9 ms·

How many others were sleeping on the train? If lots, how was that allowed to happen? If few, why not more?

by theNJR 7y ago

jazzyjackson 7y ago
What do you mean allowed to happen? You pay the fare, no one is checking on you. Of course, some people go overboard and set up camp (blankets, shopping cart, etc), but even taking up space and carrying bulky items isn't prohibited AFAIK, I've put my feet up and carried luggage with me. Just aren't a lot of rules down there. As far as why not more, it's not a great place to sleep...
- Symbiote 7y ago
  > You pay the fare, no one is checking on you. In London, you'd get woken up at the end of the line, and a valid ticket for unlimited travel back-and-forth is fairly expensive — around £13 ($16). Or maybe there's some other reason, but I hardly ever see homeless people sleeping on metro trains.
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    I don't know about the NYC subways, but a number of jurisdictions in the US see metro councils / transportation authorities deciding to not check tickets at all, because of "disproportionate impacts" for certain racial groups. It seems absurd to me to advocate petty lawlessness, but the public transportation systems are all so far underwater that checking ride tickets isn't going to practically move the needle anyway.
    - barbecue_sauce 7y ago
      That's a ridiculous assertion. In most major cities, you don't buy "tickets" for public transportation (except maybe light rail). Everything is fare based (used to be token based, but have mainly switched to cards). You pay the fare, you ride the subway or the trolley or the bus until you get off. The fare is the same no matter how far you are going. Most of these things travel in loops. You get to the end of the line, it either turns around, or just goes in the opposite direction.
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        In Shanghai, it's fare based, but the fare is definitely not the same no matter how far you're going. The fare is determined as a function of where you enter the system and where you leave, with longer trips being more expensive. There's no time limit; one entry will let you stay in the subway system all day. But you can't just live on the trains, because they shut down at night. Somehow I suspect that if Shanghai can shut down the subway overnight, New York, with half the ridership, could handle doing so too, so the question "why is this allowed to happen" seems valid.
        9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
        Not sure about Shanghai, but in most countries there are (generous) time limits associated with fares, measured from first entry. Obviously this isn't enforced "in flight", but the gate will not let you out when you try to leave and you'll need to explain to staff why you've just spent 4 hours traveling one stop -- since odds are you actually went somewhere else and jumped the turnstile both ways.
        thaumasiotes 7y ago
        I don't think there is a limit in Shanghai. A few years back there was a heat wave and the subway stations were full of people who just came to hang out where there was air conditioning. Jumping the turnstile is... not common.
        ummwhat 7y ago
        Because 24 hour train service is a massive convince that reduces car dependence and drunk driving. Why does Shanghai metro shut down at 11pm? So early. Impossible to have a fun night out.
        wasdfff 7y ago
        In nyc they have multiple tunnels for the same line, so one can be maintained while the other is active. Cities that shut down their metro do their maintenance then, because their lines don’t have a backup track.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      That can be beneficial. SLC has a silly 2 hour window for returning on a two-way ticket. Fortunately nobody seems to check the tickets on a weekend.
    - baud147258 7y ago
      So if you're part of a certain racial group, you don't have to pay?
      - booleandilemma 7y ago
        I think he’s saying that if they did check tickets, there would be "disproportionate [legal] impacts" for certain racial groups. So they don’t check tickets for anyone. If it’s true that’s crazy.
        zdragnar 7y ago
        That is indeed the argument I have heard for not checking fares / tickets, and I think was the last link I proveded elsewhere on this thread. One of the light rail trains near me is subsidized to the tune of 30 or so dollars per ride, so it's not like catching the small percentage of evaders will actually make a dent (that's probably 6 or more times the fare cost). But it does seem like encouraging it by doing nothing at all is a bad idea.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    $16 × 30 days would be $480/month. Expensive for commuting, but cheaper than most apartments even in the cheaper parts of the US, let alone (surely) London.
    - krsrhe 7y ago
      It's marginally free if you've already bought a monthly pass for other reasons
    - toomanybeersies 7y ago
      You can't really compare living in an apartment with living on a train. Also, generally for $480 per month there will be somewhere non-moving that you'll be able to stay, such as a hostel or a roomshare apartment (which isn't necessarily legal, but common in larger cities).
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - barbecue_sauce 7y ago
    In New York, for the subway, you pay your fair (usually with a swipe card) before you even get on the platform, and as long as you don't leave through the exit gates, you're free to transfer at any stop. They have no idea when you get off, and the fair is the same no matter where you're going.
  - ng12 7y ago
    The subway is a flat fare, $2.75 no matter how long you ride or how many transfers you make. Not to mention it's really easy to get on without paying. As for why you're allowed to stay at the end of the line -- it's probably a mix of liberal policy, lack of manpower, and general "not my problem" attitude.
    - barbecue_sauce 7y ago
      It's because there is no "end of the line". It's just another stop. These things are essentially infinite loops.
      - gipp 7y ago
        Technically, I guess, but they do hold at the terminal stop for a while, and employees sometimes do a quick walkthrough or spot check.
        mdhen 7y ago
        The motorman has to move from the back to front, if he's staying on. Or he's off and someone else is taking over. So yeah they're there for at least like 10min. Or the train is being removed from service. That's not really going to happen in the middle of the night but definitely happens during times when they are decreasing service (after rush hour, after like 11pn)
        tialaramex 7y ago
        Peak service on London Underground is done by "stepping back". You bring a train in, switch off (allowing your driving cab to become a trailing cab in a second) and step out of the cab, then another driver steps in at the far end, switches that on, and the train announces its new destination and reconfigures appropriately. You begin walking down the platform. The train leaves, but in the time it takes to stroll to the far end another one arrives, so you get in and drive that one away. Thus drivers "step back" by one train each time they do this.
      - 7y ago
  - jdietrich 7y ago
    A significant number of homeless people in London sleep on night buses. It's warm, it's reasonably quiet on the top deck, there's full CCTV coverage and the weekly fare cap is £21.20. https://www.bigissue.com/latest/londons-homeless-boarding-night-bus/ https://www.bigissue.com/latest/londons-homeless-boarding-ni...
  - Spare_account 7y ago
    Anecdata: I've fallen asleep on a late night Metropolitan Line train heading towards Aldgate before and I woke up by myself going the other way, at Northwood. I wasn't woken by any well meaning passengers or employees, nor was I robbed of my two holdalls on the seat next to me.
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    What about the Circle line? :) (Oh, it isn't run in a continuous circle anymore, after a 2009 extension to Hammersmith. Shame.)
    - zhte415 7y ago
      A round trip or two on the circle line was not very popular, but popular enough, for cohorts of bankers sleeping the night or lunch off. I never did it myself.
subweigh 7y ago
train? unsure, the car i was in... maybe 2 other transients? more nyc subway information than you'll ever need: - nyc has a globally rare subway in that it is 24hrs - you need to be sitting up to sleep on the train, if you lie down you can be removed (was so told by a cop when i was first arrested for sleeping on the train that this is 'the law') - subways run the full length of a track, then back, then swap drivers - when a driver swaps they have to remove everyone from the train so all transients get up and go across the track to the next train that is waiting to drive off - the two longest trains: ORANGE(D,1h-1h15m before driver swap), RED(2,1h30m-2h before driver swap) - meaning you could get about ~1h30m of uninterrupted sleep - that was until i discovered the L train is driven by software and the conductor is there as a failsafe - as such there is a different driver procedure and you can run the train back and forth all day all week without being removed, thats eventually how id get 8h+ nights someone down thread said 480$/mo for tickets, but id rarely pay > why not more? i wondered the same thing, its warm, even in winter, and heavily populated, protecting you from assaults im unsure what percentage of people without places to sleep choose the subway, but there are some options there are shelters, but after my experiences there: caging you in or out after curfew, once shut a lawlessness among the people, being placed in rooms with territorial long termers, structurally and hygienically questionable building; i decided id rather risk the street but it was a winter with a foot of snow on the ground so i tried to sleep in a decommissioned subway stop where there were others sleeping but was woken up by the blunt end of a cop's foot when i explained i thought it was okay to sleep here because i saw others doing the same the cop responded, 'that guys been there 7 years, get the fuck out of here kid' hostels at the time cost about 30$/nt for a bunk in a room with 40 people, in brooklyn, so out of my price range but once i got a job i would stay in one once a week to take a shower > how was that allowed to happen? compassion, human decency, empathy i jape, though thats why, im guessing, most riders accept it as a reality but its probably more to do with poorly handling government resources to address the issue that some people need to sleep sitting up on a subway to have a warm place to rest
- shaklee3 7y ago
  Very interesting facts. Hope you're doing better.
- 7y ago

How many others were sleeping on the train? If lots, how was that allowed to happen? If few, why not more?

by theNJR 7y ago

How many others were sleeping on the train? If lots, how was that allowed to happen? If few, why not more?

What do you mean allowed to happen? You pay the fare, no one is checking on you. Of course, some people go overboard and set up camp (blankets, shopping cart, etc), but even taking up space and carrying bulky items isn't prohibited AFAIK, I've put my feet up and carried luggage with me. Just aren't a lot of rules down there. As far as why not more, it's not a great place to sleep...

Symbiote 7y ago
> You pay the fare, no one is checking on you. In London, you'd get woken up at the end of the line, and a valid ticket for unlimited travel back-and-forth is fairly expensive — around £13 ($16). Or maybe there's some other reason, but I hardly ever see homeless people sleeping on metro trains.
- zdragnar 7y ago
  I don't know about the NYC subways, but a number of jurisdictions in the US see metro councils / transportation authorities deciding to not check tickets at all, because of "disproportionate impacts" for certain racial groups. It seems absurd to me to advocate petty lawlessness, but the public transportation systems are all so far underwater that checking ride tickets isn't going to practically move the needle anyway.
  - barbecue_sauce 7y ago
    That's a ridiculous assertion. In most major cities, you don't buy "tickets" for public transportation (except maybe light rail). Everything is fare based (used to be token based, but have mainly switched to cards). You pay the fare, you ride the subway or the trolley or the bus until you get off. The fare is the same no matter how far you are going. Most of these things travel in loops. You get to the end of the line, it either turns around, or just goes in the opposite direction.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      In Shanghai, it's fare based, but the fare is definitely not the same no matter how far you're going. The fare is determined as a function of where you enter the system and where you leave, with longer trips being more expensive. There's no time limit; one entry will let you stay in the subway system all day. But you can't just live on the trains, because they shut down at night. Somehow I suspect that if Shanghai can shut down the subway overnight, New York, with half the ridership, could handle doing so too, so the question "why is this allowed to happen" seems valid.
      - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
        Not sure about Shanghai, but in most countries there are (generous) time limits associated with fares, measured from first entry. Obviously this isn't enforced "in flight", but the gate will not let you out when you try to leave and you'll need to explain to staff why you've just spent 4 hours traveling one stop -- since odds are you actually went somewhere else and jumped the turnstile both ways.
        thaumasiotes 7y ago
        I don't think there is a limit in Shanghai. A few years back there was a heat wave and the subway stations were full of people who just came to hang out where there was air conditioning. Jumping the turnstile is... not common.
      - ummwhat 7y ago
        Because 24 hour train service is a massive convince that reduces car dependence and drunk driving. Why does Shanghai metro shut down at 11pm? So early. Impossible to have a fun night out.
        wasdfff 7y ago
        In nyc they have multiple tunnels for the same line, so one can be maintained while the other is active. Cities that shut down their metro do their maintenance then, because their lines don’t have a backup track.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    That can be beneficial. SLC has a silly 2 hour window for returning on a two-way ticket. Fortunately nobody seems to check the tickets on a weekend.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    So if you're part of a certain racial group, you don't have to pay?
    - booleandilemma 7y ago
      I think he’s saying that if they did check tickets, there would be "disproportionate [legal] impacts" for certain racial groups. So they don’t check tickets for anyone. If it’s true that’s crazy.
      - zdragnar 7y ago
        That is indeed the argument I have heard for not checking fares / tickets, and I think was the last link I proveded elsewhere on this thread. One of the light rail trains near me is subsidized to the tune of 30 or so dollars per ride, so it's not like catching the small percentage of evaders will actually make a dent (that's probably 6 or more times the fare cost). But it does seem like encouraging it by doing nothing at all is a bad idea.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  $16 × 30 days would be $480/month. Expensive for commuting, but cheaper than most apartments even in the cheaper parts of the US, let alone (surely) London.
  - krsrhe 7y ago
    It's marginally free if you've already bought a monthly pass for other reasons
  - toomanybeersies 7y ago
    You can't really compare living in an apartment with living on a train. Also, generally for $480 per month there will be somewhere non-moving that you'll be able to stay, such as a hostel or a roomshare apartment (which isn't necessarily legal, but common in larger cities).
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- barbecue_sauce 7y ago
  In New York, for the subway, you pay your fair (usually with a swipe card) before you even get on the platform, and as long as you don't leave through the exit gates, you're free to transfer at any stop. They have no idea when you get off, and the fair is the same no matter where you're going.
- ng12 7y ago
  The subway is a flat fare, $2.75 no matter how long you ride or how many transfers you make. Not to mention it's really easy to get on without paying. As for why you're allowed to stay at the end of the line -- it's probably a mix of liberal policy, lack of manpower, and general "not my problem" attitude.
  - barbecue_sauce 7y ago
    It's because there is no "end of the line". It's just another stop. These things are essentially infinite loops.
    - gipp 7y ago
      Technically, I guess, but they do hold at the terminal stop for a while, and employees sometimes do a quick walkthrough or spot check.
      - mdhen 7y ago
        The motorman has to move from the back to front, if he's staying on. Or he's off and someone else is taking over. So yeah they're there for at least like 10min. Or the train is being removed from service. That's not really going to happen in the middle of the night but definitely happens during times when they are decreasing service (after rush hour, after like 11pn)
        tialaramex 7y ago
        Peak service on London Underground is done by "stepping back". You bring a train in, switch off (allowing your driving cab to become a trailing cab in a second) and step out of the cab, then another driver steps in at the far end, switches that on, and the train announces its new destination and reconfigures appropriately. You begin walking down the platform. The train leaves, but in the time it takes to stroll to the far end another one arrives, so you get in and drive that one away. Thus drivers "step back" by one train each time they do this.
    - 7y ago
- jdietrich 7y ago
  A significant number of homeless people in London sleep on night buses. It's warm, it's reasonably quiet on the top deck, there's full CCTV coverage and the weekly fare cap is £21.20. https://www.bigissue.com/latest/londons-homeless-boarding-night-bus/ https://www.bigissue.com/latest/londons-homeless-boarding-ni...
- Spare_account 7y ago
  Anecdata: I've fallen asleep on a late night Metropolitan Line train heading towards Aldgate before and I woke up by myself going the other way, at Northwood. I wasn't woken by any well meaning passengers or employees, nor was I robbed of my two holdalls on the seat next to me.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  What about the Circle line? :) (Oh, it isn't run in a continuous circle anymore, after a 2009 extension to Hammersmith. Shame.)
  - zhte415 7y ago
    A round trip or two on the circle line was not very popular, but popular enough, for cohorts of bankers sleeping the night or lunch off. I never did it myself.

subweigh 7y ago

train? unsure, the car i was in... maybe 2 other transients? more nyc subway information than you'll ever need: - nyc has a globally rare subway in that it is 24hrs - you need to be sitting up to sleep on the train, if you lie down you can be removed (was so told by a cop when i was first arrested for sleeping on the train that this is 'the law') - subways run the full length of a track, then back, then swap drivers - when a driver swaps they have to remove everyone from the train so all transients get up and go across the track to the next train that is waiting to drive off - the two longest trains: ORANGE(D,1h-1h15m before driver swap), RED(2,1h30m-2h before driver swap) - meaning you could get about ~1h30m of uninterrupted sleep - that was until i discovered the L train is driven by software and the conductor is there as a failsafe - as such there is a different driver procedure and you can run the train back and forth all day all week without being removed, thats eventually how id get 8h+ nights someone down thread said 480$/mo for tickets, but id rarely pay > why not more? i wondered the same thing, its warm, even in winter, and heavily populated, protecting you from assaults im unsure what percentage of people without places to sleep choose the subway, but there are some options there are shelters, but after my experiences there: caging you in or out after curfew, once shut a lawlessness among the people, being placed in rooms with territorial long termers, structurally and hygienically questionable building; i decided id rather risk the street but it was a winter with a foot of snow on the ground so i tried to sleep in a decommissioned subway stop where there were others sleeping but was woken up by the blunt end of a cop's foot when i explained i thought it was okay to sleep here because i saw others doing the same the cop responded, 'that guys been there 7 years, get the fuck out of here kid' hostels at the time cost about 30$/nt for a bunk in a room with 40 people, in brooklyn, so out of my price range but once i got a job i would stay in one once a week to take a shower > how was that allowed to happen? compassion, human decency, empathy i jape, though thats why, im guessing, most riders accept it as a reality but its probably more to do with poorly handling government resources to address the issue that some people need to sleep sitting up on a subway to have a warm place to rest

shaklee3 7y ago
Very interesting facts. Hope you're doing better.
7y ago