r/interesting • u/Separate_Finance_183 • 6d ago

MISC. NYPD personnel deploying "Barnacles" on illegally parked cars

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 6d ago

Working as intended. NYC, specifically Manhattan, has the best mass transit in the nation (I know in the US that’s not saying much, but it’s leaps and bounds above others) and the highest density of people. If they aren’t going to ban cars completely they should make an effort to not make it easy.

If you need a car for security or something, fine. But expect it to be more expensive and less convenient than taking the subway, and expect there to be more rules to follow, like not parking in a bike lane and paying parking meters.

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u/00eg0 6d ago

Only 3 cities in the world have 24 hour rail service; Chicago, Copenhagen, and NYC. At a global scale NYC has a fairly good system.

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u/Chaosr21 6d ago

I have noticed EU as a whole tend to close things down at night and everyone sleeps. While here in the US there's many night shift workers and many stores/fast food were 24hrs until COVID

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u/00eg0 6d ago

I get what you mean but I imagine medical services are 24/7 in the EU. At least medical workers should have more options after a long shift.

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u/Lord_Bamford 6d ago

Sure... and thats why shifts dont end at 4am.

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u/Septopuss7 6d ago

Our light rail in Cleveland is 23 hours so we're close

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u/ManchuDemon 5d ago

I found out the hard way in Barcelona that the metro shut down at a certain point. Was on the train back to my hotel and they just forced us all off at a random stop without warning at like 2am. That was fun.

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u/00eg0 5d ago

It's similar in Vancouver. I thought the train would go closer to the end of the line but it stopped before.

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u/TheDarkClaw 6d ago

My city of a Boston should get on board with this. I don't get why not

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u/00eg0 6d ago

It's not easy. NYC is quad tracked to make things easier in terms of maintenance for example. For Boston "does not have 24/7 rail service primarily due to the overnight maintenance window needed to repair aging tracks and equipment, high operating costs, and low projected ridership."

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u/TheDarkClaw 6d ago

I blame the the buffoon of the big dig for not putting more resources into the mbta

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u/Witty_Ad_898 5d ago

Not Tokyo or London?

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u/00eg0 5d ago

Tokyo and London don't have 24/7 rail.

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u/Tron_Tron_Tron 5d ago

I wish they would just do this in Boston. The amount to run the lightrail mbta for an extra few hours pales in comparison to the cost of lives lost and the fiscal cost of the DA prosecuting DUIs that easily could be avoided if the transportation continued until AFTER BARS CLOSED. Seems like basic common sense. For a “smart” city, this has to be the dumbest thing. This has been the case long before uber. It’s so fucking dumb it makes my blood boil. Of course, no one should drink and drive, but they will in droves if you give no other option aside from a triple digit uber or triple digit parking fee.

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u/Attilat 6d ago

I don’t think how long the rail is open should be the thing that marks the rail as “good.” I think safety, cleanliness and convenience should precede it. Chicago’s rail system is an embarrassment compared to Japan and China’s.

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u/nyknicks23 5d ago

I’d like to not get stabbed on the train on the way to work.. far more likely to happen on the train than in my car..

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u/Soft_Button_1592 5d ago

You are far more likely to be killed in your car. 40,000 people every year…

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 5d ago

You’re more likely to be injured in your car than in the subway.

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u/KPFJA 6d ago edited 5d ago

To be fair, compared to other metropolitan areas globally, the MTA’s infrastructure is among the noisiest, dirtiest, and unwelcoming I have ever experienced. Perhaps not enough reason to prefer a car but it is kind of bad…

Edit: funny how downvotes work: the NY subway is objectively filthy, noisy and generally one of the
More unpleasant infrastructures of its kind globally. Even Manhattan inhabitants will joke about it and yet, this gets downvoted…. Reality distortion fields are powerful things it seems.

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 6d ago

It’s old and dirty but it is highly efficient and effective.

Instead of meticulously cleaning the stations every night, they run trains 24/7 so people working late that get off at 2am can get home and those that start work at 4:30am can be at their jobs.

Instead of having 1 grand subway entrance at a stop, they made 4 to 8 entrances so you can access from
multiple blocks. Instead of having escalators that constantly break and need maintenance at every station, they invested in 3rd and 4th tracks so they can run express lines so those traveling from far out don’t need to be on the train for an hour and a half, and they have options if emergency maintenance or a stalled train occurs that doesn’t resort to extremely slow single tracking.

And they selected seating arrangements that encourage more people to fit in instead of a bunch of single riders taking a 2 seat row and blocking someone from sitting next to them while half the train is forced to stand in a small aisle.

As someone who’s lived in NYC, Boston, and DC and taking metro in Philly, Chicago, and LA. It is not as clean or pretty, but it is by far the most useful and efficient in the US. Now the country has a long way to go to be on par with other metros I’ve been on (HK, London, Beijing). But for now in the US if you really don’t care if the train goes where you need to go and don’t care how long it takes but want it clean and pretty, DC wins. If you want to get from A to B quickly and any time of the day, NYC is king in the US. Globally it could be a lot cleaner, but even globally few metros run 24/7, but in the city that never sleeps, that is a trade off.

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u/KPFJA 5d ago

For a country that once led the free world, that is a weak-ass position: what? It cannot run efficiently and be a clean and pleasant place? That’s beyond the means of the all-powerful US of A?

Visit Japan much?

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 5d ago

New York could do better, but different places have different priorities. You ever try to get on the metro at 3am in Tokyo? You can’t that’s when they’re doing maintenance or cleaning.

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u/jmims98 6d ago

One of the most clean, quiet, and respectful metro transit I have experienced was in Japan.

London tube was more cramped, still some rude people, and louder than MTA. With the exception of the new line we took occasionally, that train was new and very quiet.

Barcelona and Madrid had very clean and mostly on time transit.

MTA is still one of my favorites though, partially because it runs 24 hours and you do not need to worry about catching one of the last trains on a night out. The other half is just how extensive it is.

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u/TLunchFTW 6d ago

NYC is already more expensive, and meanwhile if you get rid of your car you are trapped now and require more money to leave if you wish to go somewhere cheaper.
While yeah some expense is expected, all this does is drive working class people (which NYC relies on) further into NJ and creates more land for pencil thin skyscrapers meant for billionaires who never use it.
Overall, NYC is not moving on a new path.
That said, nothing here has anything to do with that. This is just a less effective form of a boot

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u/enzymeschill 6d ago

How do you think goods get delivered to the stores and shops in Manhattan

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 5d ago

Did I say anything about delivery trucks? I said cars. The point is to minimize people driving solo in their car when they could take mass transit for the delivery trucks and such that need the roads.

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u/boringexplanation 6d ago

The problem is they do the same thing to service vehicles and it becomes a racket for the government to collect extra money with no consistent guidelines

Union companies for example get preferential treatment on these kinds of fines and tickets over those who aren’t.

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u/National_Run7896 6d ago

theres plenty of good reasons to avoid mass transit these days. its filthy, the transport police dont do shit about open drug use, and its getting to be unreliable.

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 6d ago

Which neighborhood do you live in?

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u/National_Run7896 6d ago

i have been around metros and know enough people who have lived in nyc that this statement holds true. youre just really good at ignoring the bums smoking crack in the corners of the cars.

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 5d ago edited 5d ago

So not only haven't you ever lived in NYC, sounds like you've never lived in any city near it's size and only know what you see on TV and imagining there are bums smoking crack in every street corner. Manhattan isn't like that.

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u/National_Run7896 5d ago

i literally am in minneapolis regularly and see how fucking nasty it gets. thats not even a big city. london was gross too. cities are disgusting and the transit is not safe.

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yeah, that is the issue, your point of reference is completely off. Manhattan isn’t anything like Minneapolis. Minneapolis is like some parts of the outer boroughs like Queens and the Bronx, depending where you are in Minneapolis because it also has pretty different neighborhoods.

It’s ok to say “I don’t like cities, they aren’t for me.” But don’t go around justifying your opinion by spouting stuff you heard and the couple experience you had in a VERY different city when you’ve never been to it.

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u/National_Run7896 5d ago

oh, and i have friends from la who cry about the drug addicts and violence on the public transit regularly. stop trying to gas it up. sure its convenient, but it comes at the cost of being utterly disgusting and moderately unsafe at time.s

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 5d ago

Which neighborhood/city in LA? LA is a county. Again Manhattan is a specific place.

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u/SadConversationDaily 6d ago

The air pollution is toxic