Metro

Mit der New Yorker Metro kommt man definitiv am schnellsten von A nach B. Die Züge sind sehr lang, in der Rush Hour sehr voll, fahren alle paar Minuten je nach Linie. Zum Teil gibt es Expresszüge die nicht an allen Stationen halten.
Die Sauberkeit ist gemessen an den Millionen Menschen die die Bahn täglich nutzen in Ordnung.
Es ist auch immer was los, bei jeder Fahrt hatten wir entweder Musiker, Sänger, Rapper, Beatboer oder Akrobaten im Abteil. Sehr unterhaltsam. Gebettelt wird natürlich auch aber das hielt sich während unseres Aufenthalts im Rahmen.
Es gibt zahlreiche verschiedene Tickets — von Tages über Monatskarten etc. Wie bei uns auch. Zu erwerben sind die Tickets am Automaten oder bei menschlichem Personal mit unterschiedlicher Freundlichkeit und Arbeitsmoral am Schalter.

The temperature in the actual stations and on the platforms when it’s over 90°F outside, feels like it’s only somewhat cooler, with all the heat trapped inside, so take note that it will be quite hot inside, while you’re walking through the stations and waiting on the platforms. Inside the trains, it wasn’t that bad — at least the ones I went on were all air-​conditioned. The speed and frequency, when it comes to how fast and often the trains arrive and depart, were pretty fast and frequent for the most part. I used the Metro about 5 – 6 times during my few days in Manhattan and although I was glad to have been able to get to my destination and back in a relatively quick amount of time — overall, I wasn’t too impressed with it.
Really sucks if you have a problem with your MetroCard though, especially if you happen to encounter a problem with it at an entrance/​exit point where there appears to be absolutely no station agent staffing available at all. If you already paid and the turnstile doesn’t work, for example, you’re pretty much screwed so you’ll have no choice (unless you want to pay your fare twice) but hopefully have someone open the emergency exit door to let you in/​out, which of course sets off a loud alarm. And adding more $ on that existing MetroCard that’s not working though, unfortunately does not solve anything nor does it make it work, as we learned, so please do not do that. You will need to just buy a single-​ride ticket and try again. We thought that inserting the current MetroCard we had into the machines to add more fare would spew out a new one (as some transportation systems do), but this is not the case.
The turnstile system here is at times particularly tricky in my opinion and I especially would advise against using the high entrance-​exit turnstile, called «HEET» (the cage-​like revolving doors), unless you absolutely have to. I understand how the whole concept works and the reason for having these types of turnstiles is to curb fare-​beaters from jumping the low-​bar turnstiles, but the designs of the HEETs are just simply not user friendly.
Yes, it’s to most people, simple and straight-​forward since all you do is swipe your MetroCard, step straight ahead and push the bars forward, but of course, things can and do go wrong. I personally didn’t have any problems with it, but I had witnessed a number of people having trouble with it. If you incorrectly push the wrong set of bars, the turnstiles won’t work. Or if you step into the wrong opening of the HEET (slightly left of center) the turnstile will rotate in the correct counter-​clockwise direction, for a few feet, then it locks again. Re-​swiping your MetroCard because you thought it didn’t read correctly without looking at the display, will charge you twice for one ride. I learned afterwards that even regular/​long-​time riders will tell you to avoid the HEETs if possible and rather use the waist-​heigh turnstiles if available.
In general, I would give one star for the Metro for being available to take you around from point A to point B and one star for the frequency and speed. Though much more complicated (in terms of the sheer amount of the different lines/​platforms), the JR subway system in Japan on the other hand, was to me, much more better overall.

0 star for customer service
4 star for speed
The good — we stay in midtown and it was a quick way to get around Manhattan. Don’t put a lot of money in your metro card. If you have a problem –NO ONE will help you (see below) –just get the single ride ($ 2.50).
The bad — We had problem with our Metro cards (1damaged and 1 damaged and double charged). Nobody was willing to help us our problem. The operator told us we had to buy brand new Metro cards and handed us a form to fill out and mail in to get a refund. The forms were a pain in the a** to fill out because it required detail information that nobody would even remember or know about (but lucky for us we kept all our receipts). I’m still waiting to see if we will actually get a refund. After our terrible experience with the metro cards, we decided whenever we need to take the subway we brought the single ride tickets ($ 2.50 per ride) instead of the Metro card even though it would have save us a little money ($ 2.25 per ride).

The New York Metro reminds so much of the London Underground. It’s venerable and therefore creaky but is comprehensive in servicing the central area of Manhattan. Largely runs on time and is 24 hours unlike London.
Better temperature control and huge long trains making sure that crowding, even at peak times, isn’t too bad.
Signposting of stations could be better.