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Comment by treyfitty | Hacker News Reader

I used to take the 456 line on Lexington Ave. back and forth between Home & Work for the past 5 years. In January, the Q line on 86th st. opened, and although it takes me ~10 minutes longer each way, it is a MUCH more pleasant experience.

The 456 is a nightmare, and I can tell you first hand, that it is crowded to a point where it is inhumane (imagine people literally fighting for a spot to have the "privilege" to smell the arm-pits in their faces).

The Q line is well worth the headache, and the frustration of dealing with the 456.

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The 456 is the reason I stopped commuting to work before 10. Taking the L from where I live today isn't much different. The trick I've found is that if the sign says there are two trains incoming that are within a minute of each other, always take the second train. People will self-sardine themselves on the first and the second with be mostly empty.

That was my biggest lesson of the L or the 4/5/6. If you wait, the next train will be much, MUCH less crowded.

Another trick is that if I'm at Union Square trying to get into Brooklyn on the L and the station is packed, it ends up being faster and more comfortable to take the L backwards to 8th ave, and then grab a seat on the Brooklyn bound L at the 8th ave terminus.

I use this technique when I need to catch a Queens-bound 7 train in Midtown. It's much better to take a walk over to Hudson Yards and board there.

This phenomenon is almost comical with the NJTransit Northeast Corridor lines into NYC. They frequently cluster two inbound Northeast Corridor trains (all the way from Trenton) with the express coming 3-4 minutes after the local (having left Trenton 20 minutes later). Even on weekends, the local is frequently standing room only (usually totally packed) whereas the express will have plenty of free seats.

At Secaucus Junction (the last stop in NJ before NYC Penn), there will usually be a ton of people waiting for the train. Invariably, they cram onto the first train to come (which is already full) despite the big flashing notices on the timing screen that there's another train to NYC two minutes behind.

I've seen adults throw straight-up temper tantrums at being unable to get onto that train when there's an empty train following right behind.

I commuted my first year out of undergrad from Central NJ. At the time, it was very frustrating because NJ Transit is so unreliable. All the stresses of a given day could metastasize to a point where a transit nightmare could make you break.

Now, take adults who pay one of the nations highest property taxes, throw in confusion as to where their dollars are going (they thought infrastructure was definitely a bucket), and you have a perfectly good reason to throw a "temper tantrum."

Most NJ complaints, and attempts to speak with your local politician, or even a local agency, falls on deaf ears. Thus, what can these grown adults do when they are pretty entrenched into Jersey? It's frustrating. I moved out of NJ after spending my HS years, Undergrad years, and 1 year of work, and vowed to never give them another tax dollar because their government is filled with people who simply do not care about your problems.

Those taxpaying adults also manage to vote in people like Chris Christie, who decided the "infrastructure bucket" didn't include transit (and that the allocated transit funds would be better sent elsewhere).

This doesn't always work. In my experience, if you're near peak crowding areas during rush hour, the next train is usually just as packed as the first. And then the next. And the next. So you've just watched 3 trains go by that you couldn't even fit on if you tried and you've been waiting about 5 minutes. God forbid they get delayed, even for 2 minutes more. I usually just try to cut my losses and shove in as soon as I possibly can.

I lived on the L train for 7 years up until recently.

In my estimation, shoving onto the train just wasn't worth it. It makes the ride much more miserable for people in the car, and it delays the line even more. The second point is important; the train situation isn't going to get better by people being selfish and gaining a few extra minutes at the expense of everyone else's.

More often than not, the "second train" strategy works wonders. I found that when it doesn't, I'd have to wait for multiple trains anyway. Maybe once in 7 years did I skip a train with room and get punished for it.

> In my estimation, shoving onto the train just wasn't worth it.

In my ~17 years of living in NYC, I've never found it to be worth it trying to squeeze myself onto a train. The ride itself is awful and literally you're at most saving a few minutes at the expense of a terrible, terrible experience in the car. The next train almost always has fewer people on the car, and if that's not the case, the one after that most certainly does.

[Edit: I've also been fortunate enough during my time here that I could always afford to be a few minutes later to my destination, that is not always the case amongst those who take the subway]

>The train situation isn't going to get better by people being selfish and gaining a few extra minutes at the expense of everyone else's.

Doesn't that pretty much sum up the New York experience though? If everyone could not block the intersection, stand back from the baggage claim, and wait their turn then life would be better for everyone.

Man, I wish that was the case in London. The central/victoria lines runs at 36tph (less than 2 mins wait between trains) but they are crush loaded full between 7am and 9am. Luckily we have crossrail coming to relieve the central line, which took less than 10 years to build in its entirety. Unlike the 2nd Av Subway which seems to be taking about 30 years (ignoring the failed start in the 70s).

Does NYC suffer from the "ghost train" phenomenon that plagues SF MUNI? The danger in waiting for a second train here is that there might not actually be one.

This is why it is a real human tragedy that the MTA is literally the worst transit system in the world when it comes to new construction. Millions of lives could made better if they could do capital projects in the time and costs that cities elsewhere are able to do them in.

In a perfect world there are four branches of government: Legislative, Judicial, Executive, Cranky Mass Transit Dictator

Well, we had Robert Moses and look how that turned out

He was the opposite of mass transit though. One can argue that if he had wielded his powers for good, that NYC would be much better off today.

He was more of an asphalt dictator who barely tolerated mass transit.

But I agree with your point.

The Q doesn't really replace the 6 though. I lived on the UES and worked around Grand Central so taking the Q would've probably doubled my commute. The 6 is a nightmare in the morning, but the Q actually helped with that. Anyone going to the west side would take the Q instead of the 6 to 51st to transfer to the E.

I only lived about 2 miles from work so as long as there wasn't a foot of snow on the ground, I would just walk. 40 minutes of fresh air beats 20 minutes on a stuffy train every time.

It was definitely a welcome addition though. It probably takes half the time to get to Penn Station from the UES now.

I ride the 6 every week day -- luckily I don't go during prime rush hour, but even when I do, I don't understand why more people don't go to the end car. It's ALWAYS less full any time of day.

I live in a much smaller city where my total commute each day is maybe 10 minutes to basically anywhere I need to go. How do you justify the long commutes? Do you pass the time somehow?

In addition to those who don't have reasonable options to move elsewhere for family and many other reasons, NYC (and Manhattan specifically) is filled with people who can't imagine living anywhere else. A lot like the Bay Area in that regard. Even those who live elsewhere (e.g. bedroom communities to the north) often have to take the subway once they reach the city by train.

All of this, by the way, is a topic that's rarely discussed when people are going "build up!" and otherwise densify cities. Without the rest of the infrastructure it's a recipe for complete gridlock.

Cities have multiple tools to handle building more infrastructure as density goes up. There's land value capture which is a tax developers (or new occupants) agree to pay on any excess value created by a transit improvement (i.e. chicken before the egg). Then there are development proffers, which requires developers to pay for certain public improvements (i.e. egg before the chicken).

In theory. In practice, as we see, building things like new subway lines take decades. More money certainly helps but build a few skyscrapers of residential housing over the next decade and you might get incremental subway lines to support that in fifty years or so.

It shouldn't take decades though. Perhaps a decade max including planning. Other cities manage to do that. It seems to be a particularly US problem that any transport project of capital size >10bn becomes a complete disaster.

Then invest in things like top-end cycling infrastructure. Copenhagen has pretty bad subway infrastructure (at present it's missing some important destinations, like the central station, the M3 and M4 will create a lot of important connections). But the bike infrastructure is top-notch and high capacity. In some regards they can create a very car-lite-city by focusing so much on bicycles.

Somewhat similar story, except I am now biking pretty much full time. The trains aren't sufficiently reliable anymore.

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