Time Square Still Hell On Earth
April 11, 2013 8:28 AM   Subscribe

 
Alas, poor New Yoirk! I knew him, Horotia - a fellow of infinite jets, of most excellent pansy.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 8:36 AM on April 11, 2013 [5 favorites]


I mean, time square is designed as a transit hub, so "works as expected"? I'm still curious about segments of subway lines. For instance, everyone says the 456 from the upper east to midtown is hands down the most crowded of trains.
posted by Phredward at 8:41 AM on April 11, 2013


Every day that I take the bus from the boondocks Brooklyn neighborhood where I live to the different boondocks Brooklyn neighborhood where I work, I thank my lucky stars I am no longer spending 1.5 hrs in rush hour transit, including a transfer at Grand Central at 8 fucking 30 AM.
posted by griphus at 8:45 AM on April 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


My home stop is in the top 20, but often seems like it should be much higher on days where I have to wait three trains to be able to fit. :/
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:52 AM on April 11, 2013


I commute from the butt-end of Astoria to Union Square everyday, and aside from the usual shit that happens on any line, I really have no complaints. I almost always get a seat and only occasionally get serious delays.

Although one time, we were literally about 20 feet out from the final stop, when the conductor announced we were being delayed while they cleared debris. From the back of the car, I heard a squeaky voice say "what a way to run a railroad!" and thought "that man's been waiting his whole life to say that and laughed.
posted by jonmc at 9:14 AM on April 11, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm totally surprised that 149th Grand Concourse doesn't even crack the top 100. It's the funnel for a pretty big chunk of the Bronx, allowing for transfers to hit the East or West sides of Manhattan, not to mention it being a sizeable bus collection point. 109th place. Go figure.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:19 AM on April 11, 2013


The Bedford Avenue stop saw 603,534 more rides last year, for a 7.8% increase.

hmmff....I remember when the L used the 7.8% figure for the on-time statistic.

good times. good times.

(not really)
posted by lampshade at 9:34 AM on April 11, 2013


As far as I can tell from the subway ads, the MTA is doing to the G train the same thing Domino's did with their "our pizza doesn't suck anymore!" ad campaign.
posted by griphus at 9:36 AM on April 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


I always liked commuting to Grand Central, even if it was packed. I use to pretend I was commuting from Nyack or Rye or Ossining or wherever all those people are commuting from and that I was going to a nice office where I would sit and smoke between martinis instead of a cubicle. Where do all those people come from anyway?
posted by Ad hominem at 10:08 AM on April 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


Well, Pete Campbell lives in Cos Cob.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:18 AM on April 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


I shit you not the commute from Ossining to Grand Central is considerably quicker than my apartment to Grand Central.
posted by griphus at 10:21 AM on April 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


Time Square Still Hell On Earth

Above ground it's the Disney version.
posted by Splunge at 10:22 AM on April 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


Griph is right. I have a co-worker who lives in Ossining and he has a pretty quick commute, he says.
posted by jonmc at 10:27 AM on April 11, 2013


For instance, everyone says the 456 from the upper east to midtown is hands down the most crowded of trains.

It is. I live on the UES, and they are sardine cans during the peak hours. The east side really, really needs the Second Avenue line to ease things up. Thankfully we'll be able to enjoy it in 20 years or so.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:37 AM on April 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


The only way we're getting the 2nd Ave line finished (or the 7 extension to NJ) is with chanting. Lots of droning, repetitive chanting of the names of our dark and shadowy lord.
posted by The Whelk at 10:40 AM on April 11, 2013 [4 favorites]


Yeah, it is less than an hour from Ossining, where Don Draper lived, to Grand Central on Metro North, but you gotta drive to the station and it will set you back a couple hundred bucks for a monthly pass.

Cos Cob is almost exactly an hour.

If you work within walking distance of Grand Central it might be worth looking into.

It sucks for people who take NJ Transit to Penn Station and still have to take the S train across to Grand Central. It is the worst of both worlds.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:42 AM on April 11, 2013


Ah NJ transit, the grandest conceptional art project ever, designed to get us away from conventional notions of "trains" "schedules" and "movement".
posted by The Whelk at 10:46 AM on April 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


"The Lexington Avenue Line alone carries approximately 1.3 million riders each weekday—more than the combined ridership of San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston’s entire transit systems". [source pdf]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 10:47 AM on April 11, 2013 [2 favorites]


I live on the UES, and they are sardine cans during the peak hours.

I'm headed to Yankee stadium Friday night and am totally not looking forward to trying to ride the subway.
posted by Jahaza at 11:00 AM on April 11, 2013


Honestly, there is no good reason at all why there cannot be any kind of tunnel connecting the G train stop at Lafayette to the Atlantic Avenue Station hub. The tunnel connecting the F and the 1/2/3 at 14th Street is longer than that tunnel would be.

My closest subway is the G; any other subway is at least a 20 minute walk. My commute involves taking a bus to a subway; and the available buses only run 4 times an hour, so if any one of those buses is even the slightest bit earlier, then I"m totally thrown off. My office has given up on me ever coming to work sooner than "15 minutes late."

Although that was peanuts compared to the year I worked in New Jersey, and commuted from Brooklyn thusly:

* Walk to the G Train
* Transfer from the G to the A after 2 stops
* Take the A to Wall Street
* Walk to the PATH train
* Take the PATH to Hoboken
* Switch to the NJT Light rail
* Take the light rail to Weehawken

After about a year I finally snapped and called my temp agency and wailed "BRING ME BACK TO NEW YORK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:00 AM on April 11, 2013 [3 favorites]


Ah NJ transit, the grandest conceptional art project ever, designed to get us away from conventional notions of "trains" "schedules" and "movement".

Hmm... The Queens busses may give it a run for its money. I'm trying to introduce "More dishonest than a Queens bus schedule," as a proverbial expression.
posted by Jahaza at 11:01 AM on April 11, 2013 [4 favorites]


I'm totally surprised that 149th Grand Concourse doesn't even crack the top 100.

Keep in mind this is just where people enter the subway, not total through traffic or even transfer traffic.
posted by thecaddy at 11:09 AM on April 11, 2013


The only way we're getting the 2nd Ave line finished (or the 7 extension to NJ) is with chanting. Lots of droning, repetitive chanting of the names of our dark and shadowy lord.

BLDGBLOG: Foundation
I bookmarked an old article that seems relevant here, especially in light of the next image, that the tunnels had been "blessed"—made holy—by a Catholic priest back in August 2012. In a short article written with suitably—if obvious—Dantean undertones, we read that "the priest, Rev. Kazimierz Kowalski of the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel on East 90th Street in Manhattan, stepped over rocks into a small clearing away from the shaft to be clear of falling objects. And there he began to pray, blessing the underground cavity where the Second Avenue subway tunnel is taking shape."
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:24 AM on April 11, 2013


Speaking of extending the subway to NJ...

Are there any plans to extend PATH further into NY, like to Grand Central? Is that a dumb idea for some reason I'm not considering?
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 12:24 PM on April 11, 2013


Well, according to one transit-buffs' forum, "No amount of money can ever make this possible. You'd have to destroy the 6th Avenue subway line and the Broadway line in order to extend past 33rd Street where PATH currently ends." I suppose there could be some way to dive it down beneath the existing subway lines, but you'd want a rationale, and you'd need to have someplace to park the trains at GCT, and so forth, when it's already about as easy as it might be to just transfer to the 1/2/3 and take the S (I used to have to do this when I lived in JC, and fortunately my job at the time was walking distance from GCT, and the part I liked the least was the hike to Exchange Place*). Anyway, the way this traffic need was supposed to be addressed was the ARC project that Christie deep-sixed, and now the ARC alternative, now replaced somewhat by the Gateway Project. It won't help the Hudson shore, but it will move some of the Jersey traffic over to Amtrak.

What makes more sense is the contemplation of an extension to NWK, given how much of the region's air traffic uses it.

Also, although the surface tramway seems to be a real and admirable thing now, I really used to wonder why (aside from Jersey City's utter impoverishment as an urbanization late last century) there wasn't any interest in a subway line going up and down as far as Bayonne. Perhaps moot by now, especially since aforesaid tram might even reach Staten Island.

* I am now recalling the one-upmanship that "worst commute" conversations would converge to.

Thankfully we'll be able to enjoy it in 20 years or so.

Well, officially the first phase -- 63rd to 96th -- is scheduled for completion as soon as 2016. Now that they're actually working on it again, I'm inclined to believe this is not wholly irrational.
posted by dhartung at 3:11 PM on April 11, 2013


Time Square Still Hell On Earth

Funny. Times Square doesn't seem to be serviced by the Green Line, but then again, I've never ridden the "B" branch all the way west.

I kid, and I'm aware of 1970s Antihero's earlier bit of trivia and what it represents.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 3:42 PM on April 11, 2013


I like how Richmond, BC is also Richmond, California.

I also like how Toronto's Sheppard line is still the most useless thing (besides the Springfield Monorail).
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:24 PM on April 11, 2013


The first graph ("Total Annual Ridership 2012") looks to me like it obeys the power law. Could somebody smarter than I am verify whether or not that is true?
posted by tickingclock at 5:55 PM on April 11, 2013


I don't particularly care if PATH can be extended to GC, but I do very much care that PATH be extended to EWR. It really doesn't make sense to take PATH to Newark and then have to get NJ Transit for one stop and then have to do the airtrain nonsense.
posted by ob at 7:49 AM on April 12, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh hey so a few days ago I decided to print out a bus schedule for the bus that I take to/from work, so when I leave work, I can time it so that I don't have to stand out in the unenclosed bus stop in weather. Waiting in the middle of a street with no shade or cover in the sun or rain sucks, especially when you're waiting for a bus for 20-25 minutes.

Now, the MTA did not have such a schedule. They have a schedule of the major stops, but not the ones in between. Hopstop, however, did have one. So I was ready to print it out when I noticed that during my commute times the bus was supposed to come every 7-10 minutes.

That is when I realized I did not need to print out a bus schedule because there was no point in wasting ink and paper on LIES
posted by griphus at 8:24 AM on April 12, 2013 [2 favorites]


Speaking of buses, I would sure as hell like to know why one of the buses I took this morning had a four-bus clusterfuck go down. I got to the corner and saw one bus about two blocks from the station. Great, I'd make it. Except there was a big crowd already there.

Then as we were all getting on, I saw one woman glance up the block, then step back. I looked back where she was looking - and saw another bus two blocks back. I joined her in waiting. Then when that bus we saw was pulling to the curb, we saw a third bus behind that. And as we were getting on, and the third bus stopped to let someone off, a fourth bus roared past us.

I mean, I timed it really well so I was spoiled for choice, but that was weird.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 AM on April 12, 2013


I'm not sure why the 1/2/3 and A/C/E at Penn aren't lumped together.
posted by Brian Puccio at 7:51 PM on April 12, 2013


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