[HN Gopher] NYC Subwaysheds
___________________________________________________________________
NYC Subwaysheds
Author : l3x
Score : 185 points
Date : 2023-06-08 11:46 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (subwaysheds.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (subwaysheds.com)
| parpfish wrote:
| It seems to make the assumption that you'll get any particular
| train instantly. Factor in expected wait time for each line and
| the local/express variants and the sheds will shrink
| substantially.
|
| it'll also get confusing because the sheds will change as a
| function of time of day
| crote wrote:
| That might not be an _entirely_ wrong assumption to make. An
| office worker 's working hours usually has some amount of
| slack, and people are willing to adjust their schedule to
| minimize wait time. No point waiting 25 minutes every day when
| you can get up 5 minutes earlier and wait basically zero.
| efuquen wrote:
| Transfers take a very relevant amount of time, even during
| rush hour when the trains are running frequently. Aside from
| waiting on the train, which does not keep a strict schedule
| and can get delayed for many reasons there is the walking
| time to the other train, which can be a decent amount even in
| locations where you don't have to exit the subway to
| transfer. Factoring a minimum 5-10 minutes extra time per
| transfer is a safe bet.
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| The subway doesn't keep to a strict schedule (it has one in
| theory but no one would depend on it), and has anywhere
| between 3 and 20 minute headways (time between trains).
|
| You can sort of kind of get close to 1-2 minutes of slack if
| you have an app telling you how far away the subway is
| (CityMapper has this feature), but you can't really time your
| sleep or known work hours for making a specific subway.
| NoToP wrote:
| You misunderstand. It's not about one seat rides or about
| schedules. Nobody knows the schedule in NY, the train is
| frequent enough to not care. But changing lines is basically
| a statistical 5 min of travel time each time you do it.
| asdff wrote:
| Schedules are tough for a transit system to keep. Plus you
| aren't guaranteed to have the same walk to the station every
| day. Factor in maybe a couple light cycles of signals you
| need to wait for as a pedestrian to get down to the station,
| and your travel time on foot to the station can vary by a
| significant proportion, adding one or a couple three minute
| light cycles into the mix that might or might not hit for
| you. I try and anticipate getting to the platform at least 10
| minutes before the scheduled train as a result. If I am
| closer to 5 minutes then I am rushing, feeling late, and
| stressed, and have missed plenty of trains in moments in this
| situation before.
| NoToP wrote:
| Wait, I'm supposed to not cross the street when I don't
| have the light? Who has time for that? I got a train to
| catch.
| afavour wrote:
| It's still interesting/useful, though. Once you require
| factoring in average train wait times and stuff like that the
| project is going to be way too complex to ever be achievable.
| parpfish wrote:
| for sure, it's still useful, but i think it might be worth
| some sort of down-weighting for trains that run less
| frequently.
|
| for example, if the ratio of local:express trains is 5:1, the
| watershed should be more heavily influenced by what's
| accessible in 40 minutes via local.
|
| this is also in part due to the way people use the subway in
| NY -- nobody looks at a timetable and says "i'll head down to
| the station to catch the 6:37 express" like you would in some
| cities with reliable timetables/schedules. in NY, you just go
| to the station and wait and hope the train you want shows up
| next/soon.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > this is also in part due to the way people use the subway
| in NY -- nobody looks at a timetable and says "i'll head
| down to the station to catch the 6:37 express" like you
| would in some cities with reliable timetables/schedules. in
| NY, you just go to the station and wait and hope the train
| you want shows up next/soon.
|
| That was true 15 years ago, but it's less true today now
| that there's a multitude of apps (both the first-party
| MyMTA app and many third-party apps which are much better)
| which make this easy.
|
| Even Google Maps gives train times in their directions, and
| they're _mostly_ accurately updated as delays happen, etc.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I've used the arrival time on Google maps and it seems
| accurate enough but the A train run so often it's not
| really an issue so I rarely if ever look. Plus I use
| mta.info for updates to check for delays.
| pbw wrote:
| Since it's Mapbox I wonder if they are using the Isochrone
| API[1], or if this is more custom b/c it's subways? I agree an
| adjustable duration of trip would be neat.
|
| [1] - https://docs.mapbox.com/api/navigation/isochrone/
| et-al wrote:
| Here's the author's source code:
| https://github.com/chriswhong/nyc-subway-isochrones
|
| If they were using the Isochrone API, the buffers around the
| subway stations would take in account the street grid vs a
| circle.
|
| That's really cool that Mapbox now offers an API to do this. It
| seems like it also factors in elevation as well!
| camgunz wrote:
| A thing most people don't know about NYC is that it's real hard
| to get from Brooklyn to Queens without a car. This map makes that
| really visible, which is pretty cool.
| chirau wrote:
| Yeah, the G tries but it is nowhere near sufficient. Then there
| is the E and A. You would have to ride those for hours since
| you have to go through Manhattan.
| weatherlight wrote:
| very cool. but I noticed some of the stop information is
| incorrect. for example, the franklin stop on the C train in
| Brooklyn, isn't connected to the franklin stop on the shuttle.
|
| (I live like 2 blocks from that station)
| woodruffw wrote:
| Is this true? I haven't taken the Franklin Ave shuttle in a
| decade, but I remember it being on the top floor of the
| Franklin Ave station (with the C platform being in the
| basement).
| Footkerchief wrote:
| If you live 2 blocks away, you probably often see the green
| skyway that crosses Fulton to connect the C and S ;)
| afavour wrote:
| I've taken that connection so I assure you it is! The S train
| is elevated and quite a walk from the C platform but they are
| accessible from each other (including via elevator, which is a
| rarity)
| pimlottc wrote:
| It would be fantastic if Google Maps and the like could take this
| into account when searching instead of just naively relying on
| distance. 2 miles away along a well-developed transit corridor is
| much "closer" to me than 2 miles away in a direction with no bus
| or rail options.
|
| Sometimes I'd be happy to go halfway across town if I can just
| take a single train there and it's close by the station.
| Especially if it involves picking up packages or heavily items.
| asdff wrote:
| Google maps is pretty basic for its routing. For example, I use
| a skateboard to commute to transit stops. It effectively cuts
| walk times in half or more and is easy to carry on a crowded
| train. There is no way to set this average walking/skating
| speed, however, so the routes they choose are not optimal and
| require my own localized knowledge of the transit network and
| schedule, and knowing the best routes for skating fast. This
| doesn't just affect skaters, but people who might have a bike
| or scooter they can use between transit trips. You can imagine
| all the much more optimal routings that become possible when
| you can suddenly move 10-15mph on a whim between point A and B.
| NoToP wrote:
| Google maps seems to have evolved into something by and for
| car-centric user base.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Definitely. Offline maps are great but the only offline
| routing option is by car. If you want to walk, you have to
| figure it out yourself based on the driving directions.
|
| I can see from a business point of view that it might make
| sense to optimize for drivers, but it's irresponsible of
| them to ignore the impact they have on users. They're
| creating a self-perpetuating cycle.
| bombcar wrote:
| This kind of tool would be absolutely brilliant as part of
| Zillow.
|
| I'd love to see various distances from properties assuming bike,
| or walking, or driving, etc.
|
| Everyone who _lives_ in a neighborhood knows these things, but it
| 's really hard to figure it out before without traveling there
| and attempting some things.
| USB5 wrote:
| Zillow already has that. You input an address and it tells you
| the distance in time by transportation method on each property
| details screen. You can also sort properties according to
| distance from the given address. The software labels it a
| "work" address, but you will face no consequences for using an
| address that you do not work at.
| mfitton wrote:
| The problem is that this shows you how long it takes to get
| to a single place, rather than showing a map visualization
| like this site. I've often really wanted this on StreetEasy
| especially. I don't want to know how long it takes just to
| get to work, I want to know how long it takes to every
| neighborhood I regularly travel to.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Agree it could be better. I recently moved and wanted to be
| close to work but also close to a few friends. It would be
| cool if you could put in two (or more) locations and it
| would map out areas. I'm sure some ones would have popped
| up I didnt consider.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Nice first pass, but its clearly calculating these as the pigeon
| flies and not taking the various stitched together street grids
| into account. You should get diamond and square shapes, not
| circles, for the most part. I'm working on a redesigned subway
| map / nomenclature an indicators of walking time to nearest
| stations is a subtle feature I want to build in. Something
| between a watershed like this and a vornoi diagram depending on
| which edge comes first.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No, it is clearly _not_ as the pigeon flies. That is incorrect.
|
| When I click on my local subway stop it seems entirely
| accurate, and the stations don't form any kind of circle at
| all. In fact I can't find _any_ subway stop origin that seems
| to form anything even close to a circle.
|
| Also, according to the "about" it's calculating from actual
| subway schedules.
|
| And it has nothing to do with street grids. It's subway trips,
| not walking.
| tantalor wrote:
| > not walking
|
| The site says "accessible within 40 minutes by subway and
| walking"
| bentaber wrote:
| From the About
|
| "Isochrones are manually calculated using turf.js assuming
| 1.2m/s walking speed after the subway trip. These are simple
| buffers around each station/prior isochrone and do not take
| the street network into account."
| crote wrote:
| Nah, GP is right.
|
| The station-to-station part does indeed use subway travel
| times, but the website says "Hover over a station to see how
| much of the city is accessible within 40 minutes by subway
| _and walking_. "
|
| And the "walking" part clearly shows a perfect circle around
| each destination station, so it is 100% doing an as-the-
| pigeon-flies estimation for the walking.
| parpfish wrote:
| The "pigeon flies" part is about the circles that form around
| each station to reflect walking time after you leave the
| train.
| xsmasher wrote:
| Parent poster is referring to the walking segments; the
| walking bubble around each station is a circle.
|
| Click on Rockaway park. A pigeon could reach those islands,
| but a walking person could not.
|
| This is still a great visualization.
| sequoia wrote:
| It's using some hybrid of isochrones & walking time "as the
| crow flies." The subway travel is in isochrones, but once you
| exit the subway the walking time assumes walking in straight
| lines with no obstructions in any direction. So yes that's
| inaccurate but it's relevant that only the _walking_ time is
| done so. I assume subway ride time is based on subway schedule
| times.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >I'm working on a
|
| It's all bravado commenting on something you're working on in
| the comments of someone else's actual working site. Let's see
| the comments from a link to your site? Thought not
| pc86 wrote:
| I didn't take the GP's comment as overly negative or
| unconstructive. Yours, on the other hand, is needlessly
| aggressive.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| What a weirdly cool buy very niche site. Why 40 minutes? Why just
| NYC? Why just subways?
| parpfish wrote:
| Because it's a niche site and that's what it's about?
|
| "Interesting niche site about birds in the authors backyard.
| But why doesn't it also talk about the trees in my backyard?"
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why would you go to subawaysheds.com to learn about taxicab
| stands? that would obviously be taxicabstands.com.
|
| Why just NYC? Because does anything else exist outside of NYC?
| Maybe atlantic city, or the catskills, or niagra falls, but
| everything else is just unimportant
| yownie wrote:
| you seem.....upset.
| dylan604 wrote:
| not at all. just responding to a question with a response
| in the same manner. ridiculousness all around
| woodruffw wrote:
| As a New Yorker: 40 minutes is _roughly_ my boundary between
| "ordinary trip with no prior thought" and "I'll set aside a
| dedicated time and/or day to make this trip."
|
| The city's bus lines are much more variable in service, and
| don't offer as many interborough routes.
| twic wrote:
| My nitpick is even more absurd than everyone else's: the name
| "subwayshed" evokes watersheds, but that's not what this map
| shows at all! That could describe a map where you mouse over a
| station, and it colours the rest of the map according to what
| line from that station will get you there fastest (after whatever
| changes are necessary). Which would be even more pointless.
| elijahbenizzy wrote:
| Lovely viz! I'd like to see the # of minutes as a parameter
| (maybe in steps of 5), and also include ferries (Staten Island
| is, well, an island).
| [deleted]
| fnord77 wrote:
| herald sq and grand central seem to be the maximals
| liminal wrote:
| Definitely helps to justify the Manhattan rent costs.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I'd be interested to know what the "best" stop is based on this -
| which station has the largest accessible area?
|
| Times Square [0] has the most connections, but Atlantic Av [1]
| has better coverage of Brooklyn. Hard to tell which is larger,
| though.
|
| 0: https://subwaysheds.com/stop/r16/times-sq-42-st
|
| 1: https://subwaysheds.com/stop/r31/atlantic-av-barclays-ctr
| gen220 wrote:
| If you open it up to include LIRR, NJT and Metro North, Penn
| Station / Times Square / Grand Central is probably the winner.
| :)
| efuquen wrote:
| Nice visual tool but wildly optimistic. Walk times to and from
| stations and during transfers can eat up huge amounts of time in
| a commute, and that assumes trains are running well. Discounting
| walking to station times which clearly can't be taken into
| account in this tool, the transfer times between trains are also
| not taken into account. Transferring over from any train that is
| taking you up the west side to one that takes you up the east
| side (or vice versa) of Manhattan takes up a lot of extra time
| but the maps treats them as if it doesn't matter what side of the
| island your original train will take you.
| mightybyte wrote:
| I saw something very similar to this some years back. Can't
| remember the site though.
| philshem wrote:
| https://www.chronotrains.com/en/station/2988507-Paris/5 ???
| supernova87a wrote:
| I have a somewhat different concern, exposed by the map and how
| far some places are from being well served. The map itself is
| great.
|
| Will the NYC subway system ever evolve further? My mind is on
| Tokyo a lot lately, because of some recent visits, and also
| probably related I get served up a bunch of Youtube videos about
| how the Tokyo metro has evolved over time.
|
| The subway system in Tokyo improved over decades by forcing
| interoperation of rail systems, improving control systems,
| building new track, etc. etc.
|
| So today you have a system where (for example), every 5 minutes,
| you can take a commuter train from an outer suburb that enters
| the city center, _becomes_ a subway train, lines up with
| automated platform gates, hits every stop within seconds of
| expected, emerges from the subway system and continues to the
| airport as an airport express train.
|
| They did this not out of some desire for some luxury level train
| system, but because it was _necessary_ to support the number of
| people who had to rely on it as a system.
|
| Is NYC's subway forever frozen in the current state of
| shiftiness? What needs to happen / how will it happen that it
| ever improves from here? How is the demand for the NYC subway not
| turning into improvements?
| yownie wrote:
| Hey ! someone finally recreated https://www.triptropnyc.com/ !
|
| It's about time, super useful!
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is a very cool visualization!
|
| I'm especially impressed by how it handles the local and express
| routes: North Brooklyn is only about 15 minutes door-to-door from
| Lower Manhattan on the Fulton Line[1] express A train, and the
| map correctly shows that. Nice work!
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IND_Fulton_Street_Line
| wnolens wrote:
| Love it, but UWS to Bushwick in 40 minutes - I wish!
|
| This feels like a 10th percentile stat. Change the 10-40m range
| to be 15-55m and it will be closer to what I experience on a
| daily basis.
|
| Great resource for visitors to NYC to set expectations.
| neom wrote:
| L train estimates are generally a pipe dream on this site, a
| beautiful beautiful pipe dream.
| gipp wrote:
| Just comparing to my own intuition, I'd guess it's using a
| train's _departure_ from the origin station as the "start"
| time for a trip.
| wnolens wrote:
| Yea, and ideal transfers (~zero wait). and perfect schedule
| (no real-time stats of drift).
| etrautmann wrote:
| Yep, exactly my thought. Super valuable if scaled to be more
| accurate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm not from NYC, so maybe this is obvious, but why can you not
| get from Staten Island to Manhattan in 40mins? Is there really
| not bridge/tunnel that can get you there?
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| ~25min on the Ferry which runs every half hour / every 20
| minutes during rush hour
| gipp wrote:
| It's far too long for a bridge, which would also then cut the
| harbor in half anyway.
| afavour wrote:
| There is no bridge or tunnel. One was started back in the 1920s
| and parts of it still remain but it was never completed:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staten_Island_Tunnel
|
| It's kind of a political hot potato few want to touch these
| days. A tunnel feels like a no brainier but a lot of NIMBY
| types in Staten Island don't _want_ a fast connection to the
| rest of the city as it would likely change the area
| dramatically.
| bootwoot wrote:
| It's also very across the harbor between Staten Island and
| Manhattan. Any bridge or tunnel would be multiple times
| longer than any other bridge or tunnel in the area (and
| correspondingly expensive).
| afavour wrote:
| The original plans were for a tunnel between SI and
| Brooklyn. Still probably the most realistic of any plan
| though it does lose the benefits of a direct connection to
| Manhattan.
| woodruffw wrote:
| On top of what 'sempron64 said: there _was_ a plan to construct
| a subway tunnel between Brooklyn and Staten Island[1], but
| construction was canceled nearly a century ago.
|
| The Verrazano Bridge itself was designed under Robert Moses's
| eye, and he shut down the idea of a subway link early on[2].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staten_Island_Tunnel
|
| [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/1956/04/09/archives/moses-bars-
| train...
| sclarisse wrote:
| Staten Island is south of Brooklyn, as others have noted, and a
| good distance away -- so even if we had a rail link via bridge
| or tunnel to Brooklyn, you'd need more work to bring it to
| Manhattan. You might think of using existing lines, but the
| closest credible line, the R train, has capacity for adding
| such trains, and for taking those trains into Manhattan... but
| it runs local along Brooklyn's 4th Ave, making the overall trip
| much slower. It does join up with the D/N lines after a short
| distance (4 Ave Express), but the D/N has capacity limitations
| both at that point and later when they join the B/Q and cross
| the Manhattan Bridge to the 6th Ave Express/Broadway Express
| line. You could displace either of those services to the local
| track and send them into lower Manhattan via the Montague Tube
| link, at the cost of making trips down to Coney Island /
| Stillwell Ave much slower and serving areas in lower Manhattan
| which are less relevant than midtown.
|
| There is some remote possibility of going out of the way to
| link to the F train, which even has an essentially-unused
| express track (portions of the system are 3-track but more of
| the relevant route is a full 4-track). The big problem with
| this is that it eventually dumps you onto the 6 Ave Local, and
| 6 Ave is pretty much full, local or otherwise. The only other
| option is the IND Crosstown, which goes to Bed-Stuy,
| Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Queens instead of Manhattan. The
| smaller problem is that the express train stops here are
| awkwardly located, and the potential transfer points for other
| lines tend to be crowded.
|
| In short, all the good subway capacity into Manhattan is
| already claimed by existing services. This makes sense! The
| best ones are all full and the ones with spare capacity are
| less popular for good reason. It'd be a waste otherwise.
|
| If you're looking to build more capacity, you'll need something
| dramatic like connecting the Second Avenue Subway. At that
| point I'd want to hook it up to the B/D tracks via the Rutgers
| Tube, send the D in Manhattan onto the new line, and divert the
| D in Brooklyn via the F express tracks, instead of the Brooklyn
| 4 Ave Express. (You could trade the B line with some clever
| swaps near Chrystie as an alternative.) This would free up
| capacity for the Staten Island service on the 4 Ave link, a
| much better proposition.
|
| But given that building the existing Phase 1 mile-and-a-bit of
| the Second Avenue Subway ran billions of dollars and took over
| 70 years to happen... you may see the size of the problem you
| face adding many new miles in Phase 3 to connect it to the area
| near the Christie St Connection.
|
| Now the pandemic might have mitigated some of this, but it's
| also mitigated the benefit of the scheme in the first place,
| and it has strained the budgets for such projects too.
| sempron64 wrote:
| There is no direct bridge or tunnel between Manhattan and
| Staten Island, only a ferry. Staten Island is connected to
| Brooklyn via the Verrazano Bridge.
| [deleted]
| MisterTea wrote:
| The Verrazano bridge is usually baked up with traffic as is the
| two major highways feeding into it: Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
| (BQE) and the Belt Parkway. To get from SI to Manhattan by car
| you take the bridge to the BQE then battery tunnel into
| Manhattan but that's over and hour in traffic. Ferry is another
| option. There's no connecting subway tunnel and a single small
| train line runs north south to the east. Weird borough - feels
| like long island or upstate. Even had a shanty ghost town to
| the south.
| pests wrote:
| Ferry runs 24/7 and is free.
| lisasays wrote:
| You can, if just barely, to/from both lower Manhattan and
| Midtown -- by ferry. However presumably those routes are not
| factored into this map.
| wnc3141 wrote:
| It would be interesting to incorporate the ferry times the staten
| island train only appears 40 min. to staten island
| shmerl wrote:
| What's with the weird design decision not to have more West to
| East lines in NYC? It can make travel very convoluted.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| With the exception of three stops on the UWS that took about a
| century to build[0] and one additional stop on the 7, ~all of
| the subway stops were built 80+ years ago, via one of three
| independent private train companies. Those three companies
| eventually went bankrupt and were taken over by the city, and
| then later the state.
|
| So I wouldn't call anything a "design decision" in this case,
| insofar as it was never _designed_ intentionally to be a
| comprehensive public transit system the way we think of it
| today.
|
| [0] Not an exaggeration - Phase 1 was originally supposed to be
| completed before WWII.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I'd surmise that cut-and-cover construction was more
| politically feasible on the wider avenues where business
| disruption is minimized.
| chillydawg wrote:
| it's called an isochrone.
| donohoe wrote:
| Neat but does not account for possible transfers - and maybe
| thats not a bad thing?
| adolph wrote:
| It is interesting that it shows Jamaica - 179th St to Flushing -
| Main St as within 40 minutes but not the inverse. More dramatic
| is Far Rockaway - Mott Ave to Liberty Ave.
|
| I wonder what station has the best coverage?
| bovinegambler wrote:
| WNYC had a cool one a few years ago that also included time to
| get to/from stations but it seems their MapBox account isn't
| working anymore: https://project.wnyc.org/transit-time/
|
| You can see what it looked like here
| https://gothamist.com/news/map-find-out-how-long-it-takes-to...
| yownie wrote:
| remember https://www.triptropnyc.com/ ?
|
| I used this to find a place to stay when I worked on Canal,
| ended up finding Sunset Park neighborhood around 36th street
| station and loving the area.
| etrautmann wrote:
| This is pretty cool and well done, but perhaps a bit optimistic
| on the time estimates. Starting from my station, there's really
| no way to get to Brooklyn in 40 min. The timing seems off by 25%
| or so
| crazygringo wrote:
| Mine seems pretty accurate, but it seems to be counting from
| when my train departs, not when I get to the station.
|
| Also it's not clear if it's counting waiting time when
| transferring, which would make a big difference.
| mithr wrote:
| Interesting, and it's cool to see an illustration of how weird it
| is that there's no quick way to cross the park! It takes the same
| ballpark amount of time to get from east 86th St & 2nd to Kew
| Gardens (~14 miles apart) as it does to get from east 86th & 2nd
| to west 86th St & Broadway (~1.5 miles apart)...
| CydeWeys wrote:
| There are buses running the transverses. I think this map only
| does subway. Check Google Maps transit directions and you'll
| see.
| thih9 wrote:
| I enjoyed it, nice idea and execution, it feels very intuitive.
|
| One thing surprised me after I clicked around, I did not expect
| each station to become a separate browser history entry.
| napsterbr wrote:
| I had the same surprise. Which raises an interesting question:
| does that count as "breaking the back button"?
|
| Theoretically, no: the back button is working as expected. At
| the same time, it was a significantly worse experience for me
| because it took a lot longer to go back to the "parent" page
| (HN).
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(page generated 2023-06-09 23:00 UTC)