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
Stick with Honda/Toyota. As long as the used car was properly maintained, should have no prob taking it up to 200k miles (I did).
Cars rule, and if you will use it daily for work commute and many weekend trips (as we do), then it makes sense. Obviously easier and greater peace of mind than dealing with rentals.
Do people ever do “car shares”? I don’t mean carpooling, I mean 2 people living close to each other actually sharing ownership of a car.
It means that you have to plan ahead for weekend but then your capital and maintenance costs would be halved.
Never done it myself, or know/heard of anyone doing it but it must be possible.
NSR – a neighbor of mine is selling their late 1990s civic hatchback. It only has 50k miles on it.
lol @ the number of phoney “urbanites” in this thread. i hate that term, but you know, if the phoney pump fits, i guess youre all wearing it hahah.
that said, i really dont have any problems with people having cars, i like riding in cars. i dont drive, but i like getting rides!
*rob*
The tourists are the ones I feel sorry for on weekends, clutching their little maps and squinting at the inscrutable lists of service changes and struggling to hear the gravelly announcements (if there are any). When they ask me for weekend train directions now, I just send them upstairs to get a cab.
I respectfully disagree with NorthSlopeRenter. parking is much much easier in the north slope than it is in the Center Slope. I used to live on 2nd Street and it was an utter nightmare trying to find parking – and I drove to work every day so didn’t need to worry about alternate side!
The thing about the north slope is that people drive here from other neighborhoods, park, and take the subway into Manhattan. then at 5 p.m., they come back and lots of spaces open up. not kidding. This is not true of the Center Slope where people leave their cars for weeks at a time.
There is something to be said about the convenience of having your own car. With your own car, you can make a spur of the moment decision as to how you’re going to get somewhere. With the subways, especially on the weekend you have to plan carefully (and carry a map.) Sometimes, you just want to have a spur of the moment adventure, and the additional cost or hassle of car service takes all the air out of the adventure.
With that being consider only what will make your life easier. If you buy a car, buy the most reliable car that you can afford and son’t get snookered by any options that are not convenient to your particular lifestyle.
i signed up for zipcar this year in may so i don’t know what their old fees were like, but indeed the cost is high even for a one day trip on a weekend. if you want to get out of the city on the weekend your cheapest one-day rental is about $140. we took it to brimfield, mass this year for four days and it cost over $500.
i do find it convenient — especially if you live in the downtown brooklyn neighborhoods where there is a high density of zip car lots (my fav is the one on boerum pl between state and livingston — they have a good selection and bring the car to you as well as park it for you when you return). however if you want to get out of the city on a whim you can’t do so cheaply, as the $140/day cars are reserved well in advance.
i’m considering getting a cheap car as well. parking in cobble hill doesn’t seem too bad. there’s so much to do and see outside of the city — upstate, long island, new jersey, pennsylvania, and the immediate area of CT too. it’s hard to enjoy the region without a car.
I have lived with and without cars in brooklyn and it is totally not worth it. you could rent cars and take car service basically at will before reaching the same cost, and wait til start getting parking tickets.
You’ll also spend plenty of time in traffic knowing that you could have been on the subway.