NYC Subway Now Overcrowded And Soon, Less Functional

The privilege of getting somewhere quickly and relatively inexpensively has been offset by the price of being wedged between strangers with nothing inanimate to hold onto as the train lurches ahead. New York City subway usage, at 1.763 billion rides last year, has hit its highest point since 1948. If you were going to dismiss this as just an issue of physical discomfort and not mortality, hear riders explain to the New York Timesthe terror of standing on a packed platform as a train approaches, and people are jostling to board:

“People are trying to walk back because they don’t want to get too close to the edge, and they’re pushing you forward,” Ms. Salvemini, who works in the entertainment industry, said. “People can be very aggressive.”

The situation only brightens when you learn that a train identified as one of the city’s most overpacked—the L, running across Manhattan and into north Brooklyn—will be shut down in one of two ways to repair damages from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Around early 2019, the tunnel connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan will either be closed altogether (with possible buses and ferries to compensate), or partially shut down such that the train can accommodate just one-fifth of its current ridership.

Rents along that L line have dipped slightly, perhaps as a result of this sunny news, but they remain stratospheric, as elsewhere in Brooklyn and in this city. Consult this smart, soul-sucking RentHop map to see median apartment price, by subway stop.

Or, to put it in haiku form:

You can’t fit in tubes

That won’t take you to places

That you can’t afford.

[h/t New York Times, RentHop]