Pay the congestion fee or...
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30 years (on and off) in the subway I’ve never seen a rat inside a car. Most common inconvenience is beggars and smelly homeless, most common danger is crazy aggressive homeless. But that latter is rare. But it happens. And everyone who uses the subway daily will have experienced it.
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Yeah, it’s just faster. And of course much cheaper.
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Hard to comment on safer from my own experience (it’s been 30 years since I lived in Chicago) but definitely faster and more efficient. Chicago’s is less ubiquitous.
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I ventured into the congestion zone in my car yesterday, first time.
I was coming down the FDR (highway on east side of Manhattan island) and the exit one before the zone was backed up. People were avoiding the zone, as intended.
I went on. Perhaps there was a little less traffic in the zone but I don’t drive it enough to notice the difference. Plus if I drive there 5-10 times a year it’s at a different time of day so that probably adds too much variability for me to notice a difference.
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I remain pretty untraveled. I was 46 the first time I went to a really big city and that was NYC. That cab ride into Manhattan was almost as exciting as the marathon I did. What a rush. Better than an amusement park ride! It was the first thing I talked about when I got home. I loved the subways. I’d never been below ground or in tunnels prior. I remain amazed how quick it took to go any distance, just minutes. I guess I should be thanking @jon-nyc @kluurs & Bernard too. If I didn’t know you folks online, I never would have braved that trip.
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That’s when I met you in person! We ate in Chinatown, didn’t we?
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I think so. I remember RealPlayer too. I remember Bernard meeting me, taking me through a maze of narrow streets to a store with barrels of dried chicken parts and statues because he was buying cinnamon tee. RealPlayer didn’t have a cellphone so we had to rush to meet you 2 at a certain spot.
Ya know come to think of it, I did travel on subways in Boston in 1992. I wonder why I remember NYC subways as being so impressive? For years afterwards I begged my husband to go on a trip there. -
@blondie said in Pay the congestion fee or...:
I did travel on subways in Boston in 1992. I wonder why I remember NYC subways as being so impressive?
Probably because you'd been to Boston. Their subway is shocking. Well, it would be if they got the electricity working. I once broke down not once, but twice on two trains in a single day.
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@Doctor-Phibes I used to commute between Halifax and Boston. I remember Boston being a place having super classy and kind of sketchy neighborhoods. I used to take the trains from the airport to a stop which bisected Roxbury (sketchy) and Jamaica Plain (older, kind of nice). I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but one of my last trips I was carting a heavy hockey type bag on my back packed with text books, clothes, computer parts (I was storing stuff, prepping to move to Alabama). That train stop had graffiti, gang markings for about 2 blocks uphill into Jamaica Plain (by that I mean all the phone booths were shot up useless & houses windows, doors were barred). Anyway, I was wearing an anorak with side pockets and was balancing this heavy duffle on my back getting off the stairs at the station. This sketchy looking guy wearing orange pants and a hoodie approaches and won’t let me pass. He says “Hey, what do you got? I need money to fix a flat tire.” Scared, I was too weighed down & buckled up just to drop my big bag and run. I had both hands together in my pocket. So I reach deep in there and with both hands pull out about $20 in Canadian Loonies and showed it to him. He says, “What IS that? GOLD?” And I say, “Well, yeah. Take it.” And he did and scurried off.
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@blondie said in Pay the congestion fee or...:
@Doctor-Phibes I used to commute between Halifax and Boston. I remember Boston being a place having super classy and kind of sketchy neighborhoods. I used to take the trains from the airport to a stop which bisected Roxbury (sketchy) and Jamaica Plain (older, kind of nice). I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but one of my last trips I was carting a heavy hockey type bag on my back packed with text books, clothes, computer parts (I was storing stuff, prepping to move to Alabama). That train stop had graffiti, gang markings for about 2 blocks uphill into Jamaica Plain (by that I mean all the phone booths were shot up useless & houses windows, doors were barred). Anyway, I was wearing an anorak with side pockets and was balancing this heavy duffle on my back getting off the stairs at the station. This sketchy looking guy wearing orange pants and a hoodie approaches and won’t let me pass. He says “Hey, what do you got? I need money to fix a flat tire.” Scared, I was too weighed down & buckled up just to drop my big bag and run. I had both hands together in my pocket. So I reach deep in there and with both hands pull out about $20 in Canadian Loonies and showed it to him. He says, “What IS that? GOLD?” And I say, “Well, yeah. Take it.” And he did and scurried off.
I should keep some Loonies handy, we've got a bag full of foreign money of various typesRoxbury's still a bit sketchy, but Boston as a whole is pretty good by American city standards.
