

How could we replace the capacity of the NYC subway? - winanga
http://frumin.net/ation/2009/08/whats_capacity_go_to_do_with_m.html

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100k
If you want to see a similar visualization of what this means on the level of
single street, check out this poster:

<http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9346/espaciocoches.jpg>

It shows how much space it takes to move the same number of people using cars,
bus, and bicycle.

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ars
That poster is inaccurate, it shows far too many cars, and far too many people
on the bus.

You can fit 4 people in a car, but you can not load a bus completely full or
no one will be realistically able to use it.

So the poster should have between 1/4 and 1/8 the number of cars on the
screen.

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100k
I take it you don't ride buses. They are often completely full in rush hour,
including people standing.

Meanwhile, most cars have only one person in it. Maybe an average of 1.5. You
could have a carpool with 4 people in it, but I think that's rare compared to
single passenger vehicles.

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lsb
This assumes that people won't carpool, that people will keep driving their
car filled with 1.2 people into downtown/midtown. All you need is a congestion
tax, and lots more people will drive only up to (say) Newark to take the Path
train in, or Jamaica to take the subway/LIRR in. And that's not even counting
the throngs of people living in Hell's Kitchen / Chelsea / Kips Bay / Stuy
Town / the Village / the LES / Battery Park City, who live and work in the
CBD.

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locopati
Even if you assume 4 people per car, cars still wouldn't work as well as the
subway does for moving people. The original post is an interesting perspective
on how important the subways are to NYC, nothing more.

Interesting mildly off-topic side-note (gathered from 'The World Without Us'):
if the systems responsible for actively pumping water from the subway system
were to shut down, the subways would be flooded in about 2-3 days (since
they're well below the water table of the surrounding Hudson and East Rivers).

<http://www.worldwithoutus.com/did_you_know.html>

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skorgu
As much hate as the subway gets when they get shut down from the rain a little
context yields a lot more understanding: "We move 13 million gallons of water
a day when it’s not raining." Mind boggling that any of it works at all.

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ilyak
What? Does NYC subway really shut down because of the rain?

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VolatileVoid
No, but they do, typically, operate at lower speeds. In really, really bad
storms (like on 8/8/2007), the subway can shut down. On 8/8/07, 3 inches of
rain fell in one hour, and a tornado hit Brooklyn, causing most subway lines
to be severely delayed or completely shut down.

