London vs New York
 

This web site may be of interest to the visitor to London. The
Underground and taxis are discussed.


http://hometown.aol.com/nerdbird1/LondonNYC.html

London vs New York
 

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, Nerdbird wrote:

This web site may be of interest to the visitor to London. The
Underground and taxis are discussed.

http://hometown.aol.com/nerdbird1/LondonNYC.html

Quite entertaining!

Other things that spring to mind (from my modest knowledge of London and
thoroughly scanty knowledge of NYC):

- You don't mention buses; i think they're cheaper and a lot more dense
and frequent in London, more geared towards local trips than commuting.

- What are New York's night buses like?

- The Underground is mostly more frequent than the Subway, but the trains
are shorter, so the capacity of a line is less (i think); that and the
narrower, lower carriages means they're even more densely packed than in
New York (or rather, are packed to capacity for longer - i've been on the
Lexington Avenue line through the financial district in the peak, and
that's as bad as anything we have!).

- London has more commuter rail than New York (particularly south of the
river), and it's often this which provides a more expressish service to
the outer reaches of the city.

- Hmm, is south-of-the-Thames London comparable to west-of-the-Hudson
Jersey in transport terms?

- A big one - London has rail links to all its airports! Stanstead has a
rail and a tube line, City has light rail (and used to have a railway
line), and the three outside the city, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, all
have trains. In NYC, JFK and Newark have AirTrains, but they're only
shuttles that get to you to Subway/LIRR stations, so there's no
single-seat ride anywhere useful; i don't think LaGuardia has anything at
all.

- I think NYC yellow cabs are cheaper than London black cabs.

- London has minicabs as well as real taxis; they're like NYC yellow cabs
in that they're smaller, cheaper and nastier, and (generalising wildly)
you're likely to have an incomprehensible immigrant rather than an obese
cockney as a driver (actual line delivered to me by a minicab driver,
quite earnestly, as a comment on traffic conditions: "I wish i had a gun
with a ****ing silencer").

- Cycling is, from what my American correspondents tell me, a much faster
method of suicide in NYC than in London!

- Our street furniture is indeed terrible; a legacy of decades of
car-centric planning.

- Navigation on foot; aaaah, man up and learn your way! :) Once you get
the hang of it, you can have hours of fun figuring out the best route,
whereas in NYC, it's always obvious.

- I take it you know we do have a planetarium, but just think it's rubbish
- which is fair enough.

- Turkish, greek and urdu are other languages you hear a lot in London -
more so than the western european languages, in fact.

- We do have a couple of jewish neighbourhoods, which you probably never
ran into: Golders Green is the big one, and Stamford Hill is smaller,
poorer and much more orthodox, with furry hats and curly sideburns
everywhere you look.

tom

--
Formal logical proofs, and therefore programs, are *utterly
meaningless*. -- Dehnadi and Bornat

London vs New York
 

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
.li...
On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, Nerdbird wrote:

This web site may be of interest to the visitor to London. The
Underground and taxis are discussed.

http://hometown.aol.com/nerdbird1/LondonNYC.html

Quite entertaining!

Other things that spring to mind (from my modest knowledge of London and
thoroughly scanty knowledge of NYC):

- You don't mention buses; i think they're cheaper and a lot more dense
and frequent in London, more geared towards local trips than commuting.

- What are New York's night buses like?

- The Underground is mostly more frequent than the Subway, but the trains
are shorter, so the capacity of a line is less (i think); that and the
narrower, lower carriages means they're even more densely packed than in
New York (or rather, are packed to capacity for longer - i've been on the
Lexington Avenue line through the financial district in the peak, and
that's as bad as anything we have!).

- London has more commuter rail than New York (particularly south of the
river), and it's often this which provides a more expressish service to
the outer reaches of the city.

- Hmm, is south-of-the-Thames London comparable to west-of-the-Hudson
Jersey in transport terms?

- A big one - London has rail links to all its airports! Stanstead has a
rail and a tube line, City has light rail (and used to have a railway
line), and the three outside the city, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, all
have trains. In NYC, JFK and Newark have AirTrains, but they're only
shuttles that get to you to Subway/LIRR stations, so there's no
single-seat ride anywhere useful; i don't think LaGuardia has anything at
all.

- I think NYC yellow cabs are cheaper than London black cabs.

- London has minicabs as well as real taxis; they're like NYC yellow cabs
in that they're smaller, cheaper and nastier, and (generalising wildly)
you're likely to have an incomprehensible immigrant rather than an obese
cockney as a driver (actual line delivered to me by a minicab driver,
quite earnestly, as a comment on traffic conditions: "I wish i had a gun
with a ****ing silencer").

- Cycling is, from what my American correspondents tell me, a much faster
method of suicide in NYC than in London!

- Our street furniture is indeed terrible; a legacy of decades of
car-centric planning.

- Navigation on foot; aaaah, man up and learn your way! :) Once you get
the hang of it, you can have hours of fun figuring out the best route,
whereas in NYC, it's always obvious.

- I take it you know we do have a planetarium, but just think it's
rubbish - which is fair enough.

- Turkish, greek and urdu are other languages you hear a lot in London -
more so than the western european languages, in fact.

- We do have a couple of jewish neighbourhoods, which you probably never
ran into: Golders Green is the big one, and Stamford Hill is smaller,
poorer and much more orthodox, with furry hats and curly sideburns
everywhere you look.

tom

--
Formal logical proofs, and therefore programs, are *utterly
meaningless*. -- Dehnadi and Bornat


"- A big one - London has rail links to all its airports! Stanstead has a
rail and a tube line, City has light rail (and used to have a railway
line), and the three outside the city, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, all
have trains. In NYC, JFK and Newark have AirTrains, but they're only
shuttles that get to you to Subway/LIRR stations, so there's no
single-seat ride anywhere useful; i don't think LaGuardia has anything at
all."

Which tube goes to Stansted? :-)

London vs New York
 

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:47:18 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, Nerdbird wrote:

This web site may be of interest to the visitor to London. The
Underground and taxis are discussed.

http://hometown.aol.com/nerdbird1/LondonNYC.html

Quite entertaining!

Yep not bad.

Other things that spring to mind (from my modest knowledge of London and
thoroughly scanty knowledge of NYC):

- You don't mention buses; i think they're cheaper and a lot more dense
and frequent in London, more geared towards local trips than commuting.

I'd generally agree with you. NYC's bus system is largely based on the 5
boroughs with distinct networks in each and not many links over borough
boundaries. There is an express network which the MTA have recently
taken over from private operators. These do link the Boroughs to
Manhatten for commuter flows.

- What are New York's night buses like?

Not dissimilar to the concept used in London - i.e. 24 hour service on
key corridors. There is not the same need as in London for longer
distance routes as the Subway is 24 hours in NYC.

- The Underground is mostly more frequent than the Subway, but the trains
are shorter, so the capacity of a line is less (i think); that and the
narrower, lower carriages means they're even more densely packed than in
New York (or rather, are packed to capacity for longer - i've been on the
Lexington Avenue line through the financial district in the peak, and
that's as bad as anything we have!).

I'd broadly agree with that. It's a while since I was in NYC but the
thing I found frustrating (i.e. different to London!) is the complex
service pattern and generally quite wide headways if you need a specific
service. It's OK if you can catch an express between your origin and
destination or there is a frequent stopping pattern of service. I have
used the Subway in the early morning and survived!

London is now catching up with NYC with its never ending variants of
what line or station is open or closed at any point in time! I think
I'd struggle to cope with a Subway system that is subject to such
frequent change to its operating pattern.

- London has more commuter rail than New York (particularly south of the
river), and it's often this which provides a more expressish service to
the outer reaches of the city.

Yes. The statements about our lack of express services is just plain
wrong. Almost every radial line from a London terminal has a mix of all
stops, semi fast and expresses. Only the orbital lines and perhaps a
few radial lines have no difference in stopping patterns at peak and off
peak times.

- Hmm, is south-of-the-Thames London comparable to west-of-the-Hudson
Jersey in transport terms?

I'd say South London's rail network has a far higher density that any
part of the NYC suburban rail network.

- A big one - London has rail links to all its airports! Stanstead has a
rail and a tube line, City has light rail (and used to have a railway
line), and the three outside the city, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, all
have trains. In NYC, JFK and Newark have AirTrains, but they're only
shuttles that get to you to Subway/LIRR stations, so there's no
single-seat ride anywhere useful; i don't think LaGuardia has anything at
all.

I think Stanstead should read as Heathrow!

- I think NYC yellow cabs are cheaper than London black cabs.

I don't use taxis.

- Cycling is, from what my American correspondents tell me, a much faster
method of suicide in NYC than in London!

Perhaps but I think London is now better at providing road space and
some level of priority for cycles than NYC.

- Navigation on foot; aaaah, man up and learn your way! :) Once you get
the hang of it, you can have hours of fun figuring out the best route,
whereas in NYC, it's always obvious.

I didn't find NYC to be always obvious. Of course this is all down to
familiarity and I've got more of the London street pattern imprinted in
my brain that New York's but that's only to be expected.

- Turkish, greek and urdu are other languages you hear a lot in London -
more so than the western european languages, in fact.

And in my part of London you'll hear most of the Eastern European
languages. Obviously a subway trip to Brighton Beach will make you think
you're on the wrong side of the Atlantic for Russia.

- We do have a couple of jewish neighbourhoods, which you probably never
ran into: Golders Green is the big one, and Stamford Hill is smaller,
poorer and much more orthodox, with furry hats and curly sideburns
everywhere you look.

Don't forget Gants Hill and Barkingside. Not as obviously orthodox as GG
or SH but plenty of Jewish businesses and synagogues.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

London vs New York
 

Graham Harrison wrote:
"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
.li...
On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, Nerdbird wrote:

This web site may be of interest to the visitor to London. The
Underground and taxis are discussed.

http://hometown.aol.com/nerdbird1/LondonNYC.html
Quite entertaining!

Other things that spring to mind (from my modest knowledge of London and
thoroughly scanty knowledge of NYC):

- You don't mention buses; i think they're cheaper and a lot more dense
and frequent in London, more geared towards local trips than commuting.

- What are New York's night buses like?

- The Underground is mostly more frequent than the Subway, but the trains
are shorter, so the capacity of a line is less (i think); that and the
narrower, lower carriages means they're even more densely packed than in
New York (or rather, are packed to capacity for longer - i've been on the
Lexington Avenue line through the financial district in the peak, and
that's as bad as anything we have!).

- London has more commuter rail than New York (particularly south of the
river), and it's often this which provides a more expressish service to
the outer reaches of the city.

- Hmm, is south-of-the-Thames London comparable to west-of-the-Hudson
Jersey in transport terms?

- A big one - London has rail links to all its airports! Stanstead has a
rail and a tube line, City has light rail (and used to have a railway
line), and the three outside the city, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, all
have trains. In NYC, JFK and Newark have AirTrains, but they're only
shuttles that get to you to Subway/LIRR stations, so there's no
single-seat ride anywhere useful; i don't think LaGuardia has anything at
all.

- I think NYC yellow cabs are cheaper than London black cabs.

- London has minicabs as well as real taxis; they're like NYC yellow cabs
in that they're smaller, cheaper and nastier, and (generalising wildly)
you're likely to have an incomprehensible immigrant rather than an obese
cockney as a driver (actual line delivered to me by a minicab driver,
quite earnestly, as a comment on traffic conditions: "I wish i had a gun
with a ****ing silencer").

- Cycling is, from what my American correspondents tell me, a much faster
method of suicide in NYC than in London!

- Our street furniture is indeed terrible; a legacy of decades of
car-centric planning.

- Navigation on foot; aaaah, man up and learn your way! :) Once you get
the hang of it, you can have hours of fun figuring out the best route,
whereas in NYC, it's always obvious.

- I take it you know we do have a planetarium, but just think it's
rubbish - which is fair enough.

- Turkish, greek and urdu are other languages you hear a lot in London -
more so than the western european languages, in fact.

- We do have a couple of jewish neighbourhoods, which you probably never
ran into: Golders Green is the big one, and Stamford Hill is smaller,
poorer and much more orthodox, with furry hats and curly sideburns
everywhere you look.

tom

--
Formal logical proofs, and therefore programs, are *utterly
meaningless*. -- Dehnadi and Bornat


"- A big one - London has rail links to all its airports! Stanstead has a
rail and a tube line, City has light rail (and used to have a railway
line), and the three outside the city, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, all
have trains. In NYC, JFK and Newark have AirTrains, but they're only
shuttles that get to you to Subway/LIRR stations, so there's no
single-seat ride anywhere useful; i don't think LaGuardia has anything at
all."

Which tube goes to Stansted? :-)

No tube goes to Stansted, but when he says "Stanstead [sic]" he must
mean "Heathrow."

Luton does not have a one-seat rail journey to the centre--you have to
take a shuttle to Luton Airport Parkway first.
--
Michael Hoffman

London vs New York
 

Michael Hoffman wrote:

Luton does not have a one-seat rail journey to the centre--you have to
take a shuttle to Luton Airport Parkway first.

Eh? Half FCC train stop at Luton Airport Parkway. Or am I missing the
point?

Peter

London vs New York
 

"Peter Robinson" wrote in message

Michael Hoffman wrote:

Luton does not have a one-seat rail journey to the centre--you have
to take a shuttle to Luton Airport Parkway first.

Eh? Half FCC train stop at Luton Airport Parkway. Or am I missing
the point?

You then have to get a shuttle bus, as the railway station isn't
adjacent to the terminal. Strictly speaking, therefore, Luton is no more
rail connected than Heathrow was before 1977.

London vs New York
 

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:22:52 +0100, Peter Robinson
wrote in :
Michael Hoffman wrote:

Luton does not have a one-seat rail journey to the centre--you have to
take a shuttle to Luton Airport Parkway first.

Eh? Half FCC train stop at Luton Airport Parkway. Or am I missing the
point?

Just the point that you have to take a shuttle bus between the
railway station and the airport, I guess.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. ] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

London vs New York
 

Peter Robinson wrote:
Michael Hoffman wrote:

Luton does not have a one-seat rail journey to the centre--you have to
take a shuttle to Luton Airport Parkway first.

Eh? Half FCC train stop at Luton Airport Parkway. Or am I missing the
point?

Graham Harrison said that all London airports have direct rail links to
the centre, as opposed to NYC where the "rail link" to two airports
involves getting a rail shuttle from the mainline rail station. I was
pointing out that Luton is not any better than that.
--
Michael Hoffman

London vs New York
 

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:47:18 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, Nerdbird wrote:

This web site may be of interest to the visitor to London. The
Underground and taxis are discussed.

http://hometown.aol.com/nerdbird1/LondonNYC.html
Quite entertaining!

Yep not bad.

Other things that spring to mind (from my modest knowledge of London and
thoroughly scanty knowledge of NYC):

- You don't mention buses; i think they're cheaper and a lot more dense
and frequent in London, more geared towards local trips than commuting.

I'd generally agree with you. NYC's bus system is largely based on the 5
boroughs with distinct networks in each and not many links over borough
boundaries. There is an express network which the MTA have recently
taken over from private operators. These do link the Boroughs to
Manhatten for commuter flows.

Not exactly. (But impressively close for someone who doesn't ride the
buses in question!)

MTA New York City Transit has operated a large number of express routes
between Staten Island and Manhattan and several express routes between
Queens and Manhattan and between Brooklyn and Manhattan for decades.
(There's also an express route between Queens and the Bronx, but that's
an anomaly.)

The various city-subsidized private bus operators operated many local
routes in Queens and Brooklyn, along with express routes between Queens
and Manhattan, Brooklyn and Manhattan, and the Bronx and Manhattan.
Those routes were recently taken over by the newly formed MTA Bus.

- What are New York's night buses like?

Not dissimilar to the concept used in London - i.e. 24 hour service on
key corridors. There is not the same need as in London for longer
distance routes as the Subway is 24 hours in NYC.

Generally, New York doesn't have any specific night buses. Some bus
routes run all night - that's all.

London is now catching up with NYC with its never ending variants of
what line or station is open or closed at any point in time! I think
I'd struggle to cope with a Subway system that is subject to such
frequent change to its operating pattern.

Catching up? With three exceptions, every single subway station in New
York is open around the clock. (The three exceptions are the two
northernmost stations on the 3, which are replaced by bus service at
night, and Broad Street on the J/M/Z, which is closed on weekends, when
the J is cut back to Chambers Street.)

But our route patterns can certainly get confusing.

- London has more commuter rail than New York (particularly south of the
river), and it's often this which provides a more expressish service to
the outer reaches of the city.

Yes. The statements about our lack of express services is just plain
wrong. Almost every radial line from a London terminal has a mix of all
stops, semi fast and expresses. Only the orbital lines and perhaps a
few radial lines have no difference in stopping patterns at peak and off
peak times.

The statements about your lack of express services were probably
referring to the Underground, where they're largely accurate, except on
the western Piccadilly and Metropolitan.

- Navigation on foot; aaaah, man up and learn your way! :) Once you get
the hang of it, you can have hours of fun figuring out the best route,
whereas in NYC, it's always obvious.

I didn't find NYC to be always obvious. Of course this is all down to
familiarity and I've got more of the London street pattern imprinted in
my brain that New York's but that's only to be expected.

If you stick to one of NYC's grids, it's trivially easy to get around.

If you should find yourself, however, in a part of NYC where there's no
grid, or if the grid begins to break down, or if you should find two
grids meeting at odd angles, then things can get very confusing.

- We do have a couple of jewish neighbourhoods, which you probably never
ran into: Golders Green is the big one, and Stamford Hill is smaller,
poorer and much more orthodox, with furry hats and curly sideburns
everywhere you look.

Don't forget Gants Hill and Barkingside. Not as obviously orthodox as GG
or SH but plenty of Jewish businesses and synagogues.

Also Hendon and Edgware.

(I didn't realize Gants Hill and Barkingside were Jewish. The various
lists of kosher restaurants that I consulted didn't include any in those
neighbo(u)rhoods.)
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA