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I think the point is that west coast cities are willing to invest in their systems, not just live off of what past generations built. Here in NYC we've been living off the investments of past generations for a long time, not even maintaining it adequately. It's shameful. I don't know what happened to the can-do attitude that New Yorkers were once famous for.

> Here in NYC we've been living off the investments of past generations for a long time, not even maintaining it adequately.

That's a recent development. The MTA hit its peak of reliability and performance about a decade ago. Since 2010, which coincidentally is the exact time that Cuomo took office, things have plummeted.

It actually was a coincidence, as the practices leading inevitably to the current situation have been going on for decades.

> It actually was a coincidence, as the practices leading inevitably to the current situation have been going on for decades.

It's true that the corruption within the MTA and TWU have been around for decades, but it's not true at all that it's a coincidence that everything started to go downhill as soon as Cuomo took office.

Cuomo literally does not believe that it is his job to oversee a statewide agency, despite the fact that every other governor - including his own father, when his father was governor - have taken on this responsibility.

Unsurprisingly, when the public official in charge absolves themselves of responsibility for holding the MTA and TWU accountable, things fall apart pretty quickly.

There’s a reason Cynthia Nixon’s campaign emphasized the subway: Cuomo was uninterested in maintaining it, aside from scant, hollow PR moments.

> Cuomo was uninterested in maintaining it, aside from scant, hollow PR moments.

Cuomo even deigned to make hollow PR statements about the subway to the press? I must have missed those.

I'm being flippant, but not without reason: Cuomo has taken the subway exactly twice in the last decade, went out of his way not to take public transit when running for re-election (lest it be interpreted as him admitting responsibility for the system), and undermined Andy Byford at the one job he ostensibly hired him to do in the first place.

It's not that Cuomo is all talk and no action. When it comes to public transit, he isn't even "talk". He's just completely absentee, and downright proud of it.

eh it's flashier and more fun to build something new than maintain something old. Not to mention people forget that building new stuff means needing to allocate budget to maintain it...

> eh it's flashier and more fun to build something new than maintain something old. Not to mention people forget that building new stuff means needing to allocate budget to maintain it...

This statement may be true, but it's completely irrelevant to the specific problems facing the NYC transit system at the moment.

At least from what I've read, the primary problem have been a lack of financing for maintaining the current system. The subway does need to move to a more advanced signaling system, but there's no reason why the old-fashioned signaling system has to be falling apart.

> At least from what I've read, the primary problem have been a lack of financing for maintaining the current system. The subway does need to move to a more advanced signaling system, but there's no reason why the old-fashioned signaling system has to be falling apart.

Since 2010, Cuomo has raided the coffers in order to fund his own personal projects (like an upstate ski resort), yes. But it's not just a matter of funding: due to corruption and a complete lack of oversight, costs are out of control because the MTA and TWU, as well as private contractors, are able to siphon off absurd amounts of money by inflating costs or even committing outright fraud: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

True, but people also forget that new infrastructure, when well timed, can accelerate growth and expand the base. New York should know that more than any place. How do we know when to invest in infrastructure? I'd say that the affordable housing and transportation crises we're facing in US cities is the economy screaming at us to build.

Absolutely, agree 100%. A major problem is that economic growth has been spent on, say, propping up ski resorts in upstate new york, instead of reinvested in the subway. It's really an absolute travesty the way the system has been managed.

West coast cities have one key advantage that reduces their requirements for public transportation given appropriate city planning: 12 months of weather suitable for biking/walking/etc. That 3% of Seattle routinely commutes from the suburbs on a bicycle is impressive but only practical because the weather supports it.

"E-scooters aren't a reliable way to get anywhere yet, and who knows if they'll ever be, not to mention that they are not for everyone. My grandmother is not going to ride one -- nor my wife, for that matter, nor should the kids. But the Subway is a common denominator."

I used to think so, but some European cities really do offer counterexamples. I'm thinking of places like Munich, Vienna, and Copenhagen. It's not uncommon to see people there who, by American stereotypes, wouldn't be expected to ride scooters: moms with kids, men in suits, etc. Perhaps the urban cultural gap is so vast that what you're saying is indeed true of the US, but I wouldn't take it as a given.

It won't be so nice in Brooklyn when the l-train shuts down this year. Commute times will double and overcrowding will be a nightmare.

NYC public transportation is great, but its incredibly expensive and falling apart. (NJTransit + Amtrak have had major problems in the last few years)

There doesn't appear to be any fixes in the works. It seems like they're just hoping the problem goes away or that the federal government will spend billions on new infrastructure.

What will it look like in a decade?

Seattle actually has extremely high transit ridership and walk commmute share, which is pretty impressive considering how the transit system is mostly buses right now. And by 2024, major centers in the region will be connected by rail transit that is faster than road travel. Anecdotally, I live pretty well without a car here; I use Uber and Lyft when transit don't work out, and if I want to hike usually one of my friends will have a ride. So it feels just like back home in New York, except the trains and buses have a better chance of showing up on time.

I think there is an objective measure here. Just plot a 30-minute transit radius around the centers of various cities and you'll get a sense of the transit size of the city vs. covered population. Some cities are notoriously "small," like SF, despite it being on some best-to-live-without-car lists. You can't go very far before practically needing a car: so what if you can get there by transit if it takes 1-2 hours and inconsistently? NYC, Boston are "large." Seattle is even worse than SF in this regard.

Transit is all about density. There is no way the west coast can beat the east coast in transit practicality for another 100 years.

Boston and San Francisco have realitively equivalent population densities and population. So this makes a very good comparison of the two regions.

For example my 4.5 mi commute in sf takes around 25 min. That’s similar to what I remember from Harvard square to Boylston street which is an equivalent distance.

Yes. Apartments.com has a nice visualization where you specify a mode, destination, and time limit, and it lights up all the listings in range. It’s really shocking how small SF is for sane commute times (20–45 minutes).

Seattle is okay for US standards, but still a disaster and embarrassment compared to other first world cities. And everything that can be done to make biking or walking more awful is being done.

Many cross-walks have a very short walk timer, so even able-bodied people like myself struggle to cross in time. Police don't ticket drivers blocking intersections and crossings [0], so almost every crossing is blocked in the morning and afternoon. Divers regularly run red lights. I'm sure it will take a few people to die first, as right now the police's mandate seems to be to get the rich people in their fancy vehicles home quicker than any kind of safety. Not to mention the construction that means you're going to have to switch street sides a few times during every journey.

Buses are okay for north-south trips, but non-trivial trips can be as slow as walking, because a lot of routes only intersect downtown. The only use for light rail I've found is getting to SeaTac, but even then you need to live on the right side of the city. The streetcar is pathetic, and has never helped me get to work to to a friends house due to the route.

I guess with a programmer's salary, it's okay since just getting an Uber and Lyft is no big deal, but for everybody else, it sucks. And sometimes, I feel like the only reason a token effort is being done about public transport is so people can feel smug and claim Seattle is progressive, left-leaning. Meanwhile, everybody still drives everywhere.

[0] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/vid...

One simple fix Seattle could do downtown would be to make all the crosswalks all way, and increase the walk times. At the same time, make it illegal for cars to turn right on red and you’d dramatically increase pedestrian safety and increase car throughput.

However it won’t happen with our current city council.

As a pedestrian, I would be happier if cars could only turn right on red.

I have nearly been run over multiple times by some jackass who doesn't look where he's going making a right turn when I have a walk signal.

I should have been explicit, with all way walks it would also be illegal for pedestrians to cross on traffic green lights.

I wish I could upvote you more. Sadly, scale is the one thing most of us tend to completely forget when it comes to public transportation. We think of a peice of hardware, wire it up with an app and a saas platform and call it transport. It might be just that - transport, but it's nowhere near public transportation

Also, Caltrain stops going south from San Francisco five minutes after midnight. BART stops going north 25 minutes after midnight. At 25 after midnight all rail service out of San Francisco stops - which is 90 minutes before last call.

In New York City you have the LIRR, PATH, NJ Transit, Metro North, Amtrak and subway trains running all night.

It's true NYC subways started having problems in the past few years as ridership has grown and long-needed maintenance has been underfunded, but the politicians are (supposedly) fixing that.

What's funny is that they mention that NYC is reluctant to use scooters but don't mention how dangerous those things are in the snow. NYC has wayyy different weather than LA, Austin etc.

or even how insanely crowded NYC is in general. It might make sense to have scooters in a less crowded neighborhood in Brooklyn, but try driving through lower Manhattan on a scooter...

Why would it be worse than a bike?

It's too crowded for bikes too. People take the subway and then walk the last few blocks.

Lower Manhattan needs to be pedestrianized immediately, with wide bike/scooter lanes throughout.

I don't think this would be much of problem, as there is only snow on the streets of NYC for a few hours of a few days a year. The plowing/salting/traffic volume means that the roads are almost always clear, even on the mere ~21 days where there is snow accumulation in unused areas (like the parks).

Most people in NYC don't even drive snow-capable cars, and on the very few days we have snow on the streets the roads are absolute chaos.

You'd just mandate that the scooter companies disable the scooters when the city tells them to. The robust public transit system would mean that those who normally ride scooters would have no problem getting to their destination.

Disclosure: former Los Angeles native here. Beats? no, the california metro systems are dwarfed by NYC. Beating a hundred year old system? absolutely.

"Ford to City: Drop Dead" in 1975 was an omen for the NYC systems. local, state, and national politicians have all chosen to just ignore NYC metro in the hopes it magically gets better or starts running on time.

Having visited NYC to visit my sister, I can say that what LA lacks in ridership it makes up for in overall investment. New railcars for the NYC system are slated for 2023, whereas Metro LA sees new cars on a yearly basis. The LA high speed project, for whatever political boondoggle it might be, was approved and is in construction. our single tap NFC metro cards are good not just for the LA system, but for most if not all surrounding city systems. I can use an LA TAP card on Santa monica, Culver city, and LA city buses with no penalty.

I also get the equivalent of groupon deals with my tap card. Half price bulgogi or even a free coffee, just for having a metrocard. Its surely no coffin nail for the iron juggernaut of NYC, but its a perk.

Most LA buses and subways all have free Wifi, with the exception of some larger express lines.

LA also has sixteen new transit projects, all green-lit, some of them individually over a billion dollars. This is just the city of los angeles, not the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Metro_Rail#Future

TL;DR: When compared to an entire state, and factoring in current and future investment, the west coast is crushing NYC.

Yes, obviously NYC has the best transportation in the US. But the point of the article isn’t to compare NYC vs. everywhere.

But ignore NYC for a second (I acknowledge that many people who have lived there find this impossible) and look at the rest of the East Coast. Only the DMV area and Boston have any sort of large-scale public transit.

I think Chicago's L also allows a true car-free lifestyle, as long as you don't live in the burbs

The El is ok if you live near a stop and are going downtown (Loop) or to the airport. But there are huge areas that are not practical to get to via the El. You need to then use buses, which are slow and don't seem to follow much of a timetable.

This is the NYT. They approach everything from an investment mindset. For investors, growth matters more than turnover, more than profits. So it is no shock that the NYT evaluates public transport in terms of percentage increases and the number of new market players. Thier target readers are people looking for places to park thier money, not plebs looking for comparative city commute options.