Sunday, October 26, 2008

On getting around in "The City"

When you talk to New Yorkers they often refer to New York, and more specifically Manhattan as, “the city.” The title offers interesting insight into how people who live in New York City view this little island.
Location is a huge part of any conversation. “Where are you staying?” In the city. “Oh, where?” It has always seemed to me to be more of a sort of How Well Do You Know New York quiz. If you just respond, “51st and Lexington” you should expect to hear back, “oh, uptown.” One of the first things you may know about anyone you have a conversation with is what borough they stay in. It always strikes me as odd until I consider that moving around in this place is not anything at all like Houston. Much more thought is required. Should I walk, take a cab, train or a bus?
Walking across Manhattan East to West is not bad; most people can easily do it. North to South, that’s a different story. Jeremy and I have walked home almost every night from wherever we were; it’s a nice way to end the evening.
Taking a cab is the most expensive form of getting around. It can be the quickest depending on where you are going. If traffic is bad, walking can be fastest.
The subway is a very complex, yet efficient way of getting places. The subway is split up in to several lines: the red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple and brown. Each line has several trains, which are differentiated either by a number or a letter. The letters/numbers are not repeated across lines, so you would not have a C train on the blue line and the yellow line. The C train is blue. If you take a look at this map (http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/submap.htm) you’ll see that each of the trains on each colored line makes most stops. This is called “local”. A local train makes all the stops. There are also express trains but those generally don’t go express until they get out of Manhattan so you usually do not have to worry. You do need to know which train to take on lines such as the orange. Just south of central park it splits three ways. I have only had to take trains out of Manhattan once and I had a friend as a guide. Since we stayed in Manhattan we did not have to plan much. This is one place where having an iPhone proved invaluable. I downloaded the iTrans Application that tells you what trains and where to transfer to get from one station to another. This takes most of the guesswork out of the subway system and made it very easy for us to use.
Whenever I come here I realize that in Houston we get into this paradigm of automatically including our car in any travel plans. When I’m in New York I find myself putting a lot more cognitive effort into deciding how I should go from point a to b. When you put that into the context of the culture here it’s easy to realize why location is such a topic of discussion. Just by telling someone where you live/stay he or she can gain insight into the parts of your daily life that include commuting and traveling.
After using getting around this city for 5 days I am looking forward to being back in Houston where I just hop in my car and drive where I want to go. Waiting on trains, watching to make sure unscrupulous cabdrivers don’t go the long way.

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