The trains and I, we've got some beef. Public Transportation: a simple concept, as well as a necessity for a crowded and chaotic city such as this. The population smart enough not to own a car here depend on it to get to work, to go shopping, to eat. All fundamental to live, clearly. Then why may I ask is such an integral part of living in this limitless city so complicated? Red, green, 1, 9, N, R, seriously, let's just call the whole thing off. I might as well walk. There was obviously no common sense involved in the creation of the Metro system of NYC. Why are there so many means to get to just one end? And the express trains, don't get me started. I found myself in Brooklyn with the intention of going to Battery Park because I accidentally hopped on the express train, whoops... Never again do I want to just find myself in Brooklyn, it's a scary place for a girl from Buffalo. My issues with the system are simple: efficiency, expediency, facility.
There are three trains that run the same line up until a certain point and then they break off. Why? Why not divide each train onto separate tracks, so it would create more stops and less confusion. Perhaps if they divided the trains, you wouldn't have to walk 15 blocks from the metro stop to get to your ultimate destination. I'm not sure, but I think the architects enjoy watching people suffer in the freezing cold while they trudge through the bitter wind to find a cheap pair of Jimmy Choo shoes from last season.
In a city pressed for time where every minute counts, why are the trains so infrequent? So that's why everyone is in such a rush here, it's because they are all trying to make up for the time they lost while waiting for the train. Millions of people need to be transported each day, yet I find myself waiting 5, maybe 10 minutes for a train. I blame my tardiness on this infrequency.
And last but certainly not least, the ease of comprehension for the trains is nonexistent. I find myself maladroit underground, roaming around aimlessly just asking to be mugged because I clearly have no clue where I am going. There are no easily legible signs telling you which trains are where, what train goes where, what, when, who, ugh. By the time you find it all out, you've wasted half an hour and thus the tardiness thing comes in to play again.
So unless you are a genius and you have a whole lifetime to spare in order to figure out this rubix cube, the train system is absolutely impossible here in NYC. I declare my mission for the short time I am here to decipher this maze and explain it to the world, an attempt to make sense of a completely senseless system. I would like to meet this guy, this architect, and the first words that come out of my mouth will be: "What were you on??"
