
The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early - onuralp
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/nyregion/subway-late-early-new-york.html
======
wgerard
It's interesting seeing the ways people work around this, even for people who
don't have hard start/end times (e.g. tech employees).

I have one friend who uses Citi Bike to get to important meetings < 30 blocks
away, because they don't trust the subway to get them there on time (and
during peak hours, cabs are even slower). I have another who goes pretty far
out of their way to avoid the more troublesome lines (the F, specifically).
Some have started using the bus much more regularly, because at least the bus
doesn't break down for an hour at a time. One manager I know just stopped
scheduling any meetings before 11, because they got tired of having people
miss meetings or come in late because of the trains.

I think people who don't live in the city don't realize how (relatively)
stressful it can be when the trains are late. Riding the train during peak
hours is already a pretty stressful experience: The sardine analogy is very
real, and it's fairly common for trains to be so packed that I literally don't
have room to even put my phone in front of my face (let alone a book or
anything else) to pass the time.

Now imagine that, but the train platform is also similarly packed. And people
are fighting (sometimes literally) to get onto the packed train. And you'll
have to wait for 2-3 trains to pass, because there's no empty space on the
trains. And you're late, and you have no idea when you'll get to where you're
going because the train ETA board just says "Delay". And when you need to get
off the train, you'll have to just pray that people make room for you or
you'll have to really force your way through the crowd on your way out.

~~~
CydeWeys
I purposely live within easy biking distance of the office for this reason,
which I'll admit is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Fortunately tech
pays well.

Between my own bike and Citi Bike I can get everywhere I need to without
relying on any form of mass transportation. Biking is frequently the fastest
form of transportation, depending start/end point of the trip anyway. It
certainly is for my daily commute.

~~~
Arbalest
Strangely enough, even in cities such as mine, which aren't so packed, cycling
is _still_ faster. Busses are faster than cars because they don't need to
park, but still take 30-35 minutes. I can cycle in in 20 minutes. Note there
is no train in my direction.

I think this is partially because bicycles are not that popular here, but
there are provisions for bikes that go above and beyond cars. Having seen
Bruges in Belgium, The bike queue can be comparable to a car queue (narrower,
but none the less). I imagine other cycling heavy countries are similar.

~~~
grandmczeb
I live in Palo Alto and this is frequently true even though biking is
definitely an afterthought in most cases. By car, I can get to work in about
30 min (+/-10 with traffic) but can bike there in consistency less than 20.

~~~
s0rce
Same here in the east bay, driving to work in Emeryville takes 15-25 minutes
and then add another 5-10min to park, even in the garage. If I bike to work
its less than 25, usually around 20 and I can leave my bike in the small
garage in the basement or just take it up to my office. Takes me longer to get
home since have to climb back up 300ft to my place in Piedmont. The bus is
pointless and would take about 20min of walking + the time on the bus.

~~~
mmariani
Spinning is winning. Instead of using high torque shift to easier gears and
spin as fast as you can while seating on the saddle. You’re going to get there
with fresher legs though a bit hotter in general—it’s a nice cardio—but that
shouldn’t be a problem because you’re steps away from your shower.

~~~
Arbalest
I've been doing higher RPMs for a while now (I'm going to guess about 80) but
I think this may have impacted my knees more. I've shifted to higher gears to
try and reduce the number of repetitions my joints have to do, to shift load
to the muscles

------
DalekBaldwin
The fundamental reason for worsening subway service in recent years may be
more mundane than we assumed: [https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-
trains-are-slowe...](https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-trains-are-
slower-because-they-slowed-the-trains-down/)

It was slowly driving me insane at my last job. Now, I just have to dial in to
the morning meeting, then I can work from home for about an hour before
heading in to the office, and we've been asked to stay home even for fairly
light snowstorms this winter. I wouldn't be surprised if other tech companies
in the city are adding more flexibility to their work hours.

~~~
peter303
The system is a century old with original electromechanical controllers.

~~~
tokyoguy
that is no excuse. it's called maintenance. other cities manage to maintain
their transit system . NYC has zero excuse . See Tokyo's transit history for
how often they've upgrade the entire system a piece at a time.

~~~
apaprocki
... and do most of those upgrades take place when the Tokyo subway shuts down
each night between 1am and 5am? It's hard to replace signal systems on tracks
with a train passing every few minutes.

~~~
squiggleblaz
So if the Tokyo subway shuts down each night between 1am and 5am, why can't
the NYC subway shut parts down periodically? It's common here in Melbourne to
have whole lines shut down during the summer for maintenance or other service
changes (e.g. removing level crossings). We hate it but we cope.

There's literally no excuse for not maintaining your infrastructure. Every
probably can be solved. Shut down a line every night till the job is done. Or
shut it down for a day or two. Is the line integrated with others? Maybe
you'll have to shut down three or four lines. People will hate it. But if it
avoids months and months of problems to have a few days, they'll cope.

~~~
apaprocki
It’s not to say that they can’t — it is to say that they don’t due to history
and expectations. New Yorkers expect it to run 24/7 because it always has and
people routinely make life decisions about where to live and work due to that.
You can’t just change it without a pretty drastic social effect that would
take years to smooth out.

~~~
brynjolf
Ok then if noone wants the change then honestly stop your whining

------
StanislavPetrov
To me (as a life long New Yorker) this is yet another sign of our decaying
society - our crumbling empire. I've often wondered if the people of Rome
understood that their empire was crumbling. Did they actually see the signs as
it happened, or did it occur in such a way that the slow-motion decline wasn't
sharply felt? The problems here aren't just the subways. The roads, the
bridges and other infrastructure are also crumbling around us. The airports
are a disaster of endless construction that never get completed and just add
to the misery of travelers and the sense of overall decay. The LIRR is as bad
or worse as the crumbling subway system. More New Yorkers are living paycheck
to paycheck as the cost of housing, healthcare, insurance, and education soar
far beyond what working people can afford. Our bloated bureaucracy continues
to grow like a cancer, guided by the likes of the eminently corrupt Andrew
Cuomo (and his allies in both political parties who serve the same moneyed
interests), draining ever-more resources while providing ever-fewer critical
services. Homelessness and poverty are increasing, while those at the very top
of the economic pyramid are growing fabulously wealthy. Among this myriad of
growing problems, we as a nation continue to ignore these issues and pour our
limited resources into endless foreign wars and occupations. Unfortunately,
dark days are ahead.

~~~
kyledrake
Increased demand for the subway is not a sign of decaying society, it's a sign
of prosperity and growth. It's a sign that people feel more safe using the
system and living in New York, and that there are more opportunities for
people living there.

I for one would much rather live in a NY dealing with some temporary growth
success issues than live in NY during the 70s (or really, any time before).

~~~
StanislavPetrov
I've lived in New York City for over 40 years. If you view crumbling
infrastructure, 44% of NYC residents living at or near the poverty line and
soaring homelessness as signs of "prosperity", that's your prerogative.

[https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-homeless-
popula...](https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/nyc-homeless-population-
grew-4-year-data-show)

I suggest you fly into Laguardia airport to see some world class prosperity.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2015/07/28/lag...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2015/07/28/laguardia-
worst-airport-crowded-concourses-terminal-weather-flight-
disruptions/30782433/)

[http://abc7ny.com/traffic/traffic-nightmare-for-drivers-
head...](http://abc7ny.com/traffic/traffic-nightmare-for-drivers-heading-to-
laguardia-airport/2702148/)

If you want to enjoy even more "prosperity", you can pay $344 a month to ride
the LIRR (as long as you don't have to get anywhere on time).

[https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/last-years-lirr-delays-cost-
ri...](https://nypost.com/2018/03/15/last-years-lirr-delays-cost-riders-
millions/)

------
tokyoguy
it's frustrating to read this thread and watch people make excuses for NYC .
NYC is not special. Tokyo has old subways 3-4x the stations and 10x the
riders. They manage to rebuild , change tracks, build new ones and generally
do the maintainence and upkeep required to keep it running well and on time.

NYC's issues are entirely about politics and leadership and nothing to do with
anything unique to NYC

que more excuses

~~~
dx034
NYC is unique in that they are one of the few systems running non-stop. Any
maintenance results in delays. Other large systems (Tokyo, Moscow, London)
shut down most nights. Those 4-5 hour windows can make a lot of difference.

~~~
piva00
As I mentioned in another comment: what stops NYC from running replacement
busses while one of the lines is under maintenance during the night? A bunch
of cities do that, for example Berlin, I don't see what stops NYC from doing
the same...

~~~
dx034
The economy of Berlin is based on available transport. Using buses prolongs
journeys a lot, e.g. in London the city estimated that a sizeable chunk of
people will see a 30+ minute journey reduction due to night tube.

Using replacement buses works but would likely damage 24h businesses and take
one of New York's advantages away.

------
somberi
Many readers have quoted the superiority (rightfully so), of Moscow and Tokyo
subway systems.

Both these systems operate from around 5am till midnight (approx). NYC Subway
operates 24 hours. These few hours downtime, make a huge difference with
respect to maintainability and upkeep. These 4 hours each day adds up to ~60
full days of maintenance window.

Maybe NYC can stop the late-night services for a year or so and I am sure
better brains than mine have considered this.

On a separate note, it might help to note that usage of NYC Subway has
increased by 80% over the last ~20 years (1). It will be interesting to see
the same trend for Moscow and Tokyo subways.

NewYorker here and Subway rider here.

(1)[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-
delays-overcrowding.html)

~~~
randall
Late night tho... that 2am subway home is a lifeline for a lot of folks. I
remember getting home at like 4am once thanks to the subway. I could probably
live without it, but it wouldn't be as nice.

~~~
ajdlinux
You need to boost other public transport services to provide at least some
level of late night service. In Sydney, they run substitute buses between many
railway stations from 0000-0430 - it's not great, but it's possible to use
buses to provide a minimum level of service coverage when the railways are
shut down.

------
chrischen
What does it exactly mean for a subway that's supposed to run every 3-5
minutes to be "late"? Are NY metro trains so infrequent that a schedule is
that important?

~~~
mabbo
It's a cascading failure issue. Toronto has the same problem, on a smaller
scale. What I see here:

Step 1: a train gets delayed for a minute somewhere on the line. A dozen
common reasons exist- someone becomes ill, mechanical issue, debris on the
tracks, etc.

Step 2: Because it's rush hour, there's minimal buffer time between trains so
the train behind it must also stop (and the one behind it, and the one behind
it, etc). Even a 60 second delay of one train can back up the whole line.

Step 3: Because a train is late, there's more people trying to get on and off,
which makes it take more time per station. As well, with more people per
train, there's more human-related delays per train. The additional delays mean
"go to 1".

With large enough buffers between trains, the system is stable- the problems
get smoothed out. With small buffers, like during rush hour, the system can
get into a feedback-loop total system failure. A 30 minute trip becomes hours
long.

~~~
oconnor663
The subway equivalent of gridlock :(

~~~
justherefortart
Traffic waves. Interesting topic. I just enjoy the surfing to work and let the
waves take me gently along :-)

------
kgc
Maybe they should have scheduled maintenance closures that reoccur over the
same parts of the day every day. Say, 1-5am?. So, it would be a 20hr/day
instead of 24hr/day subway, but would be dependable during those 20 hrs.

~~~
pmiller2
Then how do people get home from the bars? That's my major complaint about
BART, that it stops running too early. If I'm out late enough in the city, I
can't return to the East Bay easily, so I either end up stressing to get the
last train, or end up having to use my car, which has its own stress involved.

~~~
anonymfus
In Moscow where Metro is officially closed from 1:00 up to 5:30 there are
special night buses and trams for this.

~~~
twic
Same in London (buses, not sure about trams). Catching a night bus home from
Trafalgar Square along with eighty other people who are also at the wrong end
of a big night out is a classic rite of passage for Londoners.

It got a bit less overwhelming when they started running the night buses from
all over central London rather than just from Trafalgar Square. It's changed
again recently now that some underground lines are 24 hour.

~~~
dx034
London night tube remains weekends only, though. And even then, 30% of
passengers are going from/to work. The importance of a 24h subway is not to
get drunk people home but to help people working night/early shifts. The main
reason London will not get intra-week night tube anytime soon is because of
the maintenance issues this causes. The NYC subway was explicitly mentioned
when this was proposed.

------
JumpCrisscross
I have a limiting rule, living in New York, to leave for meetings no later
than 1 hour before the start time. It ensures I’m relaxed and on time. It
gives me a moment to observe before the action begins. And it forces me to be
more judicious about the number of meetings I book. (Granted, this only works
since I can be productive on my phone while I wait.)

~~~
shin_lao
I have exactly the same rule, unless I can got to my appointment by foot.

------
jorblumesea
I'm confused as to why the US seems to fail or fall so far behind in
infrastructure compared to other developed nations. It seems that we throw
money at our problems but seemingly get nowhere. It's sad because there's many
amazing things about this country, but we cannot do basic things like make
trains run on time.

~~~
nkozyra
In almost all cases I think this is a valid critique, but not against the MTA.
It's one of the oldest, most complex, largest and among the ten highest daily
ridership. To me, it remains an absolute marvel.

Of course daily riders do and will forever complain. As someone who riders
infrequently and is warned about impending doom, I find myself too often
pleasantly surprised.

~~~
gsnedders
Why does the London Underground mostly run to schedule, though, then? Because
it's older, arguably as complex (especially the subsurface railway), and not
that far below NYC in ridership…

~~~
ng12
The biggest difference is the Tube doesn't run 24/7\. You have a guaranteed
maintenance cycle.

Also my understanding is that European unions are less corrupt than American
ones.

~~~
yardie
Why are American unions singled out to be maligned? French unions will kidnap
their boss if negotiations breakdown. American strikers have been fired upon
by the local police.

I get it, you’ve driven a poorly made American car once and it your blaming
the union workers who built it. Not the factory managers, not the engineers
who design with poor tolerances, not the accountants who choose cheap, poor
material.

I’ve met unionized school teachers who get fired in June and rehired in
August. Why? So the schoolboard won’t have to pay mandatory cost of living
increases that the union negotiated for. Better to pay teachers less every
year.

------
scarface74
Just to put things in perspective.

[https://www.moneycrashers.com/worst-us-cities-traffic-
commut...](https://www.moneycrashers.com/worst-us-cities-traffic-commute-
time/)

I've been commuting (by car) for 30-60 minutes one way depending on my job for
20+ years in Atlanta. I didn't realize that a 30 minute commute was considered
"bad".

It really doesn't bother me. I put on a podcast and enjoy the downtime. I also
don't have young kids.

When my 15 year old son has to stay late and I can't get to him,I just tell
him to take Uber. My wife and I have agreed to "work hard, play hard". We
cherish our weekends.

All that being said, I can understand the difference being stuck outside in
the cold at the whims of public transportation and being in your own car.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The idea of spending all weekday hours working and "cherishing" weekends is
terrible to me. If I can't go out on any weeknight and enjoy time with friends
or family due to having to commute, then I'm looking for a change.

~~~
scarface74
My friends are so disbursed in the metro area we wouldn't even think about
trying to deal with the traffic in the evening. I have a group of friends that
work close enough together to meet for lunch with proper planning but we
wouldn't dare voluntarily deal with evening traffic to meet up.

When I was dating my now wife, we lived in opposite sides of town - 38 miles
apart. That's life in a major metro area.

You either live in the burbs where you can get a nice affordable big house or
live closer to where the jobs are and live in a shoebox.

------
dazc
Pure coincidence? Meet the Brit in charge of fixing NYC's subway.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-
canada-43561378](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43561378)

------
borne0
The trains should only run on tracks that are completely enclosed (More
control on the environment will realize better reliability, and as an aside
nicer living space. Raised tracks are ugly.), Also they should run on rubber
wheels like the Montreal metro has since 1966.

Both metros should have barrier between platforms and tracks since they know
where the doors will open. It's sad but a non-negligible cause of delays are
due to people jumping on the tracks.

~~~
mschuster91
> Both metros should have barrier between platforms and tracks since they know
> where the doors will open.

This only works for environments with _one_ type of rolling stock only. It's
not uncommon that you take a ride in a decades-old train (e.g. the oldest
trains in the Munich subway hail from 1971, they are expected to run for
essentially over 50 years!), switch lines at a station and end up in a train
that rolled off the factory line 2 years ago. Each new train generation has,
for example, different door widths, door positions, even the _number_ of doors
per wagon can change.

~~~
borne0
That's true. Montreal just upgraded their rolling stock: (The MR-73 didn't owe
them anything
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MR-73](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MR-73))
but the new cars
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPM-10](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPM-10))
have the doors in the same place as the MR-73 cars.

Admittedly I hadn't thought of that, but I don't think there's that much
variety in rolling stock for a given location, and when speccing out
replacements I don't think it's too much to ask that the doors are in the same
place (cars are purchased in dozens...), maybe I'm wrong. Montreal is a much
smaller network than New York.

~~~
gruez
>when speccing out replacements I don't think it's too much to ask that the
doors are in the same place (cars are purchased in dozens...)

that pretty much only works if you have 1 generation of rolling stock
currently in use, and you know (or forsee) that you want to install platform
doors. considering that the new york subways were built before platform doors
were a thing, I can totally see how door location wasn't even a concern when
purchasing rolling stock.

------
swang
I took a trip to ny last week and the area i was staying at (near trump tower,
off lexington), the closest subways were the 2/3/E/M but apparently on
Saturday the 2 and 3 weren't available going downtown, so I had to walk a
block or so to get to another line to get where I was going.

Then I was in Brooklyn to watch a show that night, we got out around 9PM and
was trying to figure out how to get back into the city, the line that was
suppose to take us wasn't running it's normal route, so we had to take one
stop into Barclays Center which renamed another line to the line that we
wanted to go on. Seemed like the locals knew about this though.

I didn't experience any major delays, but it was more like there was so much
work being done that you had to spend extra energy remembering which line was
available only one way and starting at which station. Google Maps was
definitely very helpful.

~~~
ng12
> Seemed like the locals knew about this though.

I think about this a lot. I know what it means when the AC is rerouted along
the F to West 4th and can plan accordingly. How the hell is a tourist supposed
to figure out how to get to Fulton?

~~~
mattlondon
+1. Signage in NYC metro is woefully poor IME.

In the London Underground pretty much everywhere you look in the carriage,
there is a map or route diagram, with clear announcements and digital signage
telling you where you are and where the train is going. Same with the
platforms - the station name is repeated many many times everywhere on the
platform and there are maps, signage and route plans all over the place.

In NYC it seems that maps and signs are kept to a minimum, with some stations
just having a singal initial (!) on a grubby ceramic wall tile to identify the
station IIRC. The driver might mutter something over the tannoy, but if you're
not familiar with the vernacular or plain just don't understand what they
said, your often left confused about where you are or if you are going in the
right direction.

------
ggm
I haven't been in NY for over 10 years. When I was there, the subway was
fantastic. On time, cheap and clean (ish)

Has there been some very rapid drop in service? is this something which
forseeably could get better soon, or is it a one-way hole without a huge
capital investment?

~~~
gberger
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/nyregion/mta-train-
delays...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/nyregion/mta-train-delays.html)

------
Regardsyjc
I've had a couple instances where the MTA was so messed up either through
delays or a weekend schedule change that I had to get off the subway and order
an Uber to reach my destination...

SHOWTIME folks seem to be starting again. I still have a strange anxiety that
some crazy person will push me into the tracks if I get too close after those
string of incidents a few years back. And now I also wonder when the next
train derailment will be since those seem to now be a real possibility. Some
of our trains are literally past their expiration date and begging for an
accident. .

------
jotjotzzz
NYC will never know how bad it is until they go out of the U.S. to such places
in Asia like Thailand, HK, Taiwan, or Japan and experience those subway
stations. There is no such thing as a "weekend service" and subways arrive on-
time without question, there are clean restrooms and WiFi. The NYC subway is
decades behind. It has remained stagnant in advancements and has now broken
down due to lack of development and overcrowding. It's a problem.

------
fancyfish
There is one benefit of leaving early: not having to deal with vast crowds of
riders on an overpacked train. Another side effect of underfunding.

------
ttn
After I started riding motorcycle instead of public services or my car, time
spent during transportation reduced almost %80. I live in Istanbul, when I
leave work to go home (prime time) it takes up to 2 hours with car and 1.5
hour with public transportation to reach home. With my motorcycle it is around
25-35 minutes.

~~~
ttn
There are many advantages (and few disadvantages) riding, for me time spent on
road was the killer and you can not imagine how much I recommend it.

------
mattupstate
Wow, not one person read this article and saw the NYC cultural commentary?
Don't you all know we hate being early as much as we hate being late?

------
wink
I'm confused about the part with the teacher. Where I went to school ALL the
teachers arrived 15-60 minutes earlier and went into their dedicated room. I
don't remember exactly, but one of them coming in late was a "once every few
years" thing.

Sure it sucks if you're early but I suppose they could also just get some
take-home work (like grading tests) that's not due that day or prepare some
stuff. Sure, some of them probably killed the time with morning newspaper and
coffee... but still.

~~~
angelsl
Oh man. Where I'm from (Singapore), tests are more of a never-take-home-
unless-you-absolutely-have-to work.

------
evincarofautumn
Similarly, I’ve come to rely on BART being late—although instead of arriving
too early, I’m more likely to arrive late when I bet on a few minutes to
spare, but the train happens to be running on time…and then end up working
later to compensate.

------
danjayh
God I'm glad that I live in a city where the public transit fans have soundly
lost.

------
m3kw9
Same with driving with variable traffic

