Subway Service on Weekends Is F@#%ed
We long ago gave up trying to take the subway on the weekends. Life’s too short, so it’s the bicycle or car for us. This view was confirmed last weekend when it took an out-of-town friend an hour and a half on Saturday afternoon to get from Midtown to Clinton Hill. So it was no…
We long ago gave up trying to take the subway on the weekends. Life’s too short, so it’s the bicycle or car for us. This view was confirmed last weekend when it took an out-of-town friend an hour and a half on Saturday afternoon to get from Midtown to Clinton Hill. So it was no surprise to read this lede in The Post this morning: “Here’s a subway service notice: Use your car on the weekends!” A group called the Transit Riders Council has studied subway service over the past two weekends. The bottom line: “It’s bedlam,” said Andrew Albert, a member of the council as well as the MTA board.
Expect subway service disaster this weekend [NY Post]
Photo by Zach Klein
We bought a car about a year and a half ago and it has been a Godsend. It was purchased mainly to handle mid to long haul trips out of the city, mostly to see our parents who happen to live in places without good train/bus/air service. We were spending at least $3000 a year on rentals. At first, I was skeptical if we would make much use of it within the city but have found ourselves using it every single weekend almost without fail. This is especially due to the terrible weekend train service that we now have the option to avoid.
Expense-wise, we bought a $4000 used Subaru and have basic theft insurance on it and pay about $1200 a year. We live in South Slope and parking is not bad at all on the street. I think it largely depends on your neighborhood.
We had Zipcar before and, although it was cheaper overall, the hassle of having a fixed time to return it and the ability to secure a car on summer weekends made it a real pain. Plus, Zipcar is no good for long-haul trips over 200 miles away which we do frequently. We view owning the car as paying for added freedom.
I can’t go through 60 posts now, so my apologies if someone already said this, but if you click on the photo link and view comments….the guy is posing for his friend. Doesn’t make him less of an idiot, but I knew he wasn’t just some eccentric dude hanging off the platform….he was just trying to be cool. And failed.
I have said it before and I shall say it again, regardless of whether 11217 craps in his diapers: the NYC transit sytem is the government’s unsubtle way of telling you to buy an automobile.
In NYC unlike anywhere else in the USA, you only need one car per family. Is that cool or what? But no car per family makes you underclass schmutz. Stuck in the city and dependent on shuttle buses (whatever they are) on weekends.
Look, the whole idea behind New York City has always been to make money and to spend it. If you’re too big a sissy or alcoholic to drive, then you better have enough money to pay someone to drive you around.
Northslope — It’s not about “too crappy to steal” (though that is effective), it’s just having to be conscious about the theft rate… and thinking about insurance apprpriately. The theft insurance rates vary by make/model.
If you carry a mortgage, you need to have theft. If you don’t, you have the option. My car neither needs it (not too crappy to steal, but totally uninteresting) nor deserves it (regular deductible now exceeds the replacement value… i.e., if my car was stolen, I would get $0… oh AND my insurance rate would go up because I made a claim!)
I share an ’84 VW van w/ a neighbor – she pays for it but I move it for alt side & take it for inspection, etc. We do many errands together – CostCo, Terminal Mkt, etc. It’s a real beater so we don’t trust it to go very far & she rents when she’s taking kids to camp or something – we tried Zip but the bigger places make more sense financially.
If you’re going to zipcar, sign up for one of the memberships where you pay a monthly fee which rolls over month to month for up to two months (I think) and is credited to your reservations. Then you get lower rates for the reservations. Cheapest one day rental rates on weekends are then $103 for the most basic monthly plan. Add taxes and a couple of easy pass tolls in and out of the city and your paying about $124 for the day in my experience. Not too bad for the convenience. I think it is an especially good service if youjust need a care for a few hours to go to Lowes or something like that.
For my fellow south slopers try this local car rental service
Express Car Rental
496 7th Avenue
(718) 369-6465
hate to keep going against the grain here but I dont want the future readers to think that we log in and say baa baa baaaaa all day.
I think zip car drivers should get off the main road and share the bike lane. I almost got nailed by 2 zip cars over the summer; one as pedestrian, and the other while I was driving. In both cases the driver blew through a stop sign.
we use zipcar a few times a year. no its not really cheap enough to replace owning a used car but the rates actually compare pretty well with renting anywhere in manhattan or brooklyn(aside form at the airports). the locations are way more convenient as well.