Hacker News Reader

Comment by timbo1642 | Hacker News Reader

Its nothing but a scam and anyone that supports it is completely heartless. It makes people poorer and nothing else. NYC has the national guard at its subways because its so dangerous. Its beyond dangerous still during many times. It is also always fucked up and is late or it breaks or other issues. Its not that reliable.

Its just a scam to grab money from already broke people that are suffering and only awful people support this because they can't think for themselves and are followers.

View on HN

Did the subway get drastically worse in the last few years or something? Last time I was in NYC I stayed in Harlem and either biked or took the subway everywhere I needed to go. It was.. fine?

No, but the media coverage surrounding cities has decayed to an absolutely abysmal level, so every single issue on the subway gets 48 hours of coverage or more, and the current governor is awful, so she thinks things like sending in the national guard to stand around will help

It's just propaganda - downvote and ignore it, but don't ignore the worrying amount of propaganda spread implied by seeing this on HN.

Not at all. Subway seems to have less people on it but it's still very safe, especially considering it's a 24/7 train.

The subway was in a "crisis" operating mode from 2017 to 2021[1]. I've lived in the city for my entire life, and subjectively the "crisis" label was accurate for that period (in terms of timeliness, breakdowns, station decay, overcrowding pre-COVID, etc.).

That ended, in part, because the MTA received a huge operating boost from federal COVID funds, which are now (4 years later) running dry. So we haven't seen the return to the 2017 subway yet, but we almost certainly will if essential maintenance and system improvements are once again deferred to keep the lights on. As with everything about public infrastructure: the best and cheapest time to fund infrastructure is before it breaks. If the subway is allowed to continue to fall into disrepair, it'll only cost us more down the road.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932021_New_York_Cit...

The NYC metro is a far, far safer way to travel than driving. 121 people die in traffic yearly in New York City. In the highest-crime year in recent memory (2022) there were 10 deaths in the metro. Generally it's 2 or 3 yearly.

Can I ask, do you live in NYC and take the subway?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com