Transport in New York - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The infrastructure of the transport of the town of New York is one of most complex the United States, all confused agglomerations. On the matter, the Mégapole holds records indeed: since the the widest subway of the world in terms of kilometers of ways, until the the longest Suspended bridge of North America, while passing by its emblematic network of Taxi S yellows, its 112.000 daily cyclists, the very first tunnel with ventilation of the history of the rail-bound transports and its new terminals of Aéroport in which were invested several billion dollars, New York is a city of disproportion and excellence with regard to transport. More than any other American city, New York always played a pioneer part in this field, as for example the adoption testifies some to the cable car which makes it possible to connect Roosevelt Island to Manhattan in less than five minutes. In addition to the challenges related on the size and the diversity of its infrastructure, the transport system of the city must permanently face the challenges generated by the impossible to circumvent questions of congestions, reliability and budget which are posed in a recurring way.

New York is distinguished from the other American cities by the utilization ratio of the public transport by its inhabitants. Whereas 90% of the Americans go to work in the car, public transport constitutes the means of transport more used by the New Yorkeans. According to the results of the census carried out in 2000 with the the United States, the population of the New Yorkean hearths is, in the urban landscape of the country, the only one not to reach the bar of the 50% owners of car, this proportion falling still more with Manhattan, where the threshold of the 25% is not even reached, while the rate of possession of private car is of 92% at the national level. In the United States, approximately a third of the users of public transport, and two thirds of the users of the rail-bound transports, live in the agglomeration of New York.

The strong use of public transport by the New Yorkeans, as well as the place which the town of New York grants to the pedestrians does of it one of the cities of the most sparing United States as regards consumption of energy. The consumption of gasoline of the town of New York east currently on the same level as in the Years 1920. The effectiveness of the transport system is such as, in spite of the extreme population density of the city and its agglomeration, which does of New York one of the most populated cities world, the average latency in transport in peak period is lower than that of many towns of smaller importance, such as for example San Francisco. This competitiveness is translated by cost reductions and of fuel consumption, to which cost reductions due to a better management of the labor and productivity are added. However, main developments of the infrastructure of public transport date from the Années 1970. The carryforward of renovation works and maintenance of the existing equipment threatened the reliability of the trains and the subways. Recently, the city reinvested several billion dollars in its system of subway, and projects to invest of the same sums scale to increase the capacity of this one.

A study of 2006, carried out by the organization for environmental protection SustainLane , bearing on the 50 most important cities of the the United States shows that New York is the city ready to face a crisis of the Pétrole and strong raising of priceses of the fuels.

Impact of public transport on the New Yorkean life

Whereas the Automobile deeply influenced the practices of life of the majority of the Americans, public transport marked their influence in the New Yorkean life even. Policy of the city, fields of the Art and the Music, as economic life are touched by the importance of the use of transport. One of the important consequences of this influence, but probably least visible, is the atypical existence of a local press solid and plentiful. The assistantship of good number of New Yorkean daily newspapers is made up as a majority of users of transport, which reads during their way. This dependence of the New Yorkean local press have regard to the importance of public transport was visible at the time of the strike of public transport of New York in 2005, during which certain local dailies encountered financial problems.

With approximately 4,5 million users borrowing public transport daily, the network of public transport became a crossing point impossible to circumvent, and a particularly gravitational place for the trade, publicity and political activism. The electoral campaigns in the subway stations are typical political life of New York. Whereas the candidates of other American areas appear rather with dinners during their electoral campaigns, it is frequent to see political candidates New Yorkean outward journey with the meeting of their voters at the subway stations and bus stops.

Musicians, jugglers, humorists, artists and others performers are also typical life of the NewYork subway. They come from Asia, of Africa, South America and Europe. African Percussionnists and singers of opera, performers of tai-chi and formations of Jazz, players of Erhu Chinese and troops of station-wagon-dance of the districts of Harlem, and even sometimes players of Musical saw, the artists trying to live their spectacles and performances in the Métro of New York are multiple and innumerable. The phenomenon is of such a width that the organism in charge of the management of the NewYork subway set up since 1985, and officially since 1987, an artistic program entitled Music Under New York , which sponsored each week a hundred musicians and groups artistic through 150 performances, distributed in 25 points of the NewYork subway. But these framed performances constitute only part of the various spectacles proceeding in the subway. The users of the subway of New York take time to appreciate the musicians of street: during the brief moments of waiting between the arrival and the departure of an oar, it is not rare to see an attentive public being formed around an artist. Certain musicians of the subway made a success of a career besides. It is for example the case of the player of Musical saw Natalia Paruz, more known under the name of “Saw Lady” ( the lady with the saw ), which traverses today the world with orchestras such as the Philharmonic orchestra of Israel, and occurred on several occasions in Avery Fisher Hall of the Lincoln Center. One can hear it on BO of films and publicities televised. The success of its career does not prevent it from continuing to play in the subway of New York (like in other subways throughout the world). The Violoncelliste cajun Sean Grissom started to play in the subway, until then filling, with closed counter, Carnegie Hall, before making later on a first part of David Bowie. The singer of folk-rock'n'roll Susan Cagle signed at Columbia Records, after being located in a subway station. She recorded her album The Subway Recordings in the stations of Times Square and Grand Exchange.

Various means of joint transport

By far, the Means of transport more used to New York is the Public transport. Only 6% of displacements in the center town of Manhattan imply the use of a car. The public grid system of the town of New York is widest and one of oldest of North America. The exploitation of the network and its various branches is spring various state enterprises and private. Most important of them is the state enterprise Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which exploits the totality of the underground lines and bus of the city, like two of the three lines of suburban trains.

Subways

Bus

In addition to the important network of subway, the inhabitants of New York can count on approximately 250 lines of bus, exploited by MTA, and almost serving all the sectors of the five districts of New York.

The Port Authority Bus Final, located near Times Square, constitutes in the middle same of Manhattan the principal point of transit of the bus inter-States, which makes the most attended coach station of it the United States. It serves lines of bus of suburbs, in majority exploited by the New Jersey Transit, and of the national lines, exploited by private companies such as Greyhound and Peter Pan. This station, which moreover is connected to twelve underground lines, sees each day forwarding 200.000 users and 7.200 buses. Since its construction, in 1950, more than three billion people passed by this coach station.

Ferries

The ferry more used with the the United States is the Ferry of Staten Island, which transports each year more than 19 million passengers, for a way of 8,4 kilometers which lasts approximately 25 minutes. The service, which connects Manhattan to Staten Island, is open 24 hours a day and 365 days per annum. A fleet of five boats on average transports more than 65.000 passengers in 104 daily crossings. More than 33.000 ways are thus carried out each year. Since 1997, the service is free, except for the motor vehicles, which must discharge sum symbolic system of 3 dollars (their loading on board however is not authorized currently more, since the Attentats of September 11th, 2001). The Bicycle S, on the other hand, are allowed free. The ferry is particularly snuffed tourists, who see an excellent means there of benefitting from the sight, since the sea, from the Gratte-ciel of Manhattan and from the Statue of Freedom.

The town of New York has several other services of ferries, exploited by private companies. Among most important of them, NY Waterway carries out the crossing of the Hudson New Jersey with Manhattan, and the New York Water Taxi connects Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx.

Suburban trains

The network of suburban trains New Yorkean is widest of the the United States, with more than 20 lines serving approximately 250 stations, and some 150 million users per annum in the area of the three States ( Tri-State area : the Connecticut, the New Jersey and the State of New York). The railway service which serves the suburbs of New York is exploited by two agencies controlled by MTA: the Long Island Rail Road for the zone of Long Island and the Subway-North Railroad for the State of New York and Connecticut. The transport company New Jersey Transit exploits the railway network on bank of the Hudson side New Jersey. All these lines serve two stations among most important of the United States, Pennsylvania Station and Grand Final Exchange, both located at Manhattan. The transport company Port Authority off New York and New Jersey in addition exploits PATH, a railway system new generation connecting New York and the New Jersey by the Hudson.

Stations : Great Final Exchange - Pennsylvania Station - Final Authority Port Drunk

Pedestrians and cycles

The urban Cyclisme is a increasingly popular Means of transport in the town of New York. Being based on studies of the New York City Department off Transportation, the New Yorkean organization of promotion of the bicycle Transportation Alternatives estimates at 112.000 the number of New Yorkeans which go daily to their work in the bicycle. The department of transport of the city estimates moreover that there is, at New York, twice more skaters with casters than cyclists. Who more is, the city has 190 kilometers of cycle tracks and has, these last years, reinforced his network of cycle tracks protected, in particular on the main arteries and the bridges crossing the East River. More than 500 people work each year on bicycle-taxis which have, in 2005, taken charges approximately a million with it with passengers. Since a score of years, the city organizes every year the largest gathering of cyclists of the United States, the Five Boro Bike Tour , during which more than 30.000 cyclists and, on 70 kilometers, streets of the five districts of Big Apple traverse invest. This demonstration marks also the beginning of the Bike Month , the month of the bicycle in New York, during which the department of transport of the city organizes 150 stroll, tests, races, exposures and other events with an aim of promoting the bicycle near the New Yorkeans and of encouraging them to move in the two-wheeled vehicle.

Transport with foot and bicycle accounts for 21% of displacements in the town of New York, this percentage being of 8 at the national level, according to the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey of 1995, an investigation carried out by the ministry for transport of the United States. The New Yorkean pedestrians walk on average 11 kilometers per day. According to a study of the Federal Highway Administration , in 2000, the town of New York counted by far the greatest number of pedestrians of the country, all confused cities, at the same time in absolute value and relative value: 517.290, is 5,6%. On a purely comparative basis, the city according to New York in term of number of pedestrians, Boston, counts 119.294, that is to say 4,1% of people moving downtown. The “culture pedestrian” of New York, associated with its single urban life, allowed the rise of a true culture of street, such as for example the Break dance in the artistic field, or the restoration of plentiful and various street in the field of the trade, which make today integral part of the cultural identity of the town of New York.

In the New Yorkean streets with the dense traffic, the pedestrians can constitute a true embarrassment for travelling motorists, taxis, trucks, bicycles and walking. The Jaywalking , term Anglo-Saxon which indicates the fact of crossing the street apart from the rights of way, is a so current and typical practice of the city that a former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, tried to counter it by the adoption of laws repressing this practice hard. In spite of that, the practice of the jaywalking did not decrease, the more so as the law which prohibits it is seldom applied and that the incurred fine, of 2 dollars, is ridiculous.

Taxis

More than 12.000 taxis the streets of New York furrow. Their yellow color, become universally legendary, is one of the components of the identity of the city. The origin of this color goes back to 1915, year during which the contractor John D. Hertz founds a management company of park of taxis, the Yellow Cab Company , that it establishes in the American main cities, of which New York. John D. Hertz makes the choice of the yellow for his taxis following the reading of a study of the Université of Chicago, advancing that this color would be most visible by far. A law voted in 1967 will impose on all the medallion taxis , name given to the approved taxis, a body of yellow color.

The taxis are used by privately held companies, under license of the TLC, the Taxi and Limousine Commission , which clearly distinguished and regulated two types of vehicles:

the “medallion taxis”, commonly called yellow cabs because of their color, that one can Heller directly in the street, but which do not have access to the phone calls. It is easy to borrow them just to go up a few “blocks” of streets.
“because services”, of the cars more luxurious than the yellow cabs , energy of the Berline to the Limousine, which take travellers only on reservation by telephone. Their tariffs are slightly higher than those of the taxis. These because services , for which no color of body is imposed but which is not authorized to use the yellow which regulates the medallion taxis , are generally of black color.

The “medallion taxis” draw their name from the plate official, the medallion , delivered by the TLC and fixed on the cap of the vehicle. This official plate can be bought either at the time of auctions organized by the city, or with an owner of taxi which ceases its activity and which resells its license thus. Because of the extremely high price of the licenses of taxi, which are negotiated in the neighborhoods of 300.000 dollars, even more, those are bought by investment companies, which then rent them with drivers. It is with Manhattan that one finds more strong concentration of yellow cabs but, if it is true that they are more frequent in this sector, it does not remain about it less than they traverse the five districts ( boroughs ) of New York. They take the customers who hèlent them in the street or which await them the taxi ranks. Descriptive luminous on the roof of the taxi indicates if it is free or not (certain taxis affix moreover billboards on the roof of their vehicle). When the central neon sign of the taxi is lit, that means that the taxi is free. When this one, like two luminous indicators of each with dimensions of the sign, are lit, that means that the taxi is not in service. When all the indicator lights are extinct, it is that the taxi is in race and occupied. There exists conspicuous luminous additional of alarm to the left back of the vehicle, on the level of the trunk, that the driver can engage interior in order to alert the police force. The maximum number of passengers of a taxi is of four, but the children of less than seven years can travel on the knees of an adult if the maximum capacity of the taxi is reached. The mobile phones are authorized in the vehicle, but any communication is prohibited during the race. A taxi is supposed to take to the first anybody who presents itself, and not to refuse a race within the limits of the five districts ( boroughs ) of New York, of the counties of Westchester and Nassau, and of the International airport Newark Liberty. In the month of June 2006, the tariff of assumption of responsibility was of 2,5 dollars (of 3 dollars starting from 20:00, and 3,5 dollars during the rush hours, between 16 and 20:00), to which a tariffing according to the distance and of the latencies of the taxi is added (40 hundreds per fifth of mile - that is to say approximately 321 meters - or per 120 second old section of waiting or slowed down traffic). Possible the Toll S, to the load of the passenger, is added to the price of the race.

241 million people borrowed the taxi from New York in 1999. According to the results of the census carried out in 2000 with the the United States, on the 42.000 New Yorkean taxi drivers, 82% are of foreign origin. 23% are originating in the the Caribbean (Dominican Republic and Haiti) and 20% of the South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bengladesh).

Cable car

Only the Téléphérique in exploitation in North America is that of the town of New York, which connects Roosevelt Island to Manhattan. Built in 1976 to allow the transport of the residents of the island towards the center of the city, the Roosevelt Island Tramway was set up temporary of way, from the point of view of the opening of the subway station of Roosevelt Island. When in 1989, the junction of the subway between the island and the continent was finally established, the cable car, already too popular to be closed, continued to be exploited.

The cable car, which was built by the company Suisse Vonroll, is used by the company Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC). Each cabin has a capacity of 125 passengers. The maximum altitude of the cable car, when it crosses the East River, is of 76 meters. The journey time between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan is lower than five minutes, and the price of the way is the same one as that of a way in the subway.

The service of transport per cable car is however currently suspended, because of a mechanical incident having required the evacuation of all the passengers: the April 18th 2006 towards 17:00, two cabins were immobilized above the river during seven hours, with 69 people on board.

Roadway system

Even if the public transport indisputably constitute a priority for the town of New York, the urban fitting-out, and particularly the particular architecture of the streets, constitutes one of the identity features of the city. The geometrical squaring of the streets of Manhattan, completely visionary for his time, will be used thereafter as model at the other American cities. Many streets and avenues of the city, such as Broadway, Wall Street or Madison Avenue, gave their name to the trade and activities installed on the spot (respectively in the fields of the Théâtre, the Finance, and the Publicité).

Squaring of the streets

It is at the time of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that is adopted, by the town of New York, the checkerboard plan of the streets of the North of Manhattan. The goal of this government decision, which stipulates the cutting of the city in twelve avenues of the Northern to the Southern and of one hundred fifty-five streets of in Western Is, is mainly of economic order, the objective being to control the anarchistic growth of the city and in particular of its real sector. The delegate Simeon De Witt, one of the originators of the plan, also thought that the regularity and the linearity of the streets would make it possible to inculcate to people a certain discipline, and to encourage the masses to think in a rational way. Among the principal personalities criticizing the checkerboard plan openly and preaching the creation of green areas to attenuate the brutality of this new town planning, one finds the Landscape gardener Frederick Law Olmsted, originator of Central Park, which thought that this squaring made pass the economic concerns above the esthetic concerns.

The avenues of Manhattan are directed North in the South, and are numbered starting from the East River, of the first avenue to the twelfth which occurred. There exist additional avenues: Lexington Avenue, between the third avenue and Park Avenue (ex-fourth which occurred), and Madison Avenue, between the fifth avenue and Park Which occurred. Consequently, there exists in fact fourteen avenues in the length of Manhattan, to which one can add some other parallel streets of less importance (which are not, for the majority, not qualified avenues because of their small size) along the coasts on the broader parts of the island.

The hundred fifty-five streets of Manhattan, as for them, are directed of in West and is numbered starting from Houston Street, of the 1st street in low zone of the city ( Downtown ) to the 220e street at the Northern end of the island ( Uptown ). Rather than of the specific names of districts, one generally employs the expressions Downtown to indicate the low zone of the city, i.e. the districts being rather in the South, and Uptown to indicate his high zone, i.e. the districts being rather in North. The limit between the Western district, that one calls Upper West Side, and the district, is baptized Upper East Side, is materialized by Central Park, which extends from North in the South of the 110e to the 59e street. In the South of the 59e street, Manhattan is divided of Is in West initially by the Fifth avenue, which finishes on the level of Washington Square Park, then by the avenue of Broadway. In Manhattan, the famous blocks (expression employed in the language running to say, for example, that such place accounts for two or three blocks of such other ) is in fact of the rectangular zones, and nonsquare. To note that the distance between the avenues is roughly three times larger than the distance between the streets.

Generally, the New Yorkeans not locate a place by its address and its number, but by the intersection on the level of which the place is, like “the 34e and 5th” to indicate the address of the Empire State Building, for example. The intersection between the 34e street and the 5th avenue indeed constitutes the intersection nearest to this building. This manner of indicating a place is used to indicate with the taxi driver his destination.

One of the most famous arteries of the city, Broadway, is also one of the longest streets of the world. It begins with the Southern point from Manhattan and extends, in North, on a distance of approximately 241 kilometers, until Albany in the State of New York. Among the other emblematic streets of New York, appear Park Avenue, the residential boulevard of most prestigious and smarter, and the Fifth avenue, which shelters one of the districts of trade of most famous Luxe of the world. The 42e street, important artery which crosses Broadway on the level of Times Square, corresponds to the cultural district of New York and constitutes the capital of the American theater. The Grand Concourse, whose model is not other than the Avenue Fields-Élysées with Paris, is one of the most important streets of the Bronx.

Bridges and tunnels

One finds in New York some of the most famous bridges of the world. Thus, the Bridge of Brooklyn, with its Gothic style and its metal structure, is without any doubt not only emblématique of the history of the bridges in the United States, but also one of the architectural chiefs of work of the city. It counts among the oldest suspended bridges of the country and was, in 1883, at the time of its completion, largest of the world. On the East To rivet, one finds moreover two other bridges with also remarkable architecture: the Bridge of Williamsburg and the Bridge of Manhattan. The Pont of Queensboro, which connects the 59e street of Manhattan to the Queens by taking support on the small island of Roosevelt Island, is one of the bridges to major beams cantilever of the history of the architecture of the American bridges: it was immortalisé besides in a song of Simon and Garfunkel, The 59th Street Bridge Song/Feelin' Groovy . The Pont Verrazano, which was brought into service in 1964 and which remained until in 1981 the longest suspended bridge of the country, makes it possible to connect the district of Staten Island to Brooklyn. It is a suspended bridge on two floors whose steel turns culminate with 207 meters in height and whose central span makes 1298 meters length.

New York was always a pionnière city as regards Tunnel S. the Lincoln Tunnel, which connects the New Jersey to Manhattan via the underground crossing of the Hudson River, is borrowed by 120.000 vehicles per day, which makes of it the road tunnel more attended world. The Holland Tunnel, which crosses also Hudson River, was, on a worldwide scale, the very first tunnel to profit from a system of mechanical ventilation, and was classified Historic Civil Engineering Landmark (Great historical realization of public works) by the American Society off Civil Engineers (American company of the civil engineers). The town of New York made the choice build these two tunnels rather than bridges in order to allow freedom of movement of the ships cargo liners and passenger ships who crossed the Port of New York before going up the Hudson until Manhattan. Some time after the opening of the Holland Tunnel in 1927, was born the idea from a project of tunnel under the East River, in order to dam up the problems of congestions inherent in the bridges connecting Manhattan to the Queens and Brooklyn. When this project was concretized in 1940, in the form of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, this last was at the time the private realization most important of the history of the country. The president Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first nobody to borrow it. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, as for him, was opened to the public in 1950: with its 2,7 kilometers, it constitutes the the underwater tunnel longest of North America.

Bridges and tunnels of New York : Brooklyn Bridge - George Washington Bridge - Holland Tunnel - Lincoln Tunnel - Manhattan Bridge - Queensboro Bridge - Triborough Bridge - Verrazano Bridge - Williamsburg Bridge

Fast tracks and expressways

The wide area network of highways and fast tracks of New York east first of all composed by four highways major inter-States: the Interstate 78, the Interstate 80, the Interstate 87, so known under the name of Major Deegan Expressway in the city and under that of New York State Thruway on its northern part, and the Interstate 95 (which is also the New Jersey Turnpike in this state until it crosses the Hudson on the George Washington Bridge, where it becomes the Cross Bronx Expressway , then the Bruckner Expressway , and finally the New England Thruway before entering the Connecticut and becoming the Connecticut Turnpike). The Interstate 287 is a partially peripheral highway at the city.

Air transport

The town of New York is served by three large airports: the John-F International airport. - Kennedy, the International airport Newark Liberty and the International airport of Guardia. 100 million travellers forwarded by these airports in 2005, year during which New York détrôné Chicago its place of air crossroads more attended country. The airports JFK and Newark, with them two, accommodated in 2004 a quarter of the whole of the travellers in departure for the foreigner.

International airports : John-Fitzgerald-Kennedy ( JFK ) - Newark Liberty ( EWR ) - Guardia ( LGA )

References

Random links:

Olivier Assayas | Garac | Touline | Craig Joubert | Brezovice (Krupanj)