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This claim I found really confusing. The subway has been more crowded the last 5 years than I've ever seen it; that's an anecdote of course, but if you search "

This claim I found really confusing. The subway has been more crowded the last 5 years than I've ever seen it; that's an anecdote of course, but if you search "NYC subway crowding," you'll see the MTA has been claiming that the subway is more crowded than ever these days. Not sure how they explain that discrepancy. As for the alternative options like Lyft and Uber they mentioned, those are only viable for privileged upper middle class commuters, so it really can't go that far to explain a claimed drop in ridership. And it's just crass to claim that there's a statistically measurable number of fare jumpers.

adameast9000 8y ago
The 60 minutes video posted in another comment claimed that ridership was near a 70 year high, I believe EDIT: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mta-why-has-the-nyc-subway-gone-off-the-rails-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mta-why-has-the-nyc-subway-gone...
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
And it's just crass to claim that there's a statistically measurable number of fare jumpers. Genuine question: why is that? I'm not familiar with the mechanics of the NYC Metro area, but I'm familiar with SF's BART, which certainly claims to have statistics on this -- about 22,000 fare jumps a day, as compared to around 433,000 trips per weekday, meaning about 5% of riders are freeloaders. (They claim this costs about $25M a year.) The San Francisco Chronicle did their own reporting on this, and at the very least it backed up the assertion there were a statistically measurable number of fare jumpers.
- iknowstuff 8y ago
  Ahh those extrapolations. Just like MPAA and their piracy spiel. Multiply 22`000 * 365 days * $3 and you get their $25M. Except a lot of those people simply would never pay the actual fare and the cost of moving additional weight is negligible, so the number is way inflated.
  - lwf 8y ago
    They wouldn't pay the full fare anyways? Would they... take cheaper transportation?
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    You're comparing people who pirate media that they'd never have actually bought to... people who take BART trips for free that they've never have taken otherwise? You're going to have to work harder to make this comparison work for me, sorry.
puzzle 8y ago
I suspect a lot of the decrease happens at night. Late trains are a bit of a Russian roulette. If you're going from Brooklyn to upper Manhattan, it might be faster and more reliable to share a car with friends or strangers.
chucksmash 8y ago
"The subway has been more crowded the last 5 years than I've ever seen it" There was an article in the New York Times in May, titled "How 2 M.T.A. Decisions Pushed the Subway Into Crisis" that claimed higher ridership is not the main cause for the recent decline: > For years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority told us that rising ridership and overcrowding were to blame. Yet ridership actually stayed mostly flat from 2013 to 2018 as delays rose, and the authority recently acknowledged that overcrowding was not at fault. That statement doesn't contradict yours (shakes fist at well-qualified statement), but I found it surprising when I came across it and I imagine others might as well. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw...

adameast9000 8y ago

The 60 minutes video posted in another comment claimed that ridership was near a 70 year high, I believe EDIT: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mta-why-has-the-nyc-subway-gone-off-the-rails-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mta-why-has-the-nyc-subway-gone...

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

And it's just crass to claim that there's a statistically measurable number of fare jumpers. Genuine question: why is that? I'm not familiar with the mechanics of the NYC Metro area, but I'm familiar with SF's BART, which certainly claims to have statistics on this -- about 22,000 fare jumps a day, as compared to around 433,000 trips per weekday, meaning about 5% of riders are freeloaders. (They claim this costs about $25M a year.) The San Francisco Chronicle did their own reporting on this, and at the very least it backed up the assertion there were a statistically measurable number of fare jumpers.

iknowstuff 8y ago
Ahh those extrapolations. Just like MPAA and their piracy spiel. Multiply 22`000 * 365 days * $3 and you get their $25M. Except a lot of those people simply would never pay the actual fare and the cost of moving additional weight is negligible, so the number is way inflated.
- lwf 8y ago
  They wouldn't pay the full fare anyways? Would they... take cheaper transportation?
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  You're comparing people who pirate media that they'd never have actually bought to... people who take BART trips for free that they've never have taken otherwise? You're going to have to work harder to make this comparison work for me, sorry.

puzzle 8y ago

I suspect a lot of the decrease happens at night. Late trains are a bit of a Russian roulette. If you're going from Brooklyn to upper Manhattan, it might be faster and more reliable to share a car with friends or strangers.

chucksmash 8y ago

"The subway has been more crowded the last 5 years than I've ever seen it" There was an article in the New York Times in May, titled "How 2 M.T.A. Decisions Pushed the Subway Into Crisis" that claimed higher ridership is not the main cause for the recent decline: > For years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority told us that rising ridership and overcrowding were to blame. Yet ridership actually stayed mostly flat from 2013 to 2018 as delays rose, and the authority recently acknowledged that overcrowding was not at fault. That statement doesn't contradict yours (shakes fist at well-qualified statement), but I found it surprising when I came across it and I imagine others might as well. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw...