London Banter - View Single Post - Subway (New York) vs Underground (London) [Quite long]

Paul Corfield · April 3rd 04, 08:39 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On 2 Apr 2004 21:19:25 -0800, (Gareth Davis)
wrote:

Since we are on the topic of comparing things stateside, I thought I'd
share my recent experiences of the NYC subway system during a recent
stay.

[snip]
Overall I think that if I was offered reduced / flat fares NYC style
but in return for their shoddy, dirty, smelly stations, lack of staff,
lack of information and uncomfortable trains then I would turn it
down. After all, given the current exchange rate, I'm not paying more
then $4 a day for my Z1+2 annual. So everyone at LU reading this, give
yourselves a big pat on the back. I have experienced a comparable
system and the Underground is equal or far better in all aspects
except for cost. But then I guess you get what you pay for.

Of course I'm sure other people's experiences will be different.

well sort of. It's been a few years since I've been to NYC and I haven't
seen the newest trains. The main comment I would make is that the New
York subway had got to the point of almost total collapse 20 years ago.
In response to that their strategy was rightly to spend a lot of money
making the railway safe and fixing the decaying track, structures and
trains. It takes a hell of a long time to mend that sort of decay and
the stations were put at the back of the queue for attention. The order
of priorities can be argued about forever but I think the restoration of
a safe and reliable service was the right decision. I think it will take
about another 20 years to put right the overall ambience issues in their
stations and some aspects like the girder construction will probably
always be an issue in terms of security etc.

I can't ever see a time when New York does anything about the entrance
layout issues - it is virtually impossible to permanently close an
entrance on the New York subway. As a result there is little incentive
to provide lower level connections because there is no saving to be had
e.g. closing a ticket booth and saving the staff cost.

Some of the other observations are responses to societal problems -
upholstered seats would never work in NYC given the prevalence of
vandalism and graffiti. I agree that metal or plastic seats are not
comfy but it would be far too expensive to provide them.

I've not read anything about the information issues that you identify
but I do know that big investment in signalling and control systems has
been approved so it is likely that platform "next train" indicators will
follow in time.

I prefer to think that big metro systems can all teach other something.
There is plenty that is good about LUL or the NY Subway or Paris Metro.
None are better than the others in *all* aspects in my opinion. And it
isn't just what you pay for - it is also about how much society as a
whole pays and values its public transport systems.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!