[HN Gopher] NYC Subway Station Layouts
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NYC Subway Station Layouts
Author : gregsadetsky
Score : 303 points
Date : 2024-11-09 20:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.projectsubwaynyc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.projectsubwaynyc.com)
| afavour wrote:
| Awesome. I wonder if there's a way to turn these into actual
| geographic data. I'd love an app to that will navigate me between
| platforms at the Fulton St megaplex.
| lelandfe wrote:
| I believe precise subterranean location like that is hard.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I think there have been attempts to do this with physical
| beacons that can orient phones nearby, but I would imagine it
| can be hard to maintain in the harsh operating environment of
| the subway.
| throw0101d wrote:
| What I'd be more curious about is being able to trust the
| beacons.
|
| Certainly there is a mechanism where if a phone can get a
| GNSS/GPS fix, it can then listen for other signals like
| Wifi and cell towers, and correlate the two: so if GPS
| isn't available other stuff can heard and used for
| location.
|
| But if there's no GPS, but there are other signals, how can
| you map the signals to an actual location?
|
| You'd have to have someone (Apple? Google?) go in with
| survey equipment and map the non-GNSS (beacon) signals to
| locations 'manually' and put them in a database.
| jpc0 wrote:
| Probably not economically feasible but I don't think
| technically impossible given analytics from devices.
|
| And concidering cell signal is likely covered down there
| and the locations of cell towers are almost certainly
| mapped they could use some sort of triangulation to
| generate a pretty reasonable map even without having ever
| been there.
|
| As I said, I doubt they would put the money into it...
| Would be a really fun project to build out if you had
| access to the data though... Maybe don't want to do it
| because it would make it more common knowledge about how
| easy it is to track device location even without GPS...
|
| I don't think you would need physical beacons, cell
| towers or fixed wifi APs[1] will likely be good enough
| and using some statistics would make removing cases where
| an AP moved/get renamed / goes down temporarily.
|
| 1. Access Points
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Generally speaking, agencies already have to put things
| like signs, tactile indicators, etc. next to landmarks
| like stairs and exits in public spaces; so making the
| accessible thing also a beacon wouldn't be that much more
| complicated.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I believe it's possible to just have the
| landowner/transit agency install them and publish their
| locations according to some standards. I believe shopping
| malls and airports are already mapped this way sometimes.
| rangestransform wrote:
| There are BLE beacons for positioning in the big dig
| tunnels in Boston
| usr1106 wrote:
| > I'd love an app to that will navigate me between platforms
|
| Why would that be needed? I visited NYC the first time as a
| high school student with not so perfect English as a foreign
| language skills in 1980 when the city was in a pretty rotten
| state. The last time in 2009 when the subway was at least free
| of graffiti and generally looked maintained better. In younger
| years I found huge subway stations and their connecting
| walkways fascinating so might have planned some trips with
| extra complicated changes :) I never had the feeling of getting
| lost although I definitely lost all sense of orientation. It
| was easy enough to just "blindly" follow the signs. Not sure
| why an app would be needed, I assume the signs have not
| disappeared.
|
| (In 1980 some connections were still sign-posted as "connection
| to IMT", ... BRT, or ... IND lines although those had ceased to
| exist 40 years earlier and where not marked on the official
| subway map. But even that you could just guess from the
| "breaks" in the line numbering.)
| lelandfe wrote:
| _Oh, that's just the Brooklyn bound train. Where's the uptown
| one? Wait, the F is running on the 4? Where is that? This
| staircase is out of order? Where even is another staircase?
| This is saying I need to go to Metropolitan. I'm at Lorimer,
| apparently - wait, is that the same station? Is there an
| underground path from Grand Central or do I need to exit?
| What's the best exit?_
|
| It's unusual to see someone try to make the case for the MTA
| _not_ being complex, "I got lost in the subway" is like a
| lowest common denominator NYC experience.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I wouldn't expect it to seem complicated if you're used to
| other large subway systems.
|
| If the only previous subway experience you have is Glasgow
| (a single circular route) then yeah, New York is
| potentially intimidating, but I don't expect a Londoner or
| Parisian would see it as disproportionately complicated.
| More stations, but not orders of magnitude more. Tokyo too,
| and New York only has (these days) a single integrated
| system so no weird ticketing or line change rules.
| crazygringo wrote:
| In my experience it is absolutely more complicated.
|
| Not if all the trains are running normally. The problem
| is that they often (usually?) aren't.
|
| The complexity isn't the map. It's the fact that trains
| shut down, swap tracks, switch lines, skip stations, end
| early, etc.
|
| I've never seen any other city where you have to stay on
| top of the constant changes. During weekdays it's not so
| bad, but nights and weekends _yikes_.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Maybe that's easier for a visitor. You make no
| assumptions how things are supposed to work because you
| don't know. You just follow the signs and announcements.
| Of course in case of disruptions/changes that requires
| that there are temporary signs and announcements. And
| that announcements are understandable.
|
| Earlier the first thing in a new city was getting a paper
| map. No matter whether free or for purchase. Studying the
| map prepares you for following signs and announcements.
| Unfortunately in many cities you cannot get paper maps
| anymore. A phone screen is 1000 times worse ergonomics to
| understand a network. Often I print maps before going to
| a new place.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Nah, a phone is pretty indispensable. If you're waiting
| for the train at 3am, the only person on the platform,
| your phone might be the only way for you to know that
| that countdown clock is lying, and that the subway is
| down. I would not recommend trying to tackle the MTA with
| a paper map alone. I wish signage and announcements were
| as good as you're hoping
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Of course in case of disruptions /changes that
| requires that there are temporary signs and
| announcements._
|
| Which there frequently (usually?) aren't. Because so many
| disruptions are unplanned.
|
| Also it's a big waste of time to walk 10 min to the
| subway station and pay the fare only to discover the
| train you need isn't running and you needed to go to a
| different station on a different line.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Google maps usually stays on top of the scheduled service
| pattern changes at least
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| They specifically mentioned the new Fulton street station.
| That is effectively a multi level mall and the junction of
| many train lines to boot.
|
| Navigating it for the first time is daunting.
|
| Very different from most single-line stations.
| frankdenbow wrote:
| There was an app called Exit Strategy that showed you where to
| stand on the train to maximize your routes, depending on what
| transfers you were taking.
| popcalc wrote:
| Equivalent for the Budapest metro: https://metro.skornel02.hu/
| chgs wrote:
| Geoff Marshall made "Station Master" for the London Underground
| gnovel wrote:
| The Citymapper transit app shows this information for most
| cities it supports
| Niksko wrote:
| Google maps has this natively in Japan which was great for
| travelling there
| woodruffw wrote:
| The new R211 trainsets[1] have digital displays that show this
| information as well -- they show the upcoming station ahead of
| time, along with which exit is relative to which car in the
| train.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R211_(New_York_City_Subway_car...
| sofixa wrote:
| > they show the upcoming station
|
| On a recent week long with lots of subway use trip to NYC, it
| was wild to me that this sort of extremely basic information
| was incredibly hard to impossible to find. At best, there was
| a single screen, but positioned in such a way to be invisible
| to at least half the carriage (on the side in one of the
| ends); at worst there was only the driver saying stations
| names over an intercom system that garbled everything. Same
| at stations, where with a few exceptions, it seemed the only
| information was on track-facing screens in very limited
| numbers. There was vastly more space dedicated to ads,
| including screens with ads, than to signage. Why? Why not
| replace 3 of the 100 ad signs with some information about the
| train, or a map? Being more used to Paris and London metros,
| it was quite hard to navigate and took lots of effort fishing
| for information which should be well presented.
|
| It seems that usability is one of the last concerns of US
| transit planners. And NYC Subway is supposed to be one of the
| good ones!
| woodruffw wrote:
| > At best, there was a single screen, but positioned in
| such a way to be invisible to at least half the carriage
| (on the side in one of the ends); at worst there was only
| the driver saying stations names over an intercom system
| that garbled everything.
|
| That's the old (but not _very_ old) trainsets. The new ones
| have a digital display above every door. Be happy you
| weren't on the _very_ old ones; those don't have displays
| at all, besides a paper map.
|
| The answer to this isn't about usability, but about the
| fact that the NYC subway runs old trainsets and isn't given
| very much money (relative to its economic impact on the
| city) to upgrade them. But that's slowly changing.
| sofixa wrote:
| Even the oldest trainsets in Paris and London (as old as
| from the 50s) have at least a static map of the line;
| none in NYC out of those I was one had even that.
|
| Similarly, all stations have digital signage indicating
| when the next train is coming and where it's going,
| starting from the ~70s.
|
| My point about usability was that NYC Subway was pretty
| hard to use as a tourist. Station entrances had random
| variations of end destinations or broad directions (e.g.
| either the name of the lasts stops, or the location of
| the last stop like Coney Island, or the general direction
| of Uptown or Brooklyn). Understanding where express
| services are stopping was hard, because the one screen
| per station with that detail was inaccessible due to the
| amounts of people on waiting. And the noise.. NYC Subway
| needs lots of investment, but that investment needs to be
| spent better too.I passed through some works a few time,
| and the ratio of workers on their phone vs workers
| looking like they're working was 30:1 each time. The
| Grand Paris Express president talked about the
| mismanagement and absurd contracts MTA have, and he has
| said that if they had the same requirements GPE (100+ km
| of brand new fully automated metros) would never have
| been built.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Even the oldest trainsets in Paris and London (as old
| as from the 50s) have at least a static map of the line;
| none in NYC out of those I was one had even that.
|
| You might have missed it. I absolutely guarantee you that
| every single car in the NYC subway has at least one
| system map and multiple line maps. On the older cars, the
| (paper) system map tends to be at the front of the car,
| and the (paper) line maps are generally in the middle of
| the car.
|
| I don't particularly disagree about destination-
| designated services being confusing. However, that's the
| norm for subway systems AFAICT; Paris's metro directions
| were equally confusing for me as a visitor.
|
| (You're also right about the noise although, again, I
| think Paris is a relative outlier among large metros in
| terms of low noise levels. To my understanding, this is a
| result of using rubber tires on some lines, continuously-
| welded rail on others, smaller trainsets overall, and -
| yes - better maintenance.)
| rangestransform wrote:
| NYC has continuously welded rail, but it's limited to the
| length of a signaling block due to track circuits
| woodruffw wrote:
| Not on the elevated lines (with the exception of some
| stretches that are being replaced now), to my knowledge.
| The elevated lines are some of the loudest in the city.
|
| (Ironically, the biggest reduction in noise along the J/Z
| line in recent years has been due to lead abatement: the
| temporary sheds they're using to cover the superstructure
| while they remove the lead paint makes the surrounding
| streets noticeably quieter.)
| sofixa wrote:
| > You might have missed it. I absolutely guarantee you
| that every single car in the NYC subway has at least one
| system map and multiple line maps. On the older cars, the
| (paper) system map tends to be at the front of the car,
| and the (paper) line maps are generally in the middle of
| the car.
|
| One per car is absurdly insufficient. Especially
| considering the amount of space dedicated to ads.
|
| > I don't particularly disagree about destination-
| designated services being confusing. However, that's the
| norm for subway systems AFAICT; Paris's metro directions
| were equally confusing for me as a visitor.
|
| Nope, Paris metro only uses the last stop for signs. You
| don't have some signs saying La Plaine, others St Denis,
| third ones Mairie de St Denis when they're talking about
| the Mairie de St Denis stop in the La Plaine
| neighbourhood of St Denis (random example). This is the
| same way that transit apps orient you (tell you to catch
| line X from stop A, direction ABC; having some stop
| entrances say some places on the way to ABC, that's
| confusing)
| CPLX wrote:
| At least some of this is probably preserved as way we
| express dominance over you, the out of down visitor.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| I believe Apple Maps has that these days
| pimlottc wrote:
| It definitely does not for Chicago
| easton wrote:
| A guy did this for the DC Metro:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/15mbos4/i_map...
|
| It's a PDF, so not automated, but still gave me some good
| ideas.
| grishka wrote:
| Yandex maps does this at least for Russian cities. And as
| others said, Citymapper does it too.
| wh0knows wrote:
| Citymapper shows this in their transit directions. They tell
| you the best part of the train to get on and the best subway
| entrance/exit.
| BobAliceInATree wrote:
| Still exists, and I still use it. It isn't always 100% up-to-
| date but it does get eventually updated.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I would love to have diagrams like this for Chicago's CTA but I
| haven't found any.
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Great but if owner is looking at this, please make the images
| zoomable on mobile
| elegantelefant wrote:
| Hi there, it's me. This page was made in 2015/2016. The later
| series have more zoomable interfaces, although none is perfect.
| Check them out! https://www.projectsubwaynyc.com/x-ray-area-
| maps https://www.projectsubwaynyc.com/x-ray-station-clusters
| https://www.projectsubwaynyc.com/complexes
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Etsy prints are beautiful ! Just one more issue, for some
| reason Avast is giving me error for your zoom plugin. This is
| the error on your page.
|
| Whew! We've just saved you from an infected website Infected
| URL: https://community.zoomable.ca/zoomable/viewer.php
|
| Threat: URL:Phishing
| usr1106 wrote:
| Slightly (un)related: For detailed subway track maps e.g. in
| Paris https://cartometro.com/en/ is a nice resource. The US is
| not covered well, though.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| NYC subway, including provisions for extensions that never
| happened:
| https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/docs/NYC_full_track...
|
| My understanding was that there used to be more of these
| publicly available but agencies get cagey about publishing
| stuff like this for security reasons.
| azaslavsky wrote:
| For those interested in these for other subways around the world,
| http://stations.albertguillaumes.cat/ has done a lovely job
| rendering them. It's impressive how many systems are covered.
| Anduia wrote:
| The drawings are nice, but like other SPAs, it is useless as a
| resource because it does not use bookmarkable URLs
| xenic wrote:
| This isn't something inherent to SPAs, though sadly many
| (most?) do omit the history api and don't provide usable URLs
| nor back/forward navigation.
| pimlottc wrote:
| It's somewhat inherent, as the URL will not change by
| default and it generally takes an intentional to implement
| sharable URLs.
| throw10920 wrote:
| "Somewhat inherent" isn't meaningful or correct. The fact
| is that there is a history API and you can use it to
| implement history for SPAs. Therefore, lack of history is
| not inherent to SPAs _by definition_. Intentionality has
| nothing to do with it.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I find it bizarre how such a site ended up an SPA. Nothing
| about it suggests SPA. This could just be a website and would
| be supported by any web browser, but instead they've
| implemented a crap custom browser and web in JavaScript.
| n2d4 wrote:
| The map kind of does. It's really nice to just click on
| different dots and see different cities with no latency or
| page load. I think the right way to implement this is as an
| SPA with `history.push` for shareable URLs.
| globular-toast wrote:
| That could easily be done with htmx. No need for an SPA.
| n2d4 wrote:
| Not without latency. Unless you make sure everything's on
| the edge? But that is way more complicated anyways -- now
| you have two systems to maintain, instead of just a
| single client-only JS app.
| gennarro wrote:
| And I can't zoom on my phone??
| n2d4 wrote:
| Seems to work for parent's link on my iPhone (but not OP's
| link)
| veunes wrote:
| The quality of the renderings is impressive
| mmooss wrote:
| The photography is the best part (of a wonderful website). Kudos
| to the creator.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Why are the stations not labeled? I'm sure this is fine for
| people who live there and use the subway on a regular basis, but
| it would be of little help to someone visiting or who just
| relocated. Even someone visiting a friend in an area they aren't
| familiar with would be at a disadvantage figuring out which
| layout to use.
|
| Edit: that said, very cool.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| It's an art project, not a practical tool.
| kshahkshah wrote:
| It's just for fun. There are apps which help you figure out
| which car to board (where to stand on the platform) based off
| your transfers & destinations
| elegantelefant wrote:
| Hi, I'm the creator. I appreciate the feedback. If you click on
| an image and then hover your cursor over it, the station name
| will show up. Not super friendly I agree, but it was mostly
| developed in 2015. Here is the latest series, with elevators
| and more labels: https://www.projectsubwaynyc.com/complexes
| amelius wrote:
| Can this be integrated into the various navigation apps?
| neilv wrote:
| In the renderings, why are most of the (what look like)
| stairs/escalators so steep?
| abstractbeliefs wrote:
| I don't know about this instance in particular, but the
| vertical scale in similar maps is often exaggerated to make it
| easier to differentiate the different floors.
|
| At the cost of distorting elements with a vertical dimension,
| it means that all the wireframe layouts don't end up overlaying
| each other.
| Tokkemon wrote:
| They are schematic drawings to make them clearer, not to scale.
| elegantelefant wrote:
| Hi there, I am the creator. As other commenters pointed out,
| the vertical distances were exaggerated roughly 4x so things
| don't overlap each other.
|
| I have experimented with a few things over the years and this
| is my latest series: https://www.projectsubwaynyc.com/complexes
| I think they look more reasonable - still legible but the
| stairs and escalators look more to scale. They also include
| elevators.
| throw7 wrote:
| People should do/include Secaucus Junction.
| nuvious wrote:
| This is a fun visualization. I may end up in NYC if my job
| interviews went well enough to land an offer. Just wrapped up 2nd
| round yesterday.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I asked a while back to a NYC city planner the reason they didn't
| publish station MTA station layouts / exits on gmaps , like you
| see for example for toyko in gmaps
|
| I was told this was not opened publicly because of terrorist
| concerns. But if you wanted to get MTA station layouts, it was
| certainly possible to get them from the city.
|
| I guess we have flipped that page!
| akira2501 wrote:
| > because of terrorist concerns.
|
| The New York bureaucracies favorite excuse for not doing work
| they are responsible for.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Not sure why this is downvoted? Do people not remember how
| for ~20yr "terrorism" was habitually used as a justification
| for "because we don't want to" by every government
| organization from the MTA to small town parks departments.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I was going to say! "Because Terrorism" has been the catch-
| all vague excuse for limiting access to everything, for
| decades.
| elegantelefant wrote:
| Hi I am the creator. My cousin kindly asked his friend who
| works for the MTA for me, if my project is a problem for
| them... and the answer was something like "as long as the
| drawings don't show columns and/or any structural elements
| they are fine." My drawings are all meant to be diagrams and
| only show publicly accessible areas anyway. It's not like the
| terrorists can't go walk around and figure the stations out
| themselves if they want...
| rangestransform wrote:
| Just like the excuses for banning photos in PATH
| xattt wrote:
| This was also an oft-cited reason why trains with pass-through
| gangways were not a thing in Toronto for a long time.
| sofixa wrote:
| So that people couldn't run away from an attacker?
| rangestransform wrote:
| Open gangways are still detrimental because they make it
| easier for showtime people to carry speakers and instruments
| between cars
| slillibri wrote:
| The truly hilarious thing is that the Tokyo subway system
| actually suffered a terrorist attack in 95, and still they
| publish the locations of all 200+ exits from Shinjuku station.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| Truly ridiculous to think that a terrorism group is filled with
| incapable individuals so as to not be able to map out a well
| traveled and popular location.
|
| Stop pretending terrorists are stupid, quite often they're
| smarter than you, and seeing this as an excuse tells me that
| bar is not difficult to pass.
| waiwai933 wrote:
| London's are available at:
| https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-maps-of-every-underg...
| mrb wrote:
| Similarly, this site has subway station layouts for many cities:
| http://stations.albertguillaumes.cat/
| jareklupinski wrote:
| One time I got onto the Q platform from Centre Street by habit
| before realizing I was supposed to take the 6.
|
| Felt like I somehow broke space and time getting there, and this
| Escher staircase in Canal Street station confirms it:
| https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55ababf2e4b064...
| samuelg123 wrote:
| Make sure to check out the 3D models tab. That's definitely the
| most interesting part of the site!
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| Not all of these are correct. For instance, the one for Fulton St
| Station shows the two J/Z platforms as being on the same level,
| when in fact they're on two different levels.
| noident wrote:
| This is the closest possible approximation of the Fulton St
| Station hypercube understandable by humans. Some compromises
| have to be made to represent non-Euclidean spaces in ways that
| residents of lower dimensions can understand.
| airstrike wrote:
| Look at this guy! He can't even moonwalk on the J axis
| elegantelefant wrote:
| Hi I'm the creator. Thanks for the note - you are not the first
| one to point that out and it's been sitting on my "to fix" list
| for years... One day I will get to it!
| throw0101d wrote:
| A somewhat related idea that's been done for Toronto TTC subway
| stations is mapping out where the exit/stairs are for your
| destination station, that way when the doors open they're right
| there and you don't have to walk down the platform:
|
| * https://theurbangeographer.ca/Subway-Exit-Map
|
| * iOS app: https://efficientttc.weebly.com
|
| * Android: https://recursivepizza.com/#TtcRider_more
| EE84M3i wrote:
| Google maps does automatically this for most stations in Tokyo.
| suneater921 wrote:
| The Hong Kong MTR has these as standard.
| punnerud wrote:
| Please don't hijack my possibility to zoom in pictures on mobile
| (iOS)
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Came here to say this. What reason could there be for limiting
| this behavior? I had to screenshot to zoom. (facepalm)
| dr_pardee wrote:
| Hold on the image, "Open in New Tab", zoom in
| aardvark179 wrote:
| Doesn't work on iOS, I think they have overridden that user
| action - which makes this site pretty much useless for any
| of the to Es I might ever actually want to use it.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Yeah, I can't even press and hold to open the image in a new
| tab (Android, Firefox).
| ryanianian wrote:
| Even zooming on desktop (firefox on macos) is broken. I want to
| zoom in to see the street names and investigate the images, but
| the site makes it impossible. I can download the images to my
| desktop, but they are low resolution. What a cool project to be
| soured by such awful technology that didn't need to exist in
| the first place.
| graypegg wrote:
| In defence of the author, this appears to be the default
| lightbox widget provided by Sqaurespace. A page for each image
| would help a ton.
| helsinki wrote:
| To the person drawing the stairs, the stairs are not that steep -
| not even close.
| ColinWright wrote:
| I refer you to the reply made by the author on exactly this
| point:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42098298
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(page generated 2024-11-10 23:01 UTC)