Everything you need to know about NYC

More than 5,5 million people use the New York subway service every day. Its annual capacity is over 1,7 billion, significantly more than any other transit system in the United States. When the 115-year-old metro doesn't work properly, it paralyzes the entire city. Edition NY Curbed spoke about the history and unspoken rules in force in the subway of America's largest city.

New York subway today

Over the past few years, residents of the Big Yabloko have often faced problems in servicing the metro. These include delays in traffic schedules, crumbling ceilings and more, which have led to a public outcry - people have expressed their anger en masse over spoiled travel.

After several years of declining passenger numbers, the trend appears to be reversed, the source said. But plans for a complete modernization of the metro are still under development and require funding, and its timing has not been determined.

In addition to the above problems, the subway can be difficult to navigate, especially if you are new to New York. The fact is that it is a huge system consisting of 472 stations scattered throughout the city.

To make it easier for you to navigate the Big Yabloko metro, read the information below. You will learn about everything - from who controls the operation of the subway, to the rules of conduct and ways to save money on travel.

Who controls the NYC subway

The New York subway is controlled by the City Transportation Authority (MTA). It is a government agency that monitors various state mass transit systems, including the city bus system, suburban rail lines, bridges, tunnels, and Staten Island Railways.

The MTA includes the agencies that oversee these various transit systems. So, MTA New York City Transit (abbreviated - NYCT) is responsible for the subway and many city buses. Initially, three separate transit systems operated their own metro lines; they merged in the 1940s. However, in 1953, the NYCT was created to oversee the day-to-day operations of the underground. The agency does this to this day, along with managing larger programs such as Fast Forward. Andy Byford has been the President of NYCT since 2018.

The MTA, which is controlled by the Governor of New York, was established in 1968. She is responsible for larger tasks: issues related to the budget, capital construction projects (for example, metro on Second Avenue), the acquisition of real estate for these projects, and more. The MTA controls the 17-member council, whose members are appointed by the governor and mayor.

When the New York subway first began operating in 1904, one trip cost 5 cents. Passengers used a paper ticket to enter the system. Now, 115 years later, the fare has increased by 5400%, and MetroCards, which were introduced in the 1990s, will be decommissioned soon.

Last year, the MTA released One Metro New York (OMNY), a new toll collection system. It allows passengers to use contactless credit or debit cards and an app to enter the subway. The system is expected to be operational at over 150 stations by the end of January. It is currently available at major hubs such as Penn Start and Union Square.

Payment Methods

The basic fare for entering the subway (or the New York bus, which is not an express bus), offers a trip at a price of $ 2,75. But there are different ways to pay for travel, and here's a quick overview:

• Payment for each trip with MetroCard: you replenish the card for a certain amount of money. For each trip, $ 2,75 will be deducted from this card. If you buy a new card instead of replenishing the old one, you will be charged $ 1.
• Unlimited trips on MetroCard: pay the set amount of $ 33 a week or $ 127 a month, and you can ride the subway as much as you like. The MTA also has a fare calculator to help you figure this out. This is also where the $ 1 “new card” rule applies.

In addition, New York has a new city program. Fair Rates, offering the poor New Yorkers special MetroCard cards; it is open to those who already receive cash assistance from the city. Apply now participation in the program will be possible from January 27, 2020.

• Single Trip Card: a one-time metro ride can be purchased with a special card - it costs $ 3 and cannot be replenished in the future.

Clarification: if you pay the fare, you can change between the metro and local buses for free for two hours after the first trip. If you have an unlimited MetroCard, you do not need to worry about free transfers.

Metro Rules

There are valid MTA-codified metro rules: do not smoke on platforms, do not ride between subway cars or on the roof, sexual harassment is prohibited, and there are unspoken etiquette rules that experienced passengers are aware of.

Here are the basic requirements that everyone who descends into New York’s subway needs to know:

• Let people exit the train before entering it. This is the best way to ensure that everyone can get in and out of the train avoiding the hassle.
• Remove your backpack if you are in a crowded wagon. The same goes for large bags or any other bulky cargo that you can hold in your hands. Do not transport your bike during rush hour.
• Don't try to take up all the space around you - think about those around you. There is no need to collapse on the seats or lean on the handrails, or take up more than one place throwing your belongings. It is especially important to remember this during rush hour.
• Do not engage in personal affairs with other passengers, for example, cut nails or spit on the floor. Show respect to others.

If you are a conscious person, then adhere to the following rules to make travel more comfortable for everyone:

• If you have an unlimited MetroCard, pay in advance; if you leave the station, and someone at this time rush to get into the car, skip it.
• There are things that need to be repeated: give way to older passengers, pregnant women, people with injuries and other people with limited mobility.
• You should not call 911 if you see a dog in the subway (except, of course, that it bites someone). Yes, dogs can only be transported in special bags, however, of course, not everyone adheres to this rule. Just be more loyal.

Patrimony

The metro system began operating on October 27, 1904, but the New York experiment with mass transport began 77 years earlier. In 1827, Abraham Brower began cruising on Broadway on a horse bus, which could accommodate 12 people.

Then other attempts to transport people followed, including the famous pneumatic pipe from the inventor Alfred Eli Beach. But only in the 1870s, when the first flyovers began to ply on the west side of Manhattan, did a real revolution take place in urban transport. Although it was unlikely that this was the only city that built an underground transit system: Boston made its debut in 1897, and the earliest metro railway opened in London in 1863, the source said.

El, as he was known, “has changed the face of New York so much that it’s hard to imagine how the city’s street landscape has changed dramatically in such a short time,” wrote NY Curbed James nevius.

Soon, other, less transformative forms of high-speed transport appeared, including electric carts and cable railways. El also brought people to remote areas, thus contributing to infrastructure development outside of Manhattan.

But after the subway opened and city residents got used to it, aboveground noisy and dusty trains became less popular. By the middle of the twentieth century, they all went into oblivion.

Three subway lines - the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) and the first metropolitan line of the Independent Subway System (IND) - operated independently until 1940. Then they were united under the auspices of the city Transport Council. NYCT was founded in 1953 - the same year that tokens were first introduced (before that, paper tickets were used).

In the 1970s, the metro entered a period of decline due to deteriorating service, rising crime and a decrease in passenger numbers. It took political will and many years to solve these problems. By the 1990s, the number of passengers had stabilized - it had not dropped below 1 billion people a year since 1994. Since 1997, the number of passengers has started to grow steadily after the introduction of the MetroCard. But in reality, the MTA never recovered from its financial troubles. The agency is expected to withhold $ 2022 billion in debt by 1.

In recent years, several high-profile additions have been made to the New York subway system. Expansion on 7 lines; The capital construction project related to the Hudson Yards restructuring was opened in 2015 and involves connecting the far west of Manhattan with the rest of the subway. And on the first day of 2017, the first stage of the Second Avenue metro was opened. It was first proposed back in the 1920s, although the status of the next several stages is not yet clear, the author concluded.

What has been done and plans for the future

Today, the metro is slowly recovering from several bad years. The problems at that time surfaced in 2017, when service began to deteriorate markedly. This has led to a regular increase in travel time and excessive congestion on trains.

At the end of June of the same year, the government of Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the subway, and shortly after that, the MTA implemented the Action Plan for the subway in order to take control of the main problems that the system is facing. For example, slow trains and large delays. Now, after a year and a half, there have been minor improvements: the system works on time, and delays are reduced, albeit by a small percentage.

At the beginning of 2019, when Cuomo found it unnecessary to stop the movement of the L-train, it was decided to repair the tunnel without stopping passenger service. Now, the MTA says that the project is ahead of schedule, and claim that it is within the budget. They promise to complete it by the spring of 2020.

There are other improvements in the work: for example, the new SPEED MTA unit is working to ensure that subway trains travel faster. But as transit advocates at Curbed last summer emphasized, “temporary fixes made after Cuomo declared a state of emergency would be meaningless without a concerted effort to modernize the metro system.”

Much of the underground's future success hinges on the implementation of Fast Forward, NYCT President Andy Byford's ambitious plan to substantially redesign the system from the ground up. The plan calls for a major overhaul of old signals - replacing old, decaying signals with a more reliable communications-based train control system (CBTC). These renovations are necessary but not cheap - estimated at $ 30 billion, and this figure may increase in the future.

Officials are considering various methods of financing the plan, including congestion pricing, which will charge additional drivers for vehicles entering the central business district of Manhattan at certain times of the day. The congestion pricing plan was approved in 2019 and will enter into force in 2021. In early 2020, the MTA capital construction plan for the next five years (until 2024) was also approved, which represents the largest investment in the history of the agency.

New York Transit Museum

True metro lovers should visit the New York Transit Museum, established in 1976 at the decommissioned Brooklyn Metro Station. Here are all kinds of things related to the subway: ancient tokens and signs, the best of the currently unused metro cars and much more. New York Central Station has a small extension where the annual train show for the MTA holidays takes place.

The Transit Museum also provides guided tours of remote metro areas, including the stately, usually out of sight, old city hall station, hidden under lower Manhattan. However, to take part in it, you must be a member of the museum, the author warned.