11 ms·

Why It's So Hard to Get From Brooklyn to Queens

166 points by merraksh 13y ago

compare 13y ago
You really can't overstate the differences between trams and busses. Trams are more like a moving sidewalk, a physical part of the city.
- barking 13y ago
  Don't you mean 'can't overstate'?
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    Several cities in UK are bringing trams back. They call them 'the metro' usually to sound more modern. I use one twice a week, but it only runs on actual roads for a small part of the journey (Birmingham to Wolverhampton) so it is more of a light railway really. The extension at the Birmingham end will bring the trams back onto main city streets.
    - guerrilla 13y ago
      Same in Valencia, Spain and a few other European cities I've been to.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - mhb 13y ago
    The incidence of that mistake seems to be increasing. It's the new "could care less".
- brudgers 13y ago
  The meaningful difference is not between rails and tires. It is between dedicated rights-of-way and one shared with automotive traffic. When buses get dedicated right-of-way, as in Curitiba they provide similar service levels to subways.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    A lot of tram systems don't have dedicated rights-of-way.
    - pantalaimon 13y ago
      Still they don't/can't break as abruptly as buses and the ride is a lot less bumpy in general. And buses are notoriously crammed, even when the next bus would supposedly be there in 2 minutes, people will squeeze into the one that's there now, with trams you can just attach another cart, and carts can be larger to begin with.
      - lstamour 13y ago
        Ah, at least in Toronto, we tend to see our trams as streetcars rather than trains, so they fall victim to the same "next bus" problem you quote above. More so, as trains can't hop over one another to pick up passengers at alternating stops, a practice common with the busiest of routes. That said, streetcar drivers are often much calmer than bus drivers. There's just a different kind of expectation...
  - lstamour 13y ago
    Actually, I'd say it really comes down to rails and tires. Streetcars can be given the same rights-of-way as buses and would perform similarly, except: the streetcar is a smoother ride. I can grab breakfast and eat it on a streetcar knowing there's only one direction of motion to worry about. On a bus, however, you can never tell which way you'll be jerked around. It really is much less pleasant, even if it's faster without the right of way. (Due to left turning cars)
    - mkopinsky 13y ago
      Can someone who's taken the new MTA Select Bus Service busses comment on whether they are smoother than regular busses? I took an MTA bus today for the first time in a long while and it was uncomfortably bumpy.
grandalf 13y ago
For comparison, a taxi or Uber between Queens and Brooklyn will run $40-$50 each way. Taking the F train through Manhattan takes over an hour.
- ubernostrum 13y ago
  Though I've never personally experienced it, perhaps due to following the advice, I've been repeatedly advised when trying to get around NYC to always get in the taxi before telling them my destination is in Brooklyn. This could be wrong, but the stated reason is that drivers don't want fares to Brooklyn (typically lower, and harder to get another fare who wants to go Brooklyn to someplace else for the return trip), and so will refuse the fare if told the destination before you get in the taxi (and apparently they're not allowed to refuse you based on destination once you're inside).
  - skorgu 13y ago
    That's good advice. If I'm not in a super huge rush I'll ask the first cab if he wants to go to Queens/Brooklyn/wherever before getting in. It has a ~80% failure rate. They're not allowed to refuse a destination in the 5 boroughs full stop but if you're not inside the cost of refusing is trivial (just driving away).
  - apaprocki 13y ago
    A taxi refusing a fare at all (inside or outside) is against TLC rules and the driver will be fined / have their license suspended if you report them.
    - techtalsky 13y ago
      That sure doesn't stop them from doing it though. I've threatened to report them before and although you can threaten them it sucks to have to do it. I'd rather just let them roll and wait for another cab in all but the most dire circumstances.
    - zzzeek 13y ago
      they do it regularly and constantly. I doubt many get reported.
billyto 13y ago
How to fix it: - Improve G train service. - Use the Pulaski bridge. - Take care of the BQE infrastructure. - Public jetpacks!
- betterunix 13y ago
  Another possibility would be to build all the planned subway extensions in Queens; Brooklyn already has good subway service, and a few more lines connecting the two boroughs would not hurt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IND_Second_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IND_Second_System While we are at it, let's actually make use of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockaway_Beach_Branch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockaway_Beach_Branch
  - fennecfoxen 13y ago
    Build it? With whose money? The city's finances have been a disaster since 2008 and they've only been scraping by with a series of unsustainable tricks. The next mayor will almost certainly be Bill de Blasio, whose top agenda item is basically to spending a lot more money on the city's unionized labor. (His next agenda item is to revive rent control, because the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act apparently hasn't done enough to run the city into the ground yet. (And yes, that war emergency is WWII.)) Have you ever wondered why we can't have nice things? :P
    - betterunix 13y ago
      The MTA is a state agency, so really you need to look at the state's budget, not the city's. I also have little sympathy for the argument that the MTA is too short on cash -- they have been wasting enormous amounts of tax dollars on failed projects for decades. Not that that should give us any hope for an expanded subway system.
      - fennecfoxen 13y ago
        Good point! Either way, the IND Second System routes can get in line behind the Second Avenue Subway.
apaprocki 13y ago
Did they forget about the G train?? <ducks>
- betterunix 13y ago
  When I was a kid, that might have worked -- the G stopped at Queens Plaza (with local service all the way to Continental Ave.), so you could take an E or F down Queens Boulevard, make a quick transfer, and be on your way. Sadly, the MTA seems to have it in for the G; the line now terminates at Court Sq., the trains are shorter than before (which was already shorter than other lines), and some of the stations are in very poor shape. Also worth mentioning is the J, which is mostly a Brooklyn/Queens train.
  - apaprocki 13y ago
    They're trying to change things around. The G has been getting attention lately due to the population explosion in Williamsburg/Greenpoint. You'll have to ask someone that rides it every day, though. The J connects, but through Manhattan. Another mention is the East River Ferry which connects Dumbo, Williamsburg, Greenpoint and LIC. Still a far cry from connecting the rest of the boroughs, though.
  - bradleyjg 13y ago
    The J barely goes into Queens, only at the very end does it have half a dozen stops in Woodhaven and Jamaica. Someone below mentions the L which as far as I know has no Queens stops, and the the M which does actually serve Middle village directly from Brooklyn but otherwise requires a giant loop through Manhattan. This issue is near and dear to my heart, I live in Woodside but I have close friends in Park Slope. By car it's a straight shot down the BQE -- 20 - 30 minutes depending on traffic. When all the subways are running, I can take the 7 to the G and it's an hour and fifteen minute trip. But both the 7 and the G have terrible weekend schedules so if I wanted to go right now, I'd have to take the 7 to the Q and go through all of Manhattan and it'd take more like an hour and a half. Or I could take three buses and hope that scheduled connections actually happen. If the timing works out it can sometimes make sense to take commuter rail from Woodside-Jamaica-Atlantic Terminal though that's more expensive and you have to buy a ticket at the counter because the machines can't figure it out. As an interim measure they should put a couple of express buses going north south -- one could go from the 74th Jackson Heights station down the BQE to the Lorimer stop on the L and then continue on to the Atlantic Terminal. Another could link the Middle village terminus of the M to the M (and R, F, E) at Queens Blvd with a second stop along the 7. The long term solution is more lines. We should be doing that instead of spending billions on silly prestige projects like the new Penn Station they want to build.
jzwinck 13y ago
Also in the category of boroughs hard to reach from Brooklyn without a car or undue delay: Staten Island. Today, three of its four bridges prohibit pedestrians and none have subway connections. One of those bridges (to NJ) used to have a pedestrian and cycle way, but a few years after the Streetcar Scandal it was removed as part of an expansion (!) orchestrated by Robert Moses. Look him up to find out more about the bizarre history of mass transit in mid-20th century NYC.
- jrockway 13y ago
  The history isn't that bizarre. Robert Moses simply despised anyone that wasn't rich, and spent his entire career trying to make the city even more miserable than it already was for the poor. If you're rich, you don't bike to Staten Island, plain and simple -- you drive a glorious automocar. It's ironic because now all the rich people want to bury his highways underground.
  - RickHull 13y ago
    > The history isn't that bizarre. Robert Moses simply despised anyone that wasn't rich, and spent his entire career trying to make the city even more miserable than it already was for the poor. Robert Moses is a great example of the problems of unchecked power and hubris, even if ostensibly well-intentioned. But he absolutely democratized Long Island, which was an idyllic enclave of gigantic estates and private beaches before he built the LIE, Northern and Southern State Parkways, Jones Beach, etc. He pissed off a lot of rich people in doing this.
n4n4ki 13y ago
How hard would it be reintroduce trams to New York? I heard most New Yorkers walk anyway so it wouldn't really affect traffic much, would it?
paulgb 13y ago
There's an interesting follow-up article which attempts to debunk the "Great American Streetcar Scandal" http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/06/be-careful-how-you-refer-so-called-great-american-streetcar-scandal/5771/ http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/06/be-careful-ho...
- bgruber 13y ago
  As a Queens native, I'm much more inclined to think that the reason Greenwald hints at the end of the article ("As white flight and urban decline escalated in the late 1960s, Queens identified more and more with Long Island, isolating Brooklyn further still.") was to blame. Though one side of my family didn't completely leave Brooklyn until the early 70s, the other side actually got out in the early 50s. This is probably related to the parts of Brooklyn they lived in. That said, the changes in transit almost definitely had an impact, and i would guess that the two phenomena had a sympathetic effect on each other.
- hristov 13y ago
  I do not buy that all. They say that streetcars were on their way out anyway because buses were more efficient. There is a significant hole in this reasoning because: (a) GM is not in the business of owning street car lines; (b) GM spent considerable money to buy out the street car lines, nevertheless. If the street car lines were on their way out anyways why did GM spend so much money on something very much out of their usual line business? It may not be true that GM was the sole reason streetcars went away there may have been other factors, but it is hard to deny that GM played a role and a very significant role as they were the party that did the actual physical destruction. And, by the way, the only reason buses seemed cheaper at the time was subsidies. Street cars had to pay for the building and upkeep of their rails, while buses used the streets, and the city paid for upkeep of the streets. One usually does not consider the damage buses do on the streets, but it is pretty significant because heavy vehicles do disproportionate amount of damage to asphalt. When all costs are added up, light rail is usually much more efficient than buses and that is before you even consider environmental costs. It is quite possible that as citizens started worrying over their tax bills they would require bus companies to pay for the use of city streets. Interstate truckers, for example, are taxed for use of the highways. In that case, street cars would again become cheaper to operate than buses.
MaggieL 13y ago
The same is true in the Philadelphia metro area...getting from one suburb to another via public transit is excruciating.
- rquantz 13y ago
  Except Brooklyn and Queens are not the suburbs.
mbubb 13y ago
Heh - I used to live in Greenpoint and would reverse commute up to Queens Plaza to avoid the "G to the L to the BDFQ" into midtown... On the contrary, Hoboken - where I now live - has a wealth of options to commute into both midtown and downtown NYC. Within a few blocks of my apartment: a subway trip of less than 20 mins to either Wall Street or 32nd (Midtown); ferry (a very pleasant 40 min trip to my office in the 40s); bus about 30 mins to midtown depending upon traffic. I love the ferry - it is the least efficient and most expensive option. I take it about 30% of the time to enjoy the river in the morning or evening. This kind of access to NYC has made Hoboken (and downtown Jersey City) a much more desirable location than other small cities in the area. And I have more options than many of my colleagues in Brooklyn or Queens - and a quicker commute than some colleagues in the Upper West side of Manhattan. Go a few miles further into NJ and commuting becomes a mess. The first time I googlemapped our new datacenter in the Meadowlands of NJ - I was pleasantly surprised that it was ~5 miles from NYC office and roughly the same from my Hoboken apartment. And ~1 mile from a transit stop. Thought I could ride my bike but the trip is through MadMax NJ wasteland, unmaintained roads on which semis rule and on which there are no sidewalks. I am not brave enough. Even the wildlife is scary - a giant groundhog grumpily rules the front gate area of the datacenter. And those 8 foot tall reeds are everywhere - I can just imagine full of rats and albino sewer alligators of immense size. I take a $15 cab from the nearest light rail stop.
- T-hawk 13y ago
  Same here, I live on the Jersey City waterfront and love the ferry commute. Hoboken and Jersey City are excellent places to live for a Manhattan job. We get to take advantage of the market inefficiency created by the "eww Jersey" popular image. Bonus, we dodge the NYC income tax which runs over 3% of income.
  - algebr 13y ago
    When are we having a hacker news JC readers meet up?
    - Crake 13y ago
evanb 13y ago
There's an excellent podcast episode of 99% Invisible which discusses the analogous thing that happened to the Red Car in Los Angeles. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-red-car-conspiracy/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-r...
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  This story is one of the big reasons LA (despite the weather) is not a great place to live. It has been unwalkable with a few exceptions. Though public transit is being slowly rebuilt from destruction, talk to most Angelenos and they don't even know there is a subway, much less use it. Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't really understand why such a person would live in Hollywood, for example.
  - tzs 13y ago
    > Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't really understand why such a person would live in Hollywood, for example. Walkscore.com gives Hollywood a Walk Score of 97, which is described as a "Walker's Paradise" which means that daily errands do not require a car, or it gives it an 87, which means most daily errands do not require a car. (It gives different scores depending on how you search for it--I think the 97 is if it centers the map on Santa Monica Boulevard, and the 87 if it centers it farther north). So maybe you find people living in Hollywood who are not worried about transit improvements because their neighborhood is fine without transit?
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      I don't think this is really a contradiction. I took GP to be complaining about Hollywood residents who want to force everyone to drive. These creatures do exist, and they deserve our scorn, at least partially for the hypocrisy inherent in their preference. I'm not familiar with Walkscore.com, but somehow I wonder if they base any of the score on ease of commuting to work.
paganel 13y ago
As a tramway lover that photo of stacked, decommissioned streetcars made me cry a little on the inside. Just a couple of hours ago, as I was preparing to enter a tramway in my (East-European) city, I saw a 4-year old pointing to the two tramways that were waiting in the station and telling his grandma how great that was. Streetcars (and trains) are just magical.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jerryhuang100 13y ago
There are actually some "Chinatown-to-Chinatown" shuttles from the eighth ave in Brooklyn to Flushing, Queens in thirty minutes or so for two-fifty.
sethbannon 13y ago
There is a delightful movie called Who Framed Roger Rabbit in which the villain is attempting just this: buying trolley lines to build "highways, as far as the eye can see". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/
- bobbyi_settv 13y ago
  I'll also note that the (excellent) film was based on the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Censored_Roger_Rabbit%3F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Censored_Roger_Rabbit%3F , but the streetcar/ highway plot elements are invented for the movie completely absent in the book.
- monkeyspaw 13y ago
  I second the recommendation for anyone who hasn't seen this movie. It was marketed as a kids movie, but has a lot of stuff in it that adults can appreciate. It was also one of the first movies to combine significant CGI with real-world interaction.
  - NAFV_P 13y ago
    I last saw that film about twenty years ago, I think I should catch it again. Back to the Future had some great lines in it as well, but as yet I haven't caught Used Cars.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > It was also one of the first movies to combine significant CGI with real-world interaction. The was no CGI in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was all traditional animation, hand-drawn on celluloid sheets. It wouldn't be until Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park that CGI really broke through as a technique that could be used in conjunction with live-action.
will_critchlow 13y ago
How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).
will_critchlow 13y ago
How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).
will_critchlow 13y ago
How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).
will_critchlow 13y ago
How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).
ams6110 13y ago
Thoughts that occurred to me as I read this: 1. Why were privately owned mass transit systems the norm in the first half of the 20th century, and why is that now considered "impossible" today? 2. Why is it OK for government to "monopolize mass transit", which they have done almost everywhere, but a criminal "conspiracy" when four private entities try to do it?
- wmf 13y ago
  On point 2, presumably the government has no vested interest in any particular form of mass transit and thus would choose the most efficient one, while the private companies (in this case) are accused of using buses to prop up other businesses (cars, tires, and oil).
  - nine_k 13y ago
    I wish I lived in the idyllic world which your sentence describes. It always puzzles me when people presume that governments or public offices act more virtuously, free from vested interests, agendas, prejudices, etc. I would understand it if governments imported their staff from angels. In reality, they have to hire the same human beings that private corporations hire.
    - ceras 13y ago
      I think the idea is that accountability to voters helps keep things in line. If you're in a situation where you believe a natural monopoly to be inevitable, it's not necessarily flawed reasoning.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    They may or may not have a vested interest in buses vs. trolleys. But I think that they most definitely have an interest in monopolizing something like mass transit because it provides a huge opportunity for patronage jobs, ghost employment, union/pension shenanigans, contracting kickbacks, and vote-buying. Just off the top of my head.
- krakensden 13y ago
saltyknuckles 13y ago
It keeps the hipsters out of Queens and then rent stays low. Do you really need another coffee shop for people to hog up tables using wifi all day?
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  What else are coffee shops for?
  - saltyknuckles 13y ago
    coffee
tzs 13y ago
> Ever try to get from Brooklyn to Queens, two of the most populated boroughs of New York City? Without a car, it's nearly impossible, as most subway lines require one to go through Manhattan first. Could someone explain this to those of us who have never been to New York and whose only knowledge of its subways comes from TV and movies? The impression I get from subway travel as depicted on TV and in movies is that trains run frequently enough that trips requiring changing trains aren't a big deal. So what's the problem is you have to go to Manhattan then change trains to go to Queens?
- yazmeya 13y ago
  It's the distance, average speed and the number of stops that the trains make. Trains depart frequently during the rush hour (4-7 minute wait, depending on the line), but at night wait times could be 30+ minutes. Trains are also quite slow, compared to some of the more modern systems around the world - because of tight curves, narrow tunnels, lots of complicated crossings and frequent repair work. So even a one-seat ride (no transfer) between the "outer" boroughs through Manhattan could take a really long time. Add in a few connections, and fuhgeddaboutit. The truly awesome thing about NY subway is that it never closes, except in significant weather emergencies, so even in the dead of the night you can get from A to B, if you have to. It could take an eternity, though.
- DrJokepu 13y ago
  Such a journey would take a very long time, between 50 and 90 minutes depending on the time of the day and the exact starting point / destination.
  - mkopinsky 13y ago
    For example, consider this journey: https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d83509!2d-73.9624327!3d40.6409217!4m18!3m17!1m5!1sFlatbush+-+Ditmas+Park%2C+Brooklyn%2C+NY!2s0x89c25b400c94a227%3A0x18e2a4d3fb21f0ec!3m2!3d40.6409217!4d-73.9624327!1m0!2e3!3m8!1m3!1d83452!2d-73.9155675!3d40.6860877!3m2!1i1280!2i662!4f13.1&fid=0 https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d83509!2... 30 minutes by car, 1:18 by public transit.
- 13y ago
raldi 13y ago
What did the trolleys provide that today's bus system does not?
- jstalin 13y ago
  That's an important point overlooked by those who are wistful for trolleys. Buses at least can change routes. Trolleys were from a time when few had cars and spending lots of money on a fixed route was efficient. Now it's not.
  - raldi 13y ago
    So perhaps the actual blame lies not with the change from trolleys to buses, but rather the change from light traffic to heavy traffic, as the automobile industry took off.
aptwebapps 13y ago
Funny not to mention Robert Moses in an article about this topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses

166 points by merraksh 13y ago

You really can't overstate the differences between trams and busses. Trams are more like a moving sidewalk, a physical part of the city.

barking 13y ago
Don't you mean 'can't overstate'?
- keithpeter 13y ago
  Several cities in UK are bringing trams back. They call them 'the metro' usually to sound more modern. I use one twice a week, but it only runs on actual roads for a small part of the journey (Birmingham to Wolverhampton) so it is more of a light railway really. The extension at the Birmingham end will bring the trams back onto main city streets.
  - guerrilla 13y ago
    Same in Valencia, Spain and a few other European cities I've been to.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- mhb 13y ago
  The incidence of that mistake seems to be increasing. It's the new "could care less".
brudgers 13y ago
The meaningful difference is not between rails and tires. It is between dedicated rights-of-way and one shared with automotive traffic. When buses get dedicated right-of-way, as in Curitiba they provide similar service levels to subways.
- vidarh 13y ago
  A lot of tram systems don't have dedicated rights-of-way.
  - pantalaimon 13y ago
    Still they don't/can't break as abruptly as buses and the ride is a lot less bumpy in general. And buses are notoriously crammed, even when the next bus would supposedly be there in 2 minutes, people will squeeze into the one that's there now, with trams you can just attach another cart, and carts can be larger to begin with.
    - lstamour 13y ago
      Ah, at least in Toronto, we tend to see our trams as streetcars rather than trains, so they fall victim to the same "next bus" problem you quote above. More so, as trains can't hop over one another to pick up passengers at alternating stops, a practice common with the busiest of routes. That said, streetcar drivers are often much calmer than bus drivers. There's just a different kind of expectation...
- lstamour 13y ago
  Actually, I'd say it really comes down to rails and tires. Streetcars can be given the same rights-of-way as buses and would perform similarly, except: the streetcar is a smoother ride. I can grab breakfast and eat it on a streetcar knowing there's only one direction of motion to worry about. On a bus, however, you can never tell which way you'll be jerked around. It really is much less pleasant, even if it's faster without the right of way. (Due to left turning cars)
  - mkopinsky 13y ago
    Can someone who's taken the new MTA Select Bus Service busses comment on whether they are smoother than regular busses? I took an MTA bus today for the first time in a long while and it was uncomfortably bumpy.

grandalf 13y ago

For comparison, a taxi or Uber between Queens and Brooklyn will run $40-$50 each way. Taking the F train through Manhattan takes over an hour.

ubernostrum 13y ago
Though I've never personally experienced it, perhaps due to following the advice, I've been repeatedly advised when trying to get around NYC to always get in the taxi before telling them my destination is in Brooklyn. This could be wrong, but the stated reason is that drivers don't want fares to Brooklyn (typically lower, and harder to get another fare who wants to go Brooklyn to someplace else for the return trip), and so will refuse the fare if told the destination before you get in the taxi (and apparently they're not allowed to refuse you based on destination once you're inside).
- skorgu 13y ago
  That's good advice. If I'm not in a super huge rush I'll ask the first cab if he wants to go to Queens/Brooklyn/wherever before getting in. It has a ~80% failure rate. They're not allowed to refuse a destination in the 5 boroughs full stop but if you're not inside the cost of refusing is trivial (just driving away).
- apaprocki 13y ago
  A taxi refusing a fare at all (inside or outside) is against TLC rules and the driver will be fined / have their license suspended if you report them.
  - techtalsky 13y ago
    That sure doesn't stop them from doing it though. I've threatened to report them before and although you can threaten them it sucks to have to do it. I'd rather just let them roll and wait for another cab in all but the most dire circumstances.
  - zzzeek 13y ago
    they do it regularly and constantly. I doubt many get reported.

billyto 13y ago

How to fix it: - Improve G train service. - Use the Pulaski bridge. - Take care of the BQE infrastructure. - Public jetpacks!

betterunix 13y ago
Another possibility would be to build all the planned subway extensions in Queens; Brooklyn already has good subway service, and a few more lines connecting the two boroughs would not hurt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IND_Second_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IND_Second_System While we are at it, let's actually make use of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockaway_Beach_Branch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockaway_Beach_Branch
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  Build it? With whose money? The city's finances have been a disaster since 2008 and they've only been scraping by with a series of unsustainable tricks. The next mayor will almost certainly be Bill de Blasio, whose top agenda item is basically to spending a lot more money on the city's unionized labor. (His next agenda item is to revive rent control, because the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act apparently hasn't done enough to run the city into the ground yet. (And yes, that war emergency is WWII.)) Have you ever wondered why we can't have nice things? :P
  - betterunix 13y ago
    The MTA is a state agency, so really you need to look at the state's budget, not the city's. I also have little sympathy for the argument that the MTA is too short on cash -- they have been wasting enormous amounts of tax dollars on failed projects for decades. Not that that should give us any hope for an expanded subway system.
    - fennecfoxen 13y ago
      Good point! Either way, the IND Second System routes can get in line behind the Second Avenue Subway.

apaprocki 13y ago

Did they forget about the G train?? <ducks>

betterunix 13y ago
When I was a kid, that might have worked -- the G stopped at Queens Plaza (with local service all the way to Continental Ave.), so you could take an E or F down Queens Boulevard, make a quick transfer, and be on your way. Sadly, the MTA seems to have it in for the G; the line now terminates at Court Sq., the trains are shorter than before (which was already shorter than other lines), and some of the stations are in very poor shape. Also worth mentioning is the J, which is mostly a Brooklyn/Queens train.
- apaprocki 13y ago
  They're trying to change things around. The G has been getting attention lately due to the population explosion in Williamsburg/Greenpoint. You'll have to ask someone that rides it every day, though. The J connects, but through Manhattan. Another mention is the East River Ferry which connects Dumbo, Williamsburg, Greenpoint and LIC. Still a far cry from connecting the rest of the boroughs, though.
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  The J barely goes into Queens, only at the very end does it have half a dozen stops in Woodhaven and Jamaica. Someone below mentions the L which as far as I know has no Queens stops, and the the M which does actually serve Middle village directly from Brooklyn but otherwise requires a giant loop through Manhattan. This issue is near and dear to my heart, I live in Woodside but I have close friends in Park Slope. By car it's a straight shot down the BQE -- 20 - 30 minutes depending on traffic. When all the subways are running, I can take the 7 to the G and it's an hour and fifteen minute trip. But both the 7 and the G have terrible weekend schedules so if I wanted to go right now, I'd have to take the 7 to the Q and go through all of Manhattan and it'd take more like an hour and a half. Or I could take three buses and hope that scheduled connections actually happen. If the timing works out it can sometimes make sense to take commuter rail from Woodside-Jamaica-Atlantic Terminal though that's more expensive and you have to buy a ticket at the counter because the machines can't figure it out. As an interim measure they should put a couple of express buses going north south -- one could go from the 74th Jackson Heights station down the BQE to the Lorimer stop on the L and then continue on to the Atlantic Terminal. Another could link the Middle village terminus of the M to the M (and R, F, E) at Queens Blvd with a second stop along the 7. The long term solution is more lines. We should be doing that instead of spending billions on silly prestige projects like the new Penn Station they want to build.

jzwinck 13y ago

Also in the category of boroughs hard to reach from Brooklyn without a car or undue delay: Staten Island. Today, three of its four bridges prohibit pedestrians and none have subway connections. One of those bridges (to NJ) used to have a pedestrian and cycle way, but a few years after the Streetcar Scandal it was removed as part of an expansion (!) orchestrated by Robert Moses. Look him up to find out more about the bizarre history of mass transit in mid-20th century NYC.

jrockway 13y ago
The history isn't that bizarre. Robert Moses simply despised anyone that wasn't rich, and spent his entire career trying to make the city even more miserable than it already was for the poor. If you're rich, you don't bike to Staten Island, plain and simple -- you drive a glorious automocar. It's ironic because now all the rich people want to bury his highways underground.
- RickHull 13y ago
  > The history isn't that bizarre. Robert Moses simply despised anyone that wasn't rich, and spent his entire career trying to make the city even more miserable than it already was for the poor. Robert Moses is a great example of the problems of unchecked power and hubris, even if ostensibly well-intentioned. But he absolutely democratized Long Island, which was an idyllic enclave of gigantic estates and private beaches before he built the LIE, Northern and Southern State Parkways, Jones Beach, etc. He pissed off a lot of rich people in doing this.

n4n4ki 13y ago

How hard would it be reintroduce trams to New York? I heard most New Yorkers walk anyway so it wouldn't really affect traffic much, would it?

paulgb 13y ago

There's an interesting follow-up article which attempts to debunk the "Great American Streetcar Scandal" http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/06/be-careful-how-you-refer-so-called-great-american-streetcar-scandal/5771/ http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/06/be-careful-ho...

bgruber 13y ago
As a Queens native, I'm much more inclined to think that the reason Greenwald hints at the end of the article ("As white flight and urban decline escalated in the late 1960s, Queens identified more and more with Long Island, isolating Brooklyn further still.") was to blame. Though one side of my family didn't completely leave Brooklyn until the early 70s, the other side actually got out in the early 50s. This is probably related to the parts of Brooklyn they lived in. That said, the changes in transit almost definitely had an impact, and i would guess that the two phenomena had a sympathetic effect on each other.
hristov 13y ago
I do not buy that all. They say that streetcars were on their way out anyway because buses were more efficient. There is a significant hole in this reasoning because: (a) GM is not in the business of owning street car lines; (b) GM spent considerable money to buy out the street car lines, nevertheless. If the street car lines were on their way out anyways why did GM spend so much money on something very much out of their usual line business? It may not be true that GM was the sole reason streetcars went away there may have been other factors, but it is hard to deny that GM played a role and a very significant role as they were the party that did the actual physical destruction. And, by the way, the only reason buses seemed cheaper at the time was subsidies. Street cars had to pay for the building and upkeep of their rails, while buses used the streets, and the city paid for upkeep of the streets. One usually does not consider the damage buses do on the streets, but it is pretty significant because heavy vehicles do disproportionate amount of damage to asphalt. When all costs are added up, light rail is usually much more efficient than buses and that is before you even consider environmental costs. It is quite possible that as citizens started worrying over their tax bills they would require bus companies to pay for the use of city streets. Interstate truckers, for example, are taxed for use of the highways. In that case, street cars would again become cheaper to operate than buses.

MaggieL 13y ago

The same is true in the Philadelphia metro area...getting from one suburb to another via public transit is excruciating.

rquantz 13y ago
Except Brooklyn and Queens are not the suburbs.

mbubb 13y ago

Heh - I used to live in Greenpoint and would reverse commute up to Queens Plaza to avoid the "G to the L to the BDFQ" into midtown... On the contrary, Hoboken - where I now live - has a wealth of options to commute into both midtown and downtown NYC. Within a few blocks of my apartment: a subway trip of less than 20 mins to either Wall Street or 32nd (Midtown); ferry (a very pleasant 40 min trip to my office in the 40s); bus about 30 mins to midtown depending upon traffic. I love the ferry - it is the least efficient and most expensive option. I take it about 30% of the time to enjoy the river in the morning or evening. This kind of access to NYC has made Hoboken (and downtown Jersey City) a much more desirable location than other small cities in the area. And I have more options than many of my colleagues in Brooklyn or Queens - and a quicker commute than some colleagues in the Upper West side of Manhattan. Go a few miles further into NJ and commuting becomes a mess. The first time I googlemapped our new datacenter in the Meadowlands of NJ - I was pleasantly surprised that it was ~5 miles from NYC office and roughly the same from my Hoboken apartment. And ~1 mile from a transit stop. Thought I could ride my bike but the trip is through MadMax NJ wasteland, unmaintained roads on which semis rule and on which there are no sidewalks. I am not brave enough. Even the wildlife is scary - a giant groundhog grumpily rules the front gate area of the datacenter. And those 8 foot tall reeds are everywhere - I can just imagine full of rats and albino sewer alligators of immense size. I take a $15 cab from the nearest light rail stop.

T-hawk 13y ago
Same here, I live on the Jersey City waterfront and love the ferry commute. Hoboken and Jersey City are excellent places to live for a Manhattan job. We get to take advantage of the market inefficiency created by the "eww Jersey" popular image. Bonus, we dodge the NYC income tax which runs over 3% of income.
- algebr 13y ago
  When are we having a hacker news JC readers meet up?
  - Crake 13y ago

evanb 13y ago

There's an excellent podcast episode of 99% Invisible which discusses the analogous thing that happened to the Red Car in Los Angeles. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-red-car-conspiracy/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-70-the-great-r...

mixmastamyk 13y ago
This story is one of the big reasons LA (despite the weather) is not a great place to live. It has been unwalkable with a few exceptions. Though public transit is being slowly rebuilt from destruction, talk to most Angelenos and they don't even know there is a subway, much less use it. Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't really understand why such a person would live in Hollywood, for example.
- tzs 13y ago
  > Also, there is a certain segment of the population that fights denser development that would encourage transit improvements. I don't really understand why such a person would live in Hollywood, for example. Walkscore.com gives Hollywood a Walk Score of 97, which is described as a "Walker's Paradise" which means that daily errands do not require a car, or it gives it an 87, which means most daily errands do not require a car. (It gives different scores depending on how you search for it--I think the 97 is if it centers the map on Santa Monica Boulevard, and the 87 if it centers it farther north). So maybe you find people living in Hollywood who are not worried about transit improvements because their neighborhood is fine without transit?
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    I don't think this is really a contradiction. I took GP to be complaining about Hollywood residents who want to force everyone to drive. These creatures do exist, and they deserve our scorn, at least partially for the hypocrisy inherent in their preference. I'm not familiar with Walkscore.com, but somehow I wonder if they base any of the score on ease of commuting to work.

paganel 13y ago

As a tramway lover that photo of stacked, decommissioned streetcars made me cry a little on the inside. Just a couple of hours ago, as I was preparing to enter a tramway in my (East-European) city, I saw a 4-year old pointing to the two tramways that were waiting in the station and telling his grandma how great that was. Streetcars (and trains) are just magical.

deleted 13y ago
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jerryhuang100 13y ago

There are actually some "Chinatown-to-Chinatown" shuttles from the eighth ave in Brooklyn to Flushing, Queens in thirty minutes or so for two-fifty.

sethbannon 13y ago

There is a delightful movie called Who Framed Roger Rabbit in which the villain is attempting just this: buying trolley lines to build "highways, as far as the eye can see". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/

bobbyi_settv 13y ago
I'll also note that the (excellent) film was based on the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Censored_Roger_Rabbit%3F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Censored_Roger_Rabbit%3F , but the streetcar/ highway plot elements are invented for the movie completely absent in the book.
monkeyspaw 13y ago
I second the recommendation for anyone who hasn't seen this movie. It was marketed as a kids movie, but has a lot of stuff in it that adults can appreciate. It was also one of the first movies to combine significant CGI with real-world interaction.
- NAFV_P 13y ago
  I last saw that film about twenty years ago, I think I should catch it again. Back to the Future had some great lines in it as well, but as yet I haven't caught Used Cars.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > It was also one of the first movies to combine significant CGI with real-world interaction. The was no CGI in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was all traditional animation, hand-drawn on celluloid sheets. It wouldn't be until Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park that CGI really broke through as a technique that could be used in conjunction with live-action.

will_critchlow 13y ago

How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).

will_critchlow 13y ago

How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).

will_critchlow 13y ago

How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).

will_critchlow 13y ago

How long would the streetcar have taken vs the time to travel via manhattan on the subway? (Londoner here so trying to put it in context).

ams6110 13y ago

Thoughts that occurred to me as I read this: 1. Why were privately owned mass transit systems the norm in the first half of the 20th century, and why is that now considered "impossible" today? 2. Why is it OK for government to "monopolize mass transit", which they have done almost everywhere, but a criminal "conspiracy" when four private entities try to do it?

wmf 13y ago
On point 2, presumably the government has no vested interest in any particular form of mass transit and thus would choose the most efficient one, while the private companies (in this case) are accused of using buses to prop up other businesses (cars, tires, and oil).
- nine_k 13y ago
  I wish I lived in the idyllic world which your sentence describes. It always puzzles me when people presume that governments or public offices act more virtuously, free from vested interests, agendas, prejudices, etc. I would understand it if governments imported their staff from angels. In reality, they have to hire the same human beings that private corporations hire.
  - ceras 13y ago
    I think the idea is that accountability to voters helps keep things in line. If you're in a situation where you believe a natural monopoly to be inevitable, it's not necessarily flawed reasoning.
- ams6110 13y ago
  They may or may not have a vested interest in buses vs. trolleys. But I think that they most definitely have an interest in monopolizing something like mass transit because it provides a huge opportunity for patronage jobs, ghost employment, union/pension shenanigans, contracting kickbacks, and vote-buying. Just off the top of my head.
krakensden 13y ago

saltyknuckles 13y ago

It keeps the hipsters out of Queens and then rent stays low. Do you really need another coffee shop for people to hog up tables using wifi all day?

acjohnson55 13y ago
What else are coffee shops for?
- saltyknuckles 13y ago
  coffee

tzs 13y ago

> Ever try to get from Brooklyn to Queens, two of the most populated boroughs of New York City? Without a car, it's nearly impossible, as most subway lines require one to go through Manhattan first. Could someone explain this to those of us who have never been to New York and whose only knowledge of its subways comes from TV and movies? The impression I get from subway travel as depicted on TV and in movies is that trains run frequently enough that trips requiring changing trains aren't a big deal. So what's the problem is you have to go to Manhattan then change trains to go to Queens?

yazmeya 13y ago
It's the distance, average speed and the number of stops that the trains make. Trains depart frequently during the rush hour (4-7 minute wait, depending on the line), but at night wait times could be 30+ minutes. Trains are also quite slow, compared to some of the more modern systems around the world - because of tight curves, narrow tunnels, lots of complicated crossings and frequent repair work. So even a one-seat ride (no transfer) between the "outer" boroughs through Manhattan could take a really long time. Add in a few connections, and fuhgeddaboutit. The truly awesome thing about NY subway is that it never closes, except in significant weather emergencies, so even in the dead of the night you can get from A to B, if you have to. It could take an eternity, though.
DrJokepu 13y ago
Such a journey would take a very long time, between 50 and 90 minutes depending on the time of the day and the exact starting point / destination.
- mkopinsky 13y ago
  For example, consider this journey: https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d83509!2d-73.9624327!3d40.6409217!4m18!3m17!1m5!1sFlatbush+-+Ditmas+Park%2C+Brooklyn%2C+NY!2s0x89c25b400c94a227%3A0x18e2a4d3fb21f0ec!3m2!3d40.6409217!4d-73.9624327!1m0!2e3!3m8!1m3!1d83452!2d-73.9155675!3d40.6860877!3m2!1i1280!2i662!4f13.1&fid=0 https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d83509!2... 30 minutes by car, 1:18 by public transit.
13y ago

raldi 13y ago

What did the trolleys provide that today's bus system does not?

jstalin 13y ago
That's an important point overlooked by those who are wistful for trolleys. Buses at least can change routes. Trolleys were from a time when few had cars and spending lots of money on a fixed route was efficient. Now it's not.
- raldi 13y ago
  So perhaps the actual blame lies not with the change from trolleys to buses, but rather the change from light traffic to heavy traffic, as the automobile industry took off.

aptwebapps 13y ago

Funny not to mention Robert Moses in an article about this topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses