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Comment by cylinder | Hacker News Reader

Build big, then what? The subways and footpaths are already at capacity at peak hours. Let the growth go to other cities.

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This is broadly speaking not true at all. NYC's train system currently runs far below its physical capacity, mostly because of old switching technology.

E.g. Paris steadily runs a train every couple minutes on many lines with no problems, and we could too after deploying switching technology improvements.

And the only pedestrian sidewalk I've ever seen at gridlocked capacity is Rockefeller center in Christmastime.

Paris runs smaller trains at greater frequency (especially on weekends), and it's so much better. I wish we'd run G train-sized trains on the weekends, twice as frequently.

Also, merging LIRR and NJT and through-running RER style is so obvious yet never brought up. Penn is not intended to be a terminal and it shows.

Subways, sure, but the sidewalks can be made better by removing lanes for free parking or so-called "car" lanes in general. It's actually the way it used to be!

http://www.streetsblog.org/2016/07/01/the-new-york-of-2016-n...

The subway problem could be partially solved with true dedicated lanes for buses/trams and offboard fare payment. It's not hard, these are both incredibly common in Europe.

Actually, there are certain express buses SBS-86 on 86th St, SBS-60 that goes from UWS to Laguardia Airport that skip some local stops that already work that way in NYC. There is a dedicated bus lane and riders pay for tickets from street machines.

I think more are planned.

OP's argument is to match supply with demand, not to increase demand (which is more of a function of the job market in the area than anything else)

Demand is not just the job market, but for many of us it is a wonderful place to live. YMMV.

We have a 24/367 Apple Store, 7 stores in Manhattan :-)

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