind of context I provide above. So, you know: 1) comparisons are difficult; 2) especially if you want to capture what it's actually like to use transit in the cities you're comparing. All of which is to support my original contention that this story has been decontextualized by surly commuters and the idea that a tourist couldn't rely on the subway to get to a concert is nonsense. [0] https://www.itsmarta.com/railline-schedules.aspx https://www.itsmarta.com/railline-schedules.aspx
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
ricardoreis 8y ago
Apparently the commenter isn't much of a city person, and may have overreacted a bit. But they shouldn't have been downvoted for expressing that sentiment.
bunderbunder 8y ago
So, I haven't been to New York in a while, but I'm guessing that you were poorly informed. Usually when public transit networks start showing strain, it's during rush hours, when they're handling massive spikes in ridership. To give an example from Chicago: If you're trying to get on the train downtown at 6:00pm, you'll get on the next train, and probably get to sit in a seat. If you try to do it at 5:00pm, you stand a good chance of waiting 30 minutes for a train that you can even physically get on to. When you do, your ride will probably also take 50% longer than the 6pm ride would have. And maybe even 100% longer than a ride at 7pm would have. You naturally get all the complaints from the rush hour riders. And yeah, if your concert were starting at 6 in the evening so that you'd have to brave rush hour traffic, then that would be a problem. But so would driving. If, like most concerts, it was starting a bit later, you'd very likely have experienced smooth service.
- weberc2 8y ago
  > If you're trying to get on the train downtown at 6:00pm, you'll get on the next train, and probably get to sit in a seat. If you try to do it at 5:00pm, you stand a good chance of waiting 30 minutes for a train that you can even physically get on to. What line are you describing? I take the L every day from downtown around 5 and I can reliably get on the first train and it will arrive in < 10 minutes (and there's a good chance I'll have a seat). If a train takes more than 10 minutes, it will almost certainly be packed full, but it will also almost certainly be followed by another nearly-empty train in ~1-2 minutes.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    The example I had in mind was blue line northbound from Clark & Lake. Which is admittedly the worst scenario that I could think of, and I should have said that. It gets better quickly from there. I used to get on 2 stops further south, and, yeah, at 5 I usually had no problems and a decent chance of getting a seat, too.
    - _asummers 8y ago
      Blue Line north at 5-5:30PM is a nightmare from Clark/Lake. I sometimes have to wait for 4-5 trains before I can get on.
umanwizard 8y ago
Why not just go to Penn Station planning on taking the train to the final destination, then Uber on the off chance there ends of being a problem with the train? The MTA has problems, but it still usually gets you where you need to go.

dionidium 8y ago

That's really silly and a sign of how overblown this story has become (in some contexts). You would have been fine. When a system like the NYC Subway gets 20% worse for everyday commuters, that's a really big deal and something those commuters are going to talk about a lot. But a NYC Subway that's 20% worse than it was 10 years ago is still a massive, complex, incredible, useful machine, no matter how much New Yorkers complain about it. And, so, should they complain? Yeah! There's nothing wrong with expecting more from the MTA. But these stories are generating comments like yours here and that's absurd.

ricardoreis 8y ago
A NYC Subway that's 20% worse than it was 10 years ago By what metric?
- BorgHunter 8y ago
  On-time performance has dropped dramatically in the past ten years. In the following article, look for the graph titled, "On-time performance by line, 2007 to 2017". https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw...
  - ricardoreis 8y ago
    Thanks very much for the link. But eyeballing that chart suggests an average deterioration significantly worse than 20 percent.
- dionidium 8y ago
  Delays, primarily. Overcrowding, secondarily.
  - ricardoreis 8y ago
    Numbers, please. (That's what "metric" means, btw).
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway427 8y ago
      Numbers may not tell the whole story, obviously: https://outline.com/KLsxf3 https://outline.com/KLsxf3
      - dionidium 8y ago
        Yes, and it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes of thinking about the issues to realize that most of the commentary on the topic makes very little sense. Experiential measurements aren't so easily calculated, I'd say. Just a few examples: - Would you rather have a train that arrives one minute late every single day, for a 0% on-time record, or a train that arrives on time 3 out of every 5 times and then is 20 minutes late the other two? How many articles on the subway distinguish between the two types of lateness? It matters a lot. - You might read that Atlanta's MARTA, for example, has a better on-time performance record than the NYC Subway. Well, that's great, but it's also got rush-hour scheduled headways of 10 minutes, scheduled off-peak headways of 20 minutes or more, and no service entirely at many stations after 9PM (no trains run at all after 2AM). So something that's "late" in New York City still comes before the scheduled train in Atlanta (when the trains there come at all). [0] - The NYC Subway also has 10 times as many stations as MARTA and 17 times as many miles of track. They say the best camera is the one you have on you. Something like that applies here, too. What's the on-time record for a train that doesn't exist? MARTA is a random comparison, but it's not uncommon for writers of screeds about the subway to offer up comparisons to other systems devoid of any of the kind of context I provide above. So, you know: 1) comparisons are difficult; 2) especially if you want to capture what it's actually like to use transit in the cities you're comparing. All of which is to support my original contention that this story has been decontextualized by surly commuters and the idea that a tourist couldn't rely on the subway to get to a concert is nonsense. [0] https://www.itsmarta.com/railline-schedules.aspx https://www.itsmarta.com/railline-schedules.aspx
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

ricardoreis 8y ago

Apparently the commenter isn't much of a city person, and may have overreacted a bit. But they shouldn't have been downvoted for expressing that sentiment.

bunderbunder 8y ago

So, I haven't been to New York in a while, but I'm guessing that you were poorly informed. Usually when public transit networks start showing strain, it's during rush hours, when they're handling massive spikes in ridership. To give an example from Chicago: If you're trying to get on the train downtown at 6:00pm, you'll get on the next train, and probably get to sit in a seat. If you try to do it at 5:00pm, you stand a good chance of waiting 30 minutes for a train that you can even physically get on to. When you do, your ride will probably also take 50% longer than the 6pm ride would have. And maybe even 100% longer than a ride at 7pm would have. You naturally get all the complaints from the rush hour riders. And yeah, if your concert were starting at 6 in the evening so that you'd have to brave rush hour traffic, then that would be a problem. But so would driving. If, like most concerts, it was starting a bit later, you'd very likely have experienced smooth service.

weberc2 8y ago
> If you're trying to get on the train downtown at 6:00pm, you'll get on the next train, and probably get to sit in a seat. If you try to do it at 5:00pm, you stand a good chance of waiting 30 minutes for a train that you can even physically get on to. What line are you describing? I take the L every day from downtown around 5 and I can reliably get on the first train and it will arrive in < 10 minutes (and there's a good chance I'll have a seat). If a train takes more than 10 minutes, it will almost certainly be packed full, but it will also almost certainly be followed by another nearly-empty train in ~1-2 minutes.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  The example I had in mind was blue line northbound from Clark & Lake. Which is admittedly the worst scenario that I could think of, and I should have said that. It gets better quickly from there. I used to get on 2 stops further south, and, yeah, at 5 I usually had no problems and a decent chance of getting a seat, too.
  - _asummers 8y ago
    Blue Line north at 5-5:30PM is a nightmare from Clark/Lake. I sometimes have to wait for 4-5 trains before I can get on.

umanwizard 8y ago

Why not just go to Penn Station planning on taking the train to the final destination, then Uber on the off chance there ends of being a problem with the train? The MTA has problems, but it still usually gets you where you need to go.