Subway Simulator 2016
August 3, 2016 8:47 AM   Subscribe

Brand New Subway is a browser game that lets you build the New York City subway system, either starting from scratch or working from an existing model (including a few past and future plans). Predictably, this leads to all sorts of idiosyncratic designs which score poorly on the game's metrics for ridership and cost, but do much better on metrics such as Number of Figure 8s Through Hoboken.

Brand New Subway is an entry in a competition organized by Tim Hwang for games based on Robert Caro's The Power Broker.

Plus, in exciting news for current Acela travelers, if you build a line that goes all the way down to Washington, DC, the fare stays under $15.
posted by Copronymus (57 comments total) 49 users marked this as a favorite
 
(in fact, Brooklyn overall is wildly underserved, one of the main ways I managed to keep people off the subway)
oh god does the MTA commissioner know how to use the internet
posted by griphus at 9:05 AM on August 3, 2016 [9 favorites]


You missed the OhCrapNowHowAmIGoingToGetAnythingDoneAtWorkThisAfternoon tag.
posted by otters walk among us at 9:06 AM on August 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


Now that they have the Hudson Yards station, it would be cool to have all of West End serviced. I'm selfish.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:18 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is neat!
posted by Melismata at 9:19 AM on August 3, 2016


Ahhh, this is genius. But it seems to exclude the PATH, thus giving the impression of no service into Jersey? It is a separate system, but not seeing it you might be tempted to run service to Jersey City or Hoboken thinking there's no way to connect on public transit, when, in fact, there is.
posted by praemunire at 9:23 AM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm selfish

First thing I did was check the effect of making my local stop an express.
posted by praemunire at 9:24 AM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


Man I wish I knew NYC well enough to really play around with this! I'd love to try out a Toronto version but probably it would just end in tears and/or rage.
posted by mr. manager at 9:30 AM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I think it's broken. I started with a train station in Montreal and then the next stop in northern Manhattan and then, when I clicked on the next stop, it drew a line all the way south, into the water, and then back to the station that I just made.
posted by I-baLL at 9:32 AM on August 3, 2016


Only losers don't drag the map all the way to their house out in the suburbs and create a two-station line from home to their favorite Gamestop.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:35 AM on August 3, 2016 [6 favorites]


My new route

The pedestrian route is winding and confusing. People get tired and angry. This subway saves people time and stress.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:42 AM on August 3, 2016 [11 favorites]


I remember talking to an MTA higher up at some party who said "The Purpose of the subway system is to get people in and out of lower Manhattan during the week" everything else is unimportant
posted by The Whelk at 9:45 AM on August 3, 2016


Man I wish I knew NYC well enough to really play around with this!

The people who planned and built the actual rail lines in the outer boros didn't appear to have any compunctions about this so
posted by griphus at 9:46 AM on August 3, 2016 [13 favorites]


To truly be a city planning project, the algorithm needs to have half your design get corrupted or canceled, and have the city go through random changes over a quarter century before your thing is built. That'd be an interesting but depressing game.

Are there any city sims that do that? Last I played Sim City, I recall it being that your decisions went through instantly.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:49 AM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have discovered a truly remarkable subway system that this simulator is too darn fidgety when controlled with a trackpad to contain.
posted by mattamatic at 9:51 AM on August 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


where is the part where we stick our sims in a poop car and then remove the doors and a/c

that is the best part of sims
posted by poffin boffin at 9:56 AM on August 3, 2016 [8 favorites]


aside from putting them in pools and then removing the ladders obvsly
posted by poffin boffin at 9:56 AM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have conclusively proven that building a transfer between the G stop on Lafayette, the A stop on Lafayette, and the Atlantic Avenue mega-stop would increase the cost of an average ride by less than one cent. And that's on TOP of rerouting the G through Red Hook and extending the 2 and 5 all the way down Flatbush to Kings Plaza.

WHY ARE THESE THINGS NOT DONE
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:56 AM on August 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


the best part of the sims is using cheat codes to get a ton of money and building an insanely opulent and massive house and then never actually playing the game beyond that
posted by burgerrr at 9:57 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


For the advanced player, The Sims is basically a Gothic Romance. You build insane mansions, and slowly kill off people mostly with the home's design.

Need to bust out the old mod tools and make some Crimson Peak stuff.
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:00 AM on August 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


Apparently no one takes the subway to or from the airports. How accurate is that?
posted by backseatpilot at 10:05 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Pretty accurate for people with disposable income. Taking public transportation to the airport can be hellish, especially to LGA where you have no choice but to take the bus. And god forbid if you have luggage and your flight as anywhere near rush hour.
posted by griphus at 10:19 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Some years ago when I was working for a cash strapped startup that had offices in Manhattan, I proposed that I was going to take the subway out to JFK. The primary funder's daughter said "Oh hell no, we'll get you a car."

I was kinda looking forward to seeing how the public transit system there handled airports, but apparently that's not how New Yorkers do it.
posted by straw at 10:23 AM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I have conclusively proven that building a transfer between the G stop on Lafayette, the A stop on Lafayette, and the Atlantic Avenue mega-stop would increase the cost of an average ride by less than one cent.

Yeah, but it would probably take three decades to build and ultimately save about three minutes of above-ground walking.

(Thought it is INSANE that the Fulton G stop and the Lafayette C stop are two different stations, you could literally throw a baseball from one to the other. )
posted by Itaxpica at 10:23 AM on August 3, 2016


Apparently no one takes the subway to or from the airports. How accurate is that?

100%. Our airports are in terrible places.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:23 AM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I can't figure out how to split a line, so that (say) the R line now has two destinations, one at Forest Hills and one at La Guardia.
posted by XtinaS at 10:30 AM on August 3, 2016


Am I insane? I can't make the sim do anything... how do I close a loop even?
posted by Cosine at 10:31 AM on August 3, 2016


Apparently no one takes the subway to or from the airports. How accurate is that?

There's currently no subway service to LGA, though there are multiple buses and at least they finally introduced select bus service on the M60, so you're not just grinding along on the local route (must be a lot easier on the poor folks who use it to go local, too). JFK is doable with the AirTrain but, because it's so remote, there are real limits on what the subway can do. EWR is served by NJ Transit--in some ways it's the easiest to get to on public transit despite being in another state!
posted by praemunire at 10:38 AM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


Apparently no one takes the subway to or from the airports. How accurate is that?

I think bsp's point is that even when you hook the subway up to the airport and eliminate the M60 bus, there is no change in subway ridership--it's a problem with the simulation.
posted by cardboard at 10:38 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


yeah, if you're broke, flying out of EWR is by far the easiest solution to having to get on a plane
posted by griphus at 10:39 AM on August 3, 2016


how do i make it do a barrel roll???
posted by indubitable at 10:41 AM on August 3, 2016


I also can't figure out how to start a line. This is essential when adding new cross-town shuttles.
posted by XtinaS at 10:41 AM on August 3, 2016


What a terrible sim. Where are the people? Where is the traffic? Where is the bottleneck? Why am I getting the grade I am getting? Where is demand?

I will sick to the awesome MiniMetro, so fun.
posted by Cosine at 10:49 AM on August 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


Apparently no one takes the subway to or from the airports. How accurate is that?

100%. Our airports are in terrible places.


"Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded." - Y. Berra, noted philosopher
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:52 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think bsp's point is that even when you hook the subway up to the airport and eliminate the M60 bus, there is no change in subway ridership--it's a problem with the simulation.

Or maybe travel time is so great that shaving a little time off the trip doesn't significantly increase ridership? I don't know. There's also the question of where the line runs. If you replace the M60 with a subway running the same route Manhattan people would still have to go up to 106th St on one stretch but mostly to 125th to transfer, which would not be very popular, and connectivity for Brooklyn and Queens residents would still be shaky.
posted by praemunire at 10:57 AM on August 3, 2016


Yeah, but it would probably take three decades to build and ultimately save about three minutes of above-ground walking.

It ain't the above-ground walking I'm trying to save, I'm more interested in the free transfer from one line to another. The G is the nearest subway to me and it only connects with the F or the A. I need the 4,5, or 6 to get to work; being able to connect to the 4 at Atlantic Avenue would be a godsend.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:00 AM on August 3, 2016


Relatedly I am upset that there's no direct bus route from my home (Guam) to near my workplace (currently a call center in Arizona).
posted by beerperson at 11:08 AM on August 3, 2016 [10 favorites]


I was curious more that connecting the airports doesn't do anything for your ridership. When you plunk down a station the little pop-up has an estimate of how many riders would use that stop, and for JFK and LGA that number is zero.

I am also very skeptical that running a train from New Haven, CT to Brookhaven, NY, for several miles under the Long Island Sound, would only add a penny to the ticket price.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:11 AM on August 3, 2016


Relatedly I am upset that there's no direct bus route from my home (Guam) to near my workplace (currently a call center in Arizona).

I think I read they're planning to expand the Staten Island Ferry route to Guam, so you'd just have to catch the A27 Limited to Flagstaff at Whitehall.
posted by griphus at 11:31 AM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


My brand-new subway system is designed to serve those parts of NYC that have been historically underserved by public transit.

A line: Roosevelt Island–Governors Island–Ellis Island–Liberty Island
B line: Roosevelt Island–Mill Rock–Randall's Island–North Brother Island–Riker's Island
D line: stops at South Brother Island instead of North Brother, otherwise the same as the B line
G line: Roosevelt Island–Randall's Island–City Island–Hart Island
J line: Governors Island–Shooters Island–Prall's Island–Island of Meadows
N line: Governors Island–Hoffman Island–Swinburne Island

Single-ride fare: $19.08
Average weekday ridership: 30,000

posted by Johnny Assay at 11:41 AM on August 3, 2016 [8 favorites]


You get surprisingly good results building a line that runs crosstown at 125th and then cuts up the central Bronx. The lack of crosstown service north of 42nd St has always struck me as an oversight.
posted by praemunire at 12:26 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


EWR is served by NJ Transit--in some ways it's the easiest to get to on public transit despite being in another state!

I recently came to the conclusion that EWR-Manhattan is much easier on public transit than even on Uber. So. many. tolls.

Also this thing requires a lot of clicking if you start from scratch.
posted by GuyZero at 2:57 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Am I the only one who takes public transit to all three NYC airports?

I live literally on the opposite end of the A train from JFK, and find any solution that involves a car to JFK is more likely to make me miss a flight than public transit. I have discovered two hacks that are better than taking the A the whole way there: 1) reverse direction at 42nd and take the E to Jamaica instead of the A (the E goes express during the day) or 2) LIRR it (it's only like two stops to Penn! So worth it!)

I am still not convinced that taking a car is ever a reasonable solution in NYC, but this may just be years of poverty speaking.
posted by gusandrews at 5:17 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I fixed it. I move the G Broadway stop over to Hewes Street so you can transfer from the J to the G without walking 3 blocks (not much, but it gets on my nerves). I diverted the F out into Red Hook and then back around. I swung the A up into the middle of Bed-Stuy while leaving the C alone. I ran the T from Fordham to Bowery and made sure it hit the N, 7 and L trains. I extended the M out to Maspeth and the G into LIC. I removed the R from everything east of Elmhurst (the M can run on weekends) and ran it out to Jewel Ave in Flushing. The eastern edge of Queens is still a transit desert, but that's what the LIRR is for. $2.73 a trip.

Mr. Cuomo, I await my contract.

Finally, the AirTrain now runs direct from JFK to LaGuardia. This is the best part of the plan.
posted by Hactar at 7:34 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


This kind of thing always leaves me with an emotional hangover from pretending I lived in a country in which it was actually politically feasible to build rapid transit.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:07 PM on August 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


(as opposed to one where state governments and state/federal legislatures are almost always actively hostile to the concerns of people living in cities)
posted by en forme de poire at 8:12 PM on August 3, 2016


Oh, this is offensively bad. Absolutely the worst thing I've seen in a long time, well since I looked at a Trump thread.

So I started from scratch, and I built a fairly generic line from the Upper West Side to the Financial District, then out to Brooklyn and Queens roughly along Fulton. Ridership: 0.54 million, cost $1.37. Sure, whatever. Maybe that's fine, maybe it isn't, who's to say.

Then I change things so that the Brooklyn/Queens line is one service, and the Manhattan service is another, meeting in the Financial District. Ridership: 0.54 million, cost $1.37. Seems a little odd that I don't get a drop in ridership now that anybody going between Manhattan and Brooklyn/Queens has to transfer, but maybe most of my ridership is to lower Manhattan so it's not noticeable.

So I change up again; now there are three lines, still following the same original route, but now one in upper and midtown Manhattan, one from downtown Brooklyn to Queens, and one connecting the two. Now everybody has to transfer to get to lower Manhattan, and many trips require 2 transfers. Ridership: 0.54 million, cost $1.37. Huh, that's odd.

The next thing is a variation on the second one, except now instead of the Brooklyn/Queens line connecting to a transfer station in Lower Manhattan, it stops in Brooklyn. Ridership: 0.54 million still (even though you can't go between Manhattan and the outer boroughs on the train) and cost $1.37 (even though there isn't a tunnel under the East River).

I finally create the most ridiculous extremes - one where instead of a single line, instead there are just a bunch of two-stop lines, not even connecting. You can't go more than 20-30 blocks on a single train without then walking 20-30 blocks to the next train. Ridership and cost remain the same.

The most ridiculous is a set of lines each pairing one stop in Manhattan with one stop in Brooklyn or Queens; from Penn Station to Atlantic Ave at the Van Wyck Expressway, or from Broadway/165th to the Barclay's Center for example. Every train travels a long distance and only serves one quixotic market pair, with no connections at all. Ridership: 0.54 million, cost $1.37.

It's plainly obvious that this game is a really slick map interface, paired with a made-up number for ridership based on where the stop is - it doesn't matter how the stop is connected to the network, it's the same ridership. Which is why it's so dangerous. It looks like a good faith representation of the NYC subway system, it responds to inputs in some fashion, and it claims to use "a variety of data sources (census data, jobs data, existing transportation demand data, etc.)". A number of commenters above talk about the effects of specific potential policies, like airport rail or different crosstown lines and so on. The post title even implies it's a "subway simulator". But it's not.

It's like presenting something in 2002 that claimed to be a detailed simulation of the upcoming Iraq War, where as long as the US sent in over 50,000 troops - of any type, in any form - the game would show the result as being a clean-cut victory. It's misleading in a way that separates cause and effect and that suggests policies that are disastrous.

Transportation planning simulation is hard - I do this sort of thing for a living - and the little details actually matter a lot. The difference between a train that runs every 10 minutes all day and one that runs every 30, or one with good transfers versus one without is huge, and it's that sort of detail that means a transit project succeeds or fails. The actual professional models take hours - if not days - of runtime to produce a single result.

I'm not saying that a browser game should have the same fidelity, that's not possible. What I am saying is that a browser game that doesn't produce any reasonable estimate of ridership or cost for the New York subway shouldn't be pretending that it does, because there's enough uncertainty out there already. If this is called "New York Subway Fantasy Mapper" and it doesn't pretend that it's doing anything under the hood - gosh, it's really pretty cool. As it is, it's introducing lies into an already politicized public debate, and doing so by making them look like truths. And to me, that's offensively bad.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:29 PM on August 3, 2016 [13 favorites]


If you take the A from 207 St to 125th and then transfer to the M60 just to get to LGA...I feel for you. I've pretty much given up cabs since I gave up my higher-paying job, but I make an exception for LGA and (often) JFK.
posted by praemunire at 10:18 PM on August 3, 2016


I only fly from JFK because it is the easiest for transit. Fuck Newark. (I live off the L in Brooklyn. It is less than an hour door-to-door for L > A at Bwy Jct.) LGA is the trash Manhattanites deserve.
posted by dame at 12:21 AM on August 4, 2016


It's plainly obvious that this game is a really slick map interface, paired with a made-up number for ridership based on where the stop is - it doesn't matter how the stop is connected to the network, it's the same ridership.

Well....yeah. I'm looking at your simulations, and absolutely NONE of them would work for me, an actual New York resident who needs public transit. All of them would be a 20-minute walk between the subway station and my ultimate desintation at both ends, and that's the kind of thing that would be making me say "fuck it, I'll take the bus." And I'm not the only one, believe me.

Ridership by a station is very closely connected to the number of people living close by that station. Pure and simple.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:47 AM on August 4, 2016


Ridership by a station is very closely connected to the number of people living close by that station. Pure and simple.

But it's not just that simple. Homeboy's point is that population density is by far not the only factor that affects ridership -- network design and frequency, especially, are going to have a major impact on ridership as well, and he's critiquing the fact that the simulation doesn't seem to take any of this into account.

LGA is the trash Manhattanites deserve.

Please, as a East Harlem resident, please expand on why I deserve such trash.
posted by andrewesque at 6:29 AM on August 4, 2016


But it's not just that simple. Homeboy's point is that population density is by far not the only factor that affects ridership -- network design and frequency, especially, are going to have a major impact on ridership as well, and he's critiquing the fact that the simulation doesn't seem to take any of this into account.

I'm afraid I'm not clear how his simulations prove that point. But I will admit that I may be the weak link in the chain and may need a bit more of a clearer explanation (and Homeboy, you are of course free to say "nah, I'd rather not, you go do homework", of course).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:33 AM on August 4, 2016


Empress, I feel like maybe you've misread Homeboy Trouble. You almost certainly aren't looking at actual simulations because those require specialized software. The things he linked here are supposed to be demonstrations of why the toy in the FPP leads to absurd conclusions. So the fact that none of them would work for you is actually the point: they all look "the same" in terms of game-predicted ridership even though one would, e.g., require a transfer every 5 blocks for every rider, which would be ridiculous.

If you want lay explanations of why stuff like line frequency and interconnectivity can matter more than stop density, as another layperson I think Jarrett Walker's "Human Transit" blog has some pretty clear explanations with examples.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:34 AM on August 4, 2016


I think that is definitely my failing then, because it looked like Homeboy Trouble was putting forth those images as "look, this is proof that the game doesn't work" and I was looking at the images and....not getting how they supported his point. But that is most likely my own failing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:51 AM on August 4, 2016


The thing about the images is, all of the layouts are scored exactly the same.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 1:37 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


Right. The contradiction is that obviously, one line running through Manhattan to Brooklyn is more useful and would have higher ridership than this or this, even though they have the same number of stops in the same place, yet they're scored identically.

Obviously even that first one is still insufficient for the practical needs of NYC residents, but if you want, you could imagine a scenario where all of the current stops are still there, yet the stops are connected randomly -- so you'd travel from Canal St. to Atlantic Avenue to Queensboro Plaza to 42nd Street, for example. The point HT is making is that in this game, such an insane system would still score the same as the current one in terms of ridership.
posted by en forme de poire at 2:54 PM on August 4, 2016


Haven't tried Subway Simulator 2016, but Mini Metro (Steam, Apple Store, Android Store) is actually quite good; really really simple to learn, and has many hours of play in it.
posted by talldean at 8:41 AM on August 8, 2016


The aforementioned Jarrett Walker had some interesting things to say about Mini Metro from a transit planner's perspective.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:02 PM on August 8, 2016


« Older this is not fine   |   UFC Sold -- What's Next? Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments