Subway Tips, New York City

I lived here for the past 13 years. Subway is the best way to get around the city in a rush hour and going for longer distance. I NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS. Don't be a stupid tourist. Also can you all just act normal??? What's up with backpacks turned around so the bag is actually on your stomach. you scream "mug me". People will harass you just for fun, just to scare you because you look stupid. come, enjoy, go about your business and ignore the rest. Also don't stare at strange people. They are everywhere. What you are doing is actually being confrontational. That's how your stares are read here. So again, get your pass, hop aboard and enjoy the ride.

(work in progress)
Living in a city where public transport coverage leaves a lot to be desired, I am a huge fan of metro train systems. However, I have to say that of all the metro systems that I’ve been privileged to use, the New York subway is probably my least favourite. Granted, it’s affordable, safe and gives fairly good coverage in what is a vast city, but it’s hard to get any more enthusiastic about it because it has so many undesirable characteristics compared to its peers in other major cities.

Firstly the design of subway stations is claustrophobic and would be classified as being frankly hideous even by the lowest standards of brutalist architecture in the former Eastern Bloc. I accept that metro systems are utilitarian, but that doesn’t mean that they have to be downright ugly - by way of stark comparison, consider some of the lavish stations on the Moscow underground - and the fact that they aren’t all that clean does nothing to mitigate their lack of aesthetic appeal. Put bluntly, New York subway stations are little more than badly designed and increasingly decrepit concrete bunkers, so if you go with that expectation, then you won’t be disappointed.

On a related note, my experience is that subway stations are usually hellishly hot, which may be a bonus during a snowstorm in January, but is downright unpleasant at pretty well any other time of year. I’ve visited New York four times now – but thankfully only in spring and autumn – and even in those transition seasons, I’ve found the subway unpleasantly warm and would question the effectiveness of the ventilation systems. I can only speculate on how bad it gets in New York’s hot and notoriously humid summers when the mercury climbs into the 80s (30s centigrade) and humidity levels edge towards 100%, but my assumption is that it would be penitential, and it’s something that I’d care to ground truth.

Always keep an eye on your money, and camera in the subway, pickpockets are good at taking your stuff without you noticing it in time.

and never buy tickets from a stranger on the street, and so you do not buy fake tickets, and never go fake cab

can be good also to read a bit about New York before traveling here.

While travelling to Brooklyn from Manhattan, I slid along the seat toward the subway map on the wall of the train to confirm the name of our station. I was was about to ask the gentleman (???) sitting beside me if I could look at the map, but before I could he jumped up and gave a very solid punch to the top of my head. Lucky for me the train was at a station and the doors were open so we made a very quick exit. I was pretty shaken up and had a beaut black eye, but that was all. Next time I shall be more careful.

QWhen your traveling around manhattan & NYC. You must know what way the subway is going.

Subways can either go Uptown, Downdown East or West

So on the 6 line make sure you know what platform the train is going on. If you swipe your token & have to goto the otherside you will have to exit, walk upstairs cross the road, enter the other subway & buy another token

this also goes with travel cards. You can easily waste a trip by swiping the card & going on the wrong platform

We put our money into the machine to buy the ticket. We went for the multi ticket as we knew we'd be using the subway quite a bit over the week. Of course, the machine took the money and gave us no ticket. There is always a person there behind a counter selling tickets so we went over with the receipt that said on it "Failure" to get a refund or a ticket. The lady said no, she gave us a form and told us we had to fill it out and mail it in to get a mailed refund, so we were a bit put off with that. We are from Canada so we have our doubts we'll see the money but you never know, maybe they will be good for it. From then on we bought our tickets from the ticket seller. If you have a bent card or one that is freaking out (won't work all the time etc) they can reprogram a new one for you too.
ps- we were a bit nervous the first time travelling the subway, you know how the nyc subways always gets portrayed, but after doing it a few times, we saw only good normal people doing their thing, no trouble so far and we've been here four days now and travelled a lot of trains all over manhattan/queens etc. If you get on a wrong train, no problem, just get off and get something to get you closer. The subway is very cheap, only a couple bucks to get to your destination..so as long as you don't go through an exit you can keep travelling them one after the other until you get where you need to go. They are very fast and they go all over the place. Overall a good experience so far.

We had a worrying incident on the subway coming in from the airport. Our carriage only contained me and my wife and another couple at the far end of the carriage from us. Three young men came along and stopped directly in front of us and started swinging to and fro while holding the grab rails. The midriff of one of the men was swinging only a couple of inches from my face and it was not only very intimidating but also very frightening. I remember thinking I would just hand over my wallet if they asked for it. What I wish I'd done in advance though was to seperate my cash from my credit cards so they wouldn't be able to take everything and that would my advice for this tip - try to secrete your credit cards where they will be fairly safe in this kind of situation. The train was on a Thursday afternoon by the way. We didn't end up being mugged as the men wandered away and talking to a couple of cops later they said they rarely get muggings on the subway in broad daylight and they were probably just wanting to scare people - it worked!!!

Sometimes you need to ask for help to use the subway. Though generally New Yorkers are ready to help, be careful who you ask.

At a busy subway station, I drew out my subway map to double check my next destination. A guy came up to me and asked if I was lost. Whilst I was pointing to him where I wanted to go on the map, he started moving closer to my handbag. I quickly shifted the position of my body so that my bag was furthest away from him and quickly thanked him and walked away.

Now, I don't know if he had any ulterior motives but it's better to be careful. From then on, I only pulled out my subway map when I'm on the train with my bag safely tucked in front of me or inside a shop/restaurant. I won't even risk pulling out the map on the streets.

There is a chance that the subway will break down, or get delayed. This happened to us in going from Manhatten to Brooklyn. Get what? Not one employee told the 200+ passengers what was going on, and a lot of us departed the cars, waiting for an answer. Then, the conductor just left the platform. We waited for 15 minutes to find out who would help us stranded on the platform, but no one showed. We eventually left the platform, bought a bus ticket back to Manhatten at an extra cost.
Never trust a unionized non caring group of employees. They are in it til they get home.

Subway is a great transportation but be smart!! The platforms can be a bit tight, and during rush hour they can be just right down dangerous! I have seen a dead body on the platform about 5 years ago, and since then I refuse to stick my head out to see if the train is coming, if I do, it’s with a huge caution. Be careful of your surroundings, make sure no one is running with a possibility of pushing you in to the tracks –happens, so don’t let it be you.