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Ridership was increasing annually by 50 million through 2014, then in 2015 it only increased by 11 million, and it has been decreasing at an accelerating rate since. Democrat Bill de Blasio became mayor in 2014. Funny timing huh?

http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts...

The term "death spiral" is specific. It refers to a tipping point where your price goes past the optimum on supply/demand, such that raising prices means less overall money once people substitute alternatives, or simply do without.

In this case, people have clearly been doing just that in NYC, as total ridership has been dropping. Raising fares is unlikely to increase that, right? Cutting routes won't increase riders either, right?

It's fine to be skeptical of some internet article, but do read the MTA's own report.

Plan is balanced through 2019 using "one-shots," and the deficits for 2020, 2021 and 2022 have increased to $510 million, $816 million and $991 million, respectively

It doesn't look good.

NYC MTA developer resources link: http://web.mta.info/developers...

The NYC subway cars, the specific item which were named in the criticism you're defending against, were built in the 1960's: http://www.mta.info/press-release/nyc-transit/oldest-mta-new-york-city-transit-subway-cars-getting-their-final-makeover.

(fraking slashdot commentators move the goalposts more quickly than a Republican pundit)

Ask the cities that have transport tunnels why they haven't built any more.

Incomplete list of cities surprised to learn that they are not building new transportation tunnels right now:

New York
London
Delhi
Toronto
Beijing (multiple lines)
San Francisco
Los Angeles (just getting started)
Paris (multiple lines)
Seoul (including a maglev line)
...and so on. Those are just the ones I'm immediately aware of.

Here in NYC the Metropolitan Transit Authority (subway, buses, regional commuter rail, bridges and tunnels - anything you pay a fare or toll for) had a 2013 budget (PDF) of $1,357,806,000. And that's still bleeding damn near another billion a year, with 25% fare increases and 25% service cuts. You could probably slash that overrrun quite a bit more by stopping all current and planned construction/improvements and going to a minimal-maintenance schedule, good luck with that.

Yeah, free transit is a great idea in theory, but if you've figured out how to squeeze three billion dollars a year in sustainable tax revenue out of a single city, even a large one, you're a better economist than I.

Clue this: the homeless have pretty much free access to the subways - most stations no longer have attendants on duty so hopping a turnstile and riding for days on end is feasible. Hell, I've done it myself (I have a monthly pass so not swiping isn't taking a fare). Foul smelling, insane homeless emptying entire train cars is a bigger problem than them freezing to death, at least in this town.

That's not true. MTA is not a private organization, it's a New York "public benefit corporation". The governing board has its members appointed by regional governments (5 by NYS governor, 4 by NYC mayor, 3 by nearby counties, etc.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Transportation_Authority_%28New_York%29#Governance

Regarding FOIA requests, it even has a web page informing one where and how to send such a request:

http://www.mta.info/nyct/rules/freedom.htm

The "old" (I assume you mean current) NY subway map is amazing: compare. The Boston map is good but kindof crappy in some ways - for example, I kept going to Aquarium on the blue line for Quincy market because I had no idea the green line Haymarket station was close. And it sucks for strictly transit purposes too: from that map it is impossible to know that the E at the unnamed stop just before Heath st and D at "Brookline Village" are actually a 5 minute walk apart. Similarly, the D at Reservoir, C at Cleveland Circle, and the unnamed B stop in the vicinity are all a block away from each other. Someone with an unlimited pass would be able to make those connections and save a lot of time if they started out on one letter and wanted to end up at a stop on another letter, but the map makes you think you have to go all the way downtown.

The current NY subway map makes the unorthodox transfers obvious - with an unlimited card you can transfer from the G to the J at the "Broadway" station, for example.

Massimo Vignelli redid both the signage and the map for the MTA in the 70's. Minimalism all the way - the signage remains to this day, white Helvetica on a black background, simple colored circles for the lines, and almost nothing else...there's barely even any arrows.

And his map...oh, it's a thing of beauty. "It was not a map. It was a diagram. It was not about what happens aboveground. The purpose of the diagram was to show where the subway lines go." So perfect that when the MTA wanted a weekend-service-change map they had him reissue it (and this time he eliminated ALL geographic information, and people love it)...and a copy of the original ,a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=89300">still hangs in the Museum of Modern Art

The regular map is here: NYC Subway map PDF

Ask and ye shall receive.

Price has gone up, but that $2.50 gets you anywhere in the city, between subways and buses.

7-day unlimited certainly exists and is $30

You're allowed to pay for your unlimited MetroCard with pre-tax money as well, which knocks quite a bit off the effective price: info

Price has gone up, but that $2.50 gets you anywhere in the city, between subways and buses.

7-day unlimited certainly exists and is $30

You're allowed to pay for your unlimited MetroCard with pre-tax money as well, which knocks quite a bit off the effective price: info

You're close! There was actually a New York City Subway company with a similar name, before all of the various companies were consolidated under the MTA.

The Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) was the original name for what is now the MTA's Number 7 - Flushing Local/Express line.

Sounds like you would benefit from the Weekender: http://www.mta.info/weekender.html

Doesn't help full time, but there are seldom major reroutes except late nights or weekends.

One really needs to read the paper signs in the stations. They're almost always there now and they are easier to understand than they used to be.

http://www.mta.info/developers/

Though these are just aggregates of turnstile data, so they know that X people entered at Times square and Y people exited at prince within about a 4 hour resolution(the scheduled turnstile audits). The only new thing this scheme would add is to tie the specific entrances and exits together. I'm not sure how useful that actually is, you can extrapolate the most frequently ridden lines based on the aggregate entrances and exits from it. Plus to tie it to particular riders, anonymous or not is an AWFUL lot of data to process.

http://www.mta.info/developers/

Though these are just aggregates of turnstile data, so they know that X people entered at Times square and Y people exited at prince within about a 4 hour resolution(the scheduled turnstile audits). The only new thing this scheme would add is to tie the specific entrances and exits together. I'm not sure how useful that actually is, you can extrapolate the most frequently ridden lines based on the aggregate entrances and exits from it. Plus to tie it to particular riders, anonymous or not is an AWFUL lot of data to process.

...actually been on the New York Subway? See it's fair information.

There's no such thing as "paying for a ticket for train X for Y time on Z Day"

The MTA museum offers these tours occasionally: http://mta.info/mta/museum/index.html. Keep an eye out for it. You can sleep on my couch if you want.

Did you know that NewYork City has 468 train stations, only 35 less than the total number of train stations in the rest of the country? And has a daily ridership of 5.1million people. Compare this with the airline industry which (from various sources) claim that as many as people fly in the United States each day.

Btw, in the US there are 14,951 airports as of 2008, including 5,146 with paved runways, and 9,805 with unpaved runways.

The problem here is that you have 5.1million people trying to make it through 468 train stations each day. That doesn't include people taking regional (like Amtrak) trains into NY and then transferring to local trains.

Can anybody imagine trying to scan all the passengers that go through 42nd Street? 58million per year... If I have to get to the subway station an hour ahead of my subway, I might as well take a cab, or walk.

Did you know that NewYork City has 468 train stations, only 35 less than the total number of train stations in the rest of the country? And has a daily ridership of 5.1million people. Compare this with the airline industry which (from various sources) claim that as many as people fly in the United States each day.

Btw, in the US there are 14,951 airports as of 2008, including 5,146 with paved runways, and 9,805 with unpaved runways.

The problem here is that you have 5.1million people trying to make it through 468 train stations each day. That doesn't include people taking regional (like Amtrak) trains into NY and then transferring to local trains.

Can anybody imagine trying to scan all the passengers that go through 42nd Street? 58million per year... If I have to get to the subway station an hour ahead of my subway, I might as well take a cab, or walk.

It also needs to be noted that in 2009 NYC subway system saw 1.579 billion passengers, with 5 million riders on an average weekday. source.

Speaking of stairs and escalators, England really needs to catch up on this one. When I was riding the train there I kept having little old ladies ask me to carry their luggage for them up the stairs. I can't imagine what wheelchaired people do.

They have to plan their journeys around accessible stations, just like in the US. Incidentally, the "Stand on the right" notices all over escalators on the underground are supposed to (and generally do) achieve exactly the the effect that you describe. Oh, and you should probably have offered to help the old ladies before you were asked ;-).

I'm not sure I'd consider future-proofing something by building additional real capacity into the design rather than just slapping some extra lanes on it and hoping for the best is such a good idea. No matter what form of transportation you build, if you build it, they will come. Want to increase the number of cars on a road? Build more lanes, and they will come. Want to increase the number of people moved in the same space? Build more quality transit, and they will come. Want to promote individual mobility without wasting a ton of space on parking and extra lanes? Build safe, effective bicycle facilities, and they will come.

If you're referring to the subway, not Metro North, then no, there isn't a schedule. Trains run every 8 minutes. If they were to try and make a schedule with 8 minute intervals, any delays (which are inevitable, its a huge system) would quickly throw that out of what completely. Instead of late trains waiting for the next 8 minute interval, they just leave as soon as they can. New Yorkers know that if you miss a train, the next one isn't that far off.

If you are talking about Metro North like they were in the article, then you weren't looking hard enough. Grand Central has big lit up boards with all the schedules, and pampheletes all over the place. Those trains run once an hour. There a schedule is necessary. With the subway, not so much.

Wrong: http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/schemain.htm I'm a New Yorker and although I know there is a published subway schedule I'm not foolish enough to believe it.

Wrong. There's a schedule.

If you're running a service with 8 minute headways, you'd better be sure that everything runs like clockwork, or else you'll have subways bunching and piling up at stations or at the end of the line*. The driver, his union, and his boss all also want to make sure that his shift starts and ends at a well-established time.

The schedules are especially important at night, when headways increase to 30 minutes in some areas. There are parts of Queens where you do not want to be alone on a subway platform at 3AM.

The MTA's in the process of installing electronic signs that alert passengers of the time of the next arriving train like the ones they have in DC and Paris. Siemens (the contractor) have been working on it for several years, and might finally have the damn thing working in the next year or two.

*This does happen occasionally. Why don't you try managing the world's most complex urban transit system that also happens to be 100 years old, and suffered from extreme neglect and corruption during much of that time. I don't envy the MTA's job one bit. They do a remarkable job given the circumstances.

    That's still Southeast Florida only (Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach county). The rest of the state doesn't get it. According to their map, they have 22 stops in 3 counties, along a single line.

    It's a far cry from a real transit system

    If you could even say that the tri-rail "services" 3 counties, that leaves 64 counties without service, and even the counties that are serviced are only on the one line.

People keep talking about urban sprawl like it's an insurmountable issue. As I've said recently, Japanese cities have massive sprawl and they manage just fine.

As cool as high speed rail lines are the big problem is that they're a huge waste of money if there isn't some sort of infrastructure for getting people around each city without cars. What American cities and suburbs need are extensive rail systems which service outlying areas in addition to the city core.

And this doesn't just mean a spoke and hub layout, this means that those outlying areas should be directly connected as well. Take a look at this map of the rail lines owned by a single company around Tokyo.

Want to be really impressed? Check out this PDF. In that map, Shibukawa, tucked away in the upper left corner of that map is 120km from Tokyo. That should give you a sense of how extensive their rail system is.

If you want people to take rail seriously this is the sort of extensive service you need to provide. I'd take the train to work if it provided me this level of accessibility. Hell, I wouldn't even need a car.

This is the embarrassment that passes for a rail system in the New York area. Just imagine trying to get from somewhere like Poughkeepsie to New Haven.

Of course, there's another issue. The rail system in Japan runs like clockwork. With far fewer lines Metronorth is incapable of ever being punctual. Every year they send out press releases stating, with pride, that their trains are on average only 5 or 10 minutes late. I rode the New Haven line for years and I can't recall it ever being on time. Hell, it was even late departing the very first station.

Every so often the train manages to pull down power lines or at least damage them sufficiently to cause significant delays as has been happening the past week or so. The bathrooms are a cesspool and unfortunately a lot of riders are slobs who leave their crap on the train when they get off. And then there's the vandalism.

Despite increased ridership the MTA, which runs the rail system around New York, can barely stay afloat without drastically raising fees or getting bailouts from the government. Years ago they began ordering new trains. I've yet to see one. But the bigger joke is that some of these new cars are being pulled by diesel locomotives. On an electric line! It's crap from the bottom up.

These are all important issues that need to be taken seriously if anyone expects a rail line to be successful. But an extensive rail system does make far more sense than any high speed rail line.

Unfortunately, in the US there are far too many obstacles for any such system to ever see fruition. First, are all the environmentalists who piss and moan about everything even if it were to provide real long-term advantages. Just as bad are all the residents who have this irrational fear of any perceived threat to their idyllic communities. They're all wrapped up in their selfish desire to preserve their little communities even if these projects would ultimately benefit everyone. In the Northeast there are a number of extremely helpful projects which have been blocked by just these sort of people.

I'm quite pessimistic about the whole thing. American's have lost that can-do attitude a long time ago and I think have grown quite self-centered. I mean self-centered from the standpoint of wanting to be sheltered by the government from all the little challenges of life. Although, I don't doubt that the government will spend untold billions on some boondoggle.

Well, since the GP was talking about NYC, there's a rail option that feeds the city from up to 90 miles out (to the north):
http://www.mta.info/mnr/html/mnrmap.htm

And on a northeast-southwest line, there's Acela:
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/am2Route/Vertical_Route_Page&c=am2Route&cid=1080772074490&ssid=134

These might not be the most convenient options, and may be more expensive than a fuel-efficient car, but it looks to me like if you can't find public transport within a 100-mile radius of NYC, you're not trying very hard.

>>> cannot copyright a fact
cannot may be too strong a word

A map of the subway is also a fact but the MTA-NY has on its maps and timetables:

"Please note that, except solely for your own personal and non-commercial use, no part of these documents may be copied or used without the prior written permission of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority."

http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/index.html

The only .info site that I visit on a regular basis is actually a useful one for me and many other people that live in NY. http://www.mta.info/

Unfortunately the American people are bombarded with scary warnings all the time. The NCMEC probably sticks with the "1 in 5" meme just to keep their message above the noise from everyone else trying to scare us. Between amber alerts, text warnings to college students about potential gunmen, and security campaigns to encourage paranoia on mass transit, people are overwhelmed with stuff they should be afraid of. It's too bad that they need to rely on a misleading statistic, but my suspicion is that I would do the same thing if I was the NCMEC marketing director.

1. Make solar energy affordable - Done
2. Provide energy from fusion - This is something I don't know anything about.
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods - More information
4. Manage the nitrogen cycle - More information. I feel like on a basic, local level this can already be accomplished easily. On an advanced/global level though... Manage it? In the next 100 years maybe we can gather some data points so we can UNDERSTAND it. Until then, any attempts to "manage" it would be foolish
5. Provide access to clean water - Tried and true method and 1, 2, 3 Orgs doing it.
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure - And run on-time and build more parks - but who will fund it?
7. Advance health informatics - This "engineering goal" is too general to discuss. It's like, make it easier to get useful data on our health. Duh!
8. Engineer better medicines - I think "Engineer better robots" would be a more worthwhile engineering goal... but that's just me.
9. Reverse-engineer the brain - Teaching it, and studying it
10. Prevent nuclear terror - This is a political bombshell that I won't go near, but from what I see the strategy is (a) deterrence, and (b) threaten anybody with a nuclear project.
11. Secure cyberspace - Ha!
12. Enhance virtual reality - In a practical way or just enough so that my brain can be tricked into thinking that an incredibly hot women is going down on me?
13. Advance personalized learning - Not sure what this is...
14. Engineer the tools for scientific discovery - Another overly general one, but I'd like to think "discovery" is a misspelling of "exploration". Lately I've been thinking that our satellites are similar to the Triremes of Greece times (which are bound to stay close to our shores), the Apollo/Space Shuttle is like Viking ships (which couldn't (or weren't) be used to setup a new settlement), and then this would be the equivalent of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (except they will be called Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Lincoln).

I am going to be fair... this is really a list of things that can be completed in the next 25 years. These are not "100 year" goals. They are simply to generalized, for the most part. A real engineer knows that goals should be Specific, Measurable, and ARTistic. These goals don't qualify.

---PCJ

It costs less than the cost of public transport.

I think it depends on who you are and where you live. For example, if you're a good American living in New York, and you go out and buy a 2008 Ford F-250, you'll spend about $46,000 in 5 years. That gives you ~$9,000 each year (forget time value and all that for the moment). Compare that with getting the 30-day unlimited ride MetroCard for $76 ($38 for reduced fare), it costs only ~$900 a year. You have ~$8,000 left to take a plane or taxi or rent a car to go wherever subway or buses don't go.

You americans are really crazy - instead of making good and cheap public transport system, you are inventing things as carpool lanes and foldable cars.

The problem is partly a social one and it's also about convenience. Many Americans don't want to sit on a train for an hour, switch to a subway, and then walk the last quarter mile. They also don't want to ride the bus for 1.5 hours and then walk the last quarter mile. They also don't want to worry about missing their subway, train or bus by a minute. When leaving for home, missing your ride could mean waiting another 30 minutes (or more depending on when you leave) just to go home. Taking the car in means 2 hours getting in but parking down the block from (or sometimes next to) your office.

The rest of the problem is infrastructure. Every day, the population of Prague travels in and out of Manhattan, which is an island with 1/10th of the space of Prague. We also have other dense population centers outside of Manhattan that are on the way to Manhattan. The trains here are already on a schedule that prevents additional trains from running (at least from where I live) into Manhattan. We would have to add additional train hubs (good luck finding room for that in Manhattan) and add additional rail roads outside of Manhattan. If you've visited the areas of New York City and New Jersey that are just outside of Manhattan, you'd see that we have no place to add rail road tracks (other than building over people's homes or digging hundreds of miles of tunnels). We don't even have room 30 miles away where I live. Our silly carpool lanes also help to support the buses, since they're allowed to use them.

To put things into perspective, New York City is Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. The total population is over 8.2 million in a land area of about the size of Prague. Over 1.3 million people commute to Manhattan alone. Your experience is with the population of less than Manhattan in an area the size of all of New York City. People traveling from 20 miles (33.2km) away or more is common and they come in from all directions. I don't think that logistics of the problem directly translates, but I could be wrong.

I have a few questions for you though:

Do people who live outside of Prague usually drive to Prague or do you have a public transportation system that most of them use?
Does your population nearly double during the work day?
The Wikipedia entry for Prague indicates that you can get to within a 5 minute walk to most areas of Prague. Does that mean you can on a bus that takes you all over or do you need to transfer from bus to subway to bus again for some areas?
Can you figure out this subway map look like this? :-)

AFAIK (I'm from upstate but go down to the city regularly), the subway runs 24/7 and the lines go just about everywhere. And if where you want to go isn't next to a subway stop, you could always walk (exercise! yay!), or take a cab if need be.

I fail to see how public transportation, if well-funded (which the MTA isn't, sadly,) curtails personal freedom. In fact, I think it *enhances* it, because then I don't have to worry about getting in an accident and wrecking my car, I don't have to waste a ton of gas idling at stop lights (which means I have more money in my pocket, which is excellent because everything in the city costs more,) and tiredness/drunkenness are of no consequence.

Plus, you can't read the paper in a car. Well, you *shouldn't*, but people do. Yet another reason not to drive in the city.

You can see webcam and even streaming video shots of the Battery Tunnel on New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority website. Don't know why they would ban cameras, there's nothing to see really.

I can't detect any sarcasm, but I really hope you're kidding. Some 7 million people take the bus or subway in New York City every day. You're going to tell me that the daily commute of 88% of the population of NYC falls into that 10-15% of the journeys? These are MTA stats, so it doesn't even count NJ Transit. Unfortunately, I couldn't find NJ Transit stats for NYC commuters.

Maybe in suburbia, you're right. But any city will have a large percentage of people riding mass transit, be it rail or bus, and regardless of how crappy the system might be. They're just not necessarily the people you're used to.

Blame the user! Yes, that's one way of looking at it. Another perspective is that the product designers could have built the systems in a way so as not to encourage activities that distract the driver, or at least not to tempt the driver to fiddle with accessories on the road. Or--best option--hire aesthetes and HCI experts to design your mapping systems to be intuitive and predictive enough not to require the driver's full attention to operate. Some of the dash-mounted interactive mapping devices I've seen ought to be criminal, they're such a frustration to use.

Responsibility may lie ultimately with the end user, especially for having chosen such terribly-designed products. But many problems could be avoided if only automakers put some thought into how real human beings interact with their systems.

Me, I believe in capitalism. I pay other people to do the dirty work.

Clearly you aren't from NYC. http://mta.info/ is the home page for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the admins of the subway/bus system.

A nice map is available at:

http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/submap.htm

To get around this, just write a script that goes to a meta server to get the current URL, downloads the jpg, then converts it to whatever you wan on your ipod.

This is what crossover office does for downloading wordviewer plugins and MS fonts from MS for use on your linux box. They let MS do the distribution, but make installation stupid easy. All appears legal, as you have do download the content that is alread freely available for anyone to use on the internet.

Who would want to distribute such low quality quality maps? Those pictures lack _scale_, which would show a reference line and tell its real world length. Can't US people do anything right? Of course, the reference length should be in SI units (that is, meters). See:

http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/submap.htm

getting them from the MTA is like pulling teeth

I don't know if you meant paper maps, but here is a New York subway map, from the MTA, free of charge. You can even download it as a PDF.

I live in NYC and do not like MTA at all. However I have to agree with MTA here.
(hint* pay extra attention to the last part.)

from http://www.mta.info/sitehtml/mtacopy.htm

No part of this program, product, software, or item, including the look or feel of the program, product, software, or item may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including the use of information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (or other appropriate corporate entity). This prohibition against unlawful or unauthorized reproduction is intended to include all U.S. domestic use as well as protections afforded under any international forum or law, including, but not limited to G.A.T.T.

Each individual document published by MTA on the World Wide Web may contain other proprietary notices and copyright information relating to that individual document.

Nothing contained herein shall be construed as conferring by implication, estoppel or otherwise any license or right under any patent or trademark of MTA or any third party. Except as expressly provided above nothing contained herein shall be construed as conferring any license or right under any MTA copyright.

Note that any product, process, or technology in this document may be the subject of other intellectual property rights reserved by MTA, and may not be licensed hereunder.

This publication is provided "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so the above exclusion may not apply to you.

Any MTA publication may include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes may be periodically made to these publications; these changes will be incorporated in new editions of these publications. The MTA may make improvements and/or changes in the products and/or the programs described in these publications at any time without notice.

Should any viewer of an MTA published document respond with information including feedback data, such as questions, comments, suggestions, or the like regarding the content of any such MTA document, such information shall be deemed to be non-confidential and MTA shall have no obligation of any kind with respect to such information and shall be free to reproduce, use, disclose and distribute the information to others without limitation. Further, The MTA shall free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques contained in such information for any purpose whatsoever including but not limited to developing, manufacturing and marketing products incorporating such information.
--------

In short, I think, all he had to do was just post his subway map as his suggestion and it could have easily bypassed this whole mess.

Since he seems to placed himself as sole publisher of this "unique" map as in claiming the map as "his own", he just opened himself with can of worm. Follow this;

from http://www.ipodsubwaymaps.com/about.php

So what's this all about?

Simply put, I decided that it'd be pretty cool to build this website so you can put subway maps onto your iPod Photo. As I write this, I've only got one city up so far -- well, almost. I skipped Staten Island. Do people actually ride that subway?

Eventually I'd like to open the site up to allow other visitors to submit their own maps. One step at a time, though. ...

Is this all just some blatant self-promotion?

Is all of it? Of course not. Is some of it? Sure! I really thought the idea of putting my subway map onto my iPod was cool. Why should I keep it all to myself? If it's helpful to me, then why not to the rest of you?
------

All he had to do

You don't mean their transit maps, do you? They've been up for several years now.

Wow! The future's today and it's called mass transit.

The only way we will truly have safe highways will be by removing auto dependency from people's lives so that they do not need to make so many trips, thus decreasing the likelihood of an accident.

Could have fooled me. What exactly did they launch, when the L train is still unavailable for much of the line on weekends?

http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/subsrvnl.htm/

As usual, there is no indication of when the line will actually be up and running properly, nor does anyone here have a clue about these "displays" the article mentions. Hell, nobody I know had any clue about the last fare hike.

The NYC MTA is a joke. They run empty trains for training purposes at peak rush hour, and you can stand around on a platfrom for a half hour without anyone informing you that the line is down. Local trains frequently fly by inexplicably stalled express trains. Then there are the yellow diesel cars that spew smoke into the tunnels, and of course those oh-so-funny motormen that love to blow the very loud horn after the thing's already in the station, thrashing everyone's nerves even more.

SkyWeb Express is certainly an interesting technology, but it's basically an advanced railway. Autonomous, individualized, and very interesting, but still rail. Might be a good replacement for the subways in cities that have them, or an addition to cities that could use subways. It'd be nice if a major city (like New York) actually tried it.

Well, there are legitimate .info sites...