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Comment by davidf18 | Hacker News Reader

I'm in NYC currently attending a tech meetup. I received an Apple alert telling me that traffic was heavy and to allow for 40 minutes. Yet, I was able to arrive in 15 mins by subway: two stops express from 96th st to 42nd st. Then transfer local 4 stops.

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While the world may seem to center around Manhattan, some people start their trips in savage lands like Queens.

Others find the prospect of standing on a hot crowded train that runs late and smells like urine less appealing.

Drama queen. Is not that bad.

Yeah, and the tokens are a frigging hassle!

I assume you have not ridden the subway in decades.

Just last week. It was like 120 degrees and awful.

Travel-wise, It was the best option for me, but I totally sympathize with anyone wishing to avoid the experience.

120 degrees in the train or on the platform? The trains have usually A/C, and if not, you can report it.

I commute on the 8 ave line every day and I've never been on a train without A/C.

Oh, it happens. Not often, sure, but you will experience it one day. The first sign is that everyone else will immediately turn upon entering the carriage, just like they do if some homeless person is using it as their personal toilet.

I caught an uptown C without air conditioning tonight. It was hot, but not as hot as the stations, and I got a seat. It happens, but not very often on that line.

The trains have AC. Occasionally broken in one car but then just move to another car on the 8 or 10 car train (depending on the line).

Apple maps can show you how long it takes to travel by subway.

Also a monthly pass for as many subway and bus rides as you want is about $115.

I am highly skeptical of other replies to this post that make the subway seem like a summertime Shangri-La. While I think it's better than a urine- scented tardy hassle, I don't think many people who have spent a few years in NYC would describe their summer commutes as "pleasant".

Overall it's a miracle public utility that you don't appreciate as much as you should until you've left the city, but that July/August trip is a sweaty mass of humanity no matter how you crunch it.

It's not pleasant, but it beats the hell out of sitting in traffic for 45 minutes.

Thing is, if you're sitting in traffic for 45 minutes, couldn't you walk the same distance in less time?

Not really. Let's say your commute is 50 minutes, with 45 minutes of it being stuck in traffic - during which time you do move, just slowly and unpredictably. During those other 5 minutes though, you might be moving at a pretty good 60mph clip - so that's five miles. Walking that would take an hour.

And that's assuming you're in a walkable place. Many cities aren't built for it, and walking 30 minutes in 102 degree heat in Texas isn't a good option.

I commuted for two years from Long Island to work in Manhattan via the LIRR and subway. It wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst. The sheer amount of time it takes to make the trip i did was more stressful than the jostling and rummmaging on the rush hour E train. Even in the summer.

After a few years I'm pretty much done with the subway except in off peak times perhaps. I've been milking the ride sharing wars and Continue to avoid the subway but it's not sustainable. I am ready for the suburbs I think!

People literally take shits in subway cars, especially at night. When people aren't taking a dump in the corner, the new subway cars have air conditioning systems that smell like stale halitosis.

But, the worst part about the new subway cars is that the robotic johnny cab voice doesn't have a weird accent. I actually enjoy the strange unintelligible squawking in a Brooklyn accent, drenched in the electromagnetic feedback of unshielded motors. Mostly because the robotic voice never has anything to useful or relevant to say, and if someone's going to say something pointless, I'd rather not understand it, and hear some kind of funny accent.

  THIS THE NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY SYSTEM WITH AN 
  IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE MTA. KEEP YOUR 
  VALUABLE BELONGINGS OUT OF SIGHT. PROTECT 
  YOURSELF. STAY ALERT, BE COURTEOUS AND HAVE 
  A SAFE DAY.

Sure thing, HAL.

> People literally take shits in subway cars, especially at night.

Yeah, boy, I sure do hate my morning commute, just ankle-deep in shit, while the Robot Overlords whip the Poles and Italian immigrants bloody.

Couldn't be the robotic voice more understandable for foreign people than one with a funny accent? Specially with messages like those that seem to be aimed at foreign people than native ones.

I'm sure that's what the robot voices are for.

The problem is, they only have ten or fifteen pre-sets, and all of them are useless.

I consider these pointless announcements to be a form of auditory pollution, they do nothing but make you tune out all announcements, making it more likely that you'll miss the occasional useful one. I'm in the UK, rather than NYC, but our rail system is full of useful warnings such as "Don't leave your belongings unattended, they may be taken", and "It's been raining, so the floor might be slippery".

Seriously people, if you need warning of those things maybe just stay at home until you've grown up a bit.

It's not just the sound, the departure boards (which are supposed to tell you which train(s) are next) spend a lot of time with those useless warnings showing instead.

Ugh, I hate the tube for this. And I've noticed that that the 'importance' of the scrolling text has gone down over the years.

When I'm on a tube platform, if I'm looking at the upcoming trains, I don't need to be reminded that I shouldn't smoke or that there's Rugby coming up at the weekend.

I don't mean to be rude, but if you can't smell the the urine on the MTA, then your nose is broken from years of being conditioned to the smell.

I love NYC, and spend a few weeks there a year, but it always amazes me how natives argue that the MTA (and really all of Manhattan) doesn't smell like piss.

My cousins lived in Manhattan for years and we'd hang out from one to time.

I remember having this argument with them when crossing the street on garbage day in June or July. In addition to the background rotting garbage smell, some steam chimney thing in the crosswalk was basically spewing hot piss vapors. They were immune.

I grew up in Brooklyn in the late 60s/early 70s and spent most of my first 30 years in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I can tell you it used to smell a lot worse.

When we were young gutter snipes, we used to jump the wooden turnstyles, and if the cops chased us, head into the tunnels. We then spent our youth exploring the tunnels (the old station just off DeKalb Ave.). I miss those tokens with the 'Y' punched out in center! They cost 0.35 cents, and you could ride the subway to Coney Island, and still have money left for a slice of pizza when getting home by end of day when you started out with a $1.25 or so.

I was just visiting in January 2016, and it seemed great to me, and I am coming from having lived 8 years in SE Asia. I still go home 1 or 2 times a year to Brooklyn and Manhattan. Still I am amazed at the Hong Kong MTR. The cars don't have doors between them, so you can see all the way down to the front and back. They have sliding doors on the platforms, so no jumping in front of an oncoming train! Very clean too. Hong Kong is very vertical, and lot of wiring is alongside buildings in exposed trays or bundles. I am not sure about the rest of the infrastructure. Don't get me started on Vietnam or Indonesia. I have photos of electrical 'routing' that would give a NYC union electrician a stroke!

Every big city smells like urine to me. I don't know how people stand it.

> While the world may seem to center around Manhattan, some people start their trips in savage lands like Queens.

Queens has subways too, bro. Used to live in Astoria, never once drove a car. I think I took the m60 into Manhattan like once.

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