[martingordon]

I think it comes down to fares. You can travel between any two stations on the subway for $2.75. In contrast, the HK metro charges a fare between ~$0.50 to $7.00 depending on destination. Many other metro systems across the world use a zone-based fare scheme as well.

There's always a public outcry when MTA announces they're going to raise fares, and any attempt to introduce a distance/zone-based fare would be denounced as unduly burdensome on the poor, since they tend to live further out. In any case, I don't think the current MetroCard-based system could support such a scheme anyway.

The number one thing to improve straphangers' "quality of travel" would be to implement CBTC[1] so that we can get countdown clocks to remove the uncertainty that comes with waiting for a train. If I know the next train is coming in 15 minutes, I can hang out above ground or by the stairs and use my cell service rather than standing on the platform not knowing whether the next train is 2 minutes or 20 minutes away.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications-based_train_con...

[kevin_thibedeau]

Metrocard is going to be replaced in the not too distant future. I wouldn't be surprised if the next system has zones. They already have subsidized cards for low income travelers so a fare hike will have less impact. That's the only way they can begin to address their budget deficit issue.

[potatolicious]

Heavily disagreed - the budget deficit issue comes from a combination of state refusal to properly fund the MTA, and the MTA's own shittastic (and more than likely corrupt) processes for contracts that results in everything being vastly more expensive than it should be.

Not to mention vastly more expensive than every other first-world infrastructure project.

The problem with a zone system is that it effectively punishes the poor for being too poor live near work. The further out in NYC you go the less able people are to afford higher fares, but yet that is exactly what a zone system does.

And like most other direct subsidies, the subsidized MetroCards are a terrifyingly bad solution to this - for one thing in a zone system, even with subsidies, the poor will still end up paying dramatically more than they do today to get to work. Not only that, only the poorest of the poor even qualify for these MetroCards, leaving out a vast income range for whom transit costs are still a burden and a substantial portion of income.

A zone system with subsidies will likely end up looking like:

- The extreme poor pay slightly more than they do today because of the combination of living very far and subsidization.

- The "merely" poor pay dramatically (possibly 2x+ multiples) more than they do today because they are "too rich" to qualify for subsidization but yet live at the outer reaches of the transit system.

- Middle income individuals pay more than they do today, they don't qualify for subsidy but they live > 1 zone from work.

- Upper/upper middle class individuals pay similar or slightly more than they do today, because they don't qualify for subsidy but are likely to live within the same zone as work (i.e., Manhattan below 110th).

A zone system, even with subsidies, will be insanely regressive to the point of comical absurdity.

Ignoring the fact that it's incredibly regressive, the zone system also won't do much against the budget issues the MTA faces - if you're going to squeeze someone for money you don't squeeze the residents of Brighton Beach or Bay Ridge or Hunts Point or Elmhurst - they don't got any money left to be squeezed out. Mid-low income families living in the far reaches of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, for whom transit is already a high percentage of their monthly budgets, have little left to give.

[makerman1982]

Very well reasoned! Thank you.

[CPLX]

There are many reasons not to have zones but people often miss the very serious transition/logistical problem that would be required for any change-over -- a zone system literally doubles the number of times a passenger has to swipe or scan their payment method.

That means literally millions of swipes a day that didn't exist before, each time someone has to exit the system. Many of those will necessarily fail as people don't have sufficient funds to leave the station they are in. This is a failure mode the NYC subway simply doesn't have now, all people in the system are free to leave any any time through any available low-tech door.

The idea of several hundred thousand people trying to get out through (presumably newly installed) turnstiles at grand central during rush hour while random people in front of me stall out and get trapped because their cards have insufficient funds doesn't sound fun at all. How about a tour group getting off in a very constricted station in lower Manhattan and having 90 people trapped unable to leave the platform and no room for passengers to enter? What about stations where you can't reverse direction without leaving the station, how do you head to a station you can afford to exit?

Sure in the long run anything is possible, but I don't think people who advocate for a zone system in NYC have usually thought about the actual human scale logistics required for that to work. The NYC subway is a very big complicated and crowded system and that's a major change to how passengers flow through it.

[massysett]

The Washington DC Metro has zone based fares that easily exceed $5 during rush periods and it's certainly done nothing for our quality of travel.

[shitlord]

Waiting 20 minutes for a train on weekends is not uncommon. Neither is stopping underground for long amounts of time. Our metro system here is pretty terrible. It's usually cheaper and more convenient to just drive where you need to go. And it will always remain that way, because the people in power don't have to use it (and they don't care about the people who do).

[cballard]

CBTC and countdown clocks are orthogonal (although if you're doing CBTC, countdown clocks are a minor addition) - the A division has clocks, even though only the L is CBTC.

[martingordon]

Thanks for the clarification. I knew that the L had CBTC and just assumed the A Division did as well. Turns out the A Division uses something called ATS (Automatic Train Supervision) which enables countdown clocks, but I couldn't find a whole of information on how it actually works.