Even though by this point we’re all endearingly used to BuzzFeed’s particular style of writing, we still have some expectation of journalistic accuracy. Right? Among piles of “Facts you Learn in Your Twenties” and “Reasons These Animals are Winning,” yesterday the site dropped a “Definitive Ranking of NYC Subways.” At the bottom of the pile was our beloved C train, and at the top was the Q, which just this weekend decided to not have service at all between Brooklyn and Manhattan. So, we figured, we’d let some cats tell you what BuzzFeed got wrong about their subway rankings.
1. BuzzFeed says the C is “LITERALLY THE WORST TRAIN” and calls it a gross “prehistoric beast.”
We respectfully disagree.
Equivalent New York Experience: See above.
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2. “Service-wise, the L train is definitely the new G Train.”
Last we checked, the L train still shows times of arrival on fancy digital screens, and also services an entire cross-town populace.
Equivalent New York Experience: Getting from the West Side of Manhattan to the East side in under ten minutes.
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3. BuzzFeed ranks the Z train as one of the worst trains because it’s never actually there.
It sounds to us like this is just hating because the author hasn’t been chosen by the Z. Plus, doesn’t the fact that it’s so rare actually make it an incredibly bad-ass train?
Equivalent New York Experience: Being on a guest list at the final 285 Kent show.
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4. The F train gets a low ranking because it “goes to every useless local stop.” Above, what residents of Gowanus/Chelsea have to say about that.
Equivalent New York Experience: Being so deliriously out-of-touch you say you won’t even visit friends in Brooklyn.
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5. The 1 train “gets you from door to door.” Question: whose door?
Equivalent New York Experience: Ending up at a strange man’s house because you trusted the 1 train to take you door-to-door.
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6. Calls the M “The F’s less-crowded little sister.”
In Manhattan, maybe. That’s because the M services a high volume of Brooklynites who stay in Brooklyn.
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7. E trains may be “shiny and new,” but when they’re not the C train you’re waiting for, they are the devil incarnate.
Also, they don’t go to Brooklyn.
Equivalent New York Experience: A yellow taxi-cab that won’t take you home, because home is in BK.
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8. The J train ranks higher than the M train.
The J train, once in Manhattan, takes you to straight to sad Broad Street and then spits you out.
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9. “What the G train lacks in speed or flair, it makes up for in rustic charm.”
Apparently, the C train’s old-school status doesn’t qualify as “rustic charm,” nor does the F, which runs the same hip “Kentile Floors” route as the G. The writer also cites a single instance of an MTA conductor yelling at a passenger as a sign that the G is “Bad. Ass.”
Equivalent New York Experience: Getting told by an MTA official that “it’s not their problem” your Metrocard shows “just used.” You’ll just have to wait… and miss 3 trains.
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10. The 3 train’s Equivalent New York Experience according to BuzzFeed is: “Ordering Seamless on the way home so it’s waiting for you when you arrive.”
Equivalent New York Experience: Making enough money to order dinner off Seamless as regularly as you ride the subway.
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11. The 2nd-best train is the 7, because “it has a cool green sign that tells you via SHAPES if it’s local or express.”
This is just pitiful. Beyond the fact that the train is miserable and crowded in Queens, IF IT’S EVEN RUNNING, it only serves the most tourist-swarmed spots in Manhattan (Times Sq/Grand Central) once it gets there.
Equivalent New York Experience: Christmas Eve Day shopping at Macy’s in Herald Square.
Our personal rankings will always be biased based on where we live, work and socialize, there’s no reason to get “definitive” about it. So in that spirit: what’s your definitive subway line ranking?
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Th e F is a great train. It’s only flaw is that it doesn’t intersect with the 2/3/4/5/Q/B/D/N in Brooklyn, which admittedly is a big flaw, but it goes to all of the right neighborhoods. Park Slope! Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill! Downtown Brooklyn! Bk Heights! Coney Island! LES! Chelsea! the Bryant Park stop (as opposed to the Times Sq stop on 42nd st), etc. etc. etc.
B would be good if it wasn’t slow as crap in certain spots and ran on the weekend! A is very good for lack of crowds, swiftness, 59th St-125th St skippage, having a song named after it, as long as you can weather the sometimes odd smells and the not infrequent run-ins with someone screaming incomprehensible things about Jesus before 9 am.
I live off of the Brighton Line. Years ago before the MTA switched the B with the D, the D ran on the Brighton Line and it ran at all times. The Q rules and the B is good, but I sometimes wish we weren’t stuck with having the B only part-time.
Where is the B slow in “certain spots”? Along Central Park West? It flies in Brooklyn (the Brighton express).
The A train could use some new train equipment. I dislike the old stuff.
The B can be incredibly slow at spots between 7th Ave in Brooklyn and Canal in Manhattan. Particularly bad are between Dekalb and getting onto the Manhattan Bridge and between Atlantic and Dekalb. Also has a lot of stops between 47-50th Rockefeller Center and 59th Street.
This is what having a long commute has done to me: make me extra aware of MTA slowness.
That’s not endemic to the B; it happens to the Q train as well. It happens when a NB B and D or a NB Q and N get to the same spot just past the DeKalb Avenue Station. The D and N bypass DeKalb Avenue entirely, and most of the time the D or the N will be waved on in front of the B or the Q. If you’re on a B or the Q, then you’d have to wait. When this happens, I always say to myself, “Minus five [minutes].” LOL
I haven’t encountered very many slowdowns between 47-50th and 59th Street. (I used to commute to 59th Street when I worked near Lincoln Center a few years ago.) If there is a delay, I speculate it may be due to waiting for a C train to cross over into 59th Street.
Here’s my question:
Why is it that both the B and the Q seem to come so infrequently during rush hour, and yet they always have to wait for an N or a D, which I’m assuming also come infrequently. On any given day, I take the train from between 7:45 to 8:45. The later I get there, the LESS frequently the trains come, not more, even though the later it is, the more people are waiting for the train.
I know you can’t really answer that, I just had to gripe. #%?#$#?
Re: ” at the top was the Q, which just this weekend decided to not have service at all between Brooklyn and Manhattan.”
That kind of extreme weekend track work on the Q is now very rare. The same apparently can’t be said for the F or the L trains. The Q train rules!
This is great. Stopped in to read one, ended up loving them all….
The C during rush hour makes me want to walk to the Financial District from Bedstuy…but what train doesn’t during those hectic times?? Crowded and sleep-deprived. Isn’t that why we all live here?? The C may be an old train with “shady people” (too many blacks for you?–watch your answer, I am one.) But it gets you to places you really want to go in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
I don’t think the C train is full of “shady people”; I just think it runs too infrequently. If you’re in Manhattan on your way into Brooklyn, it seems as if there are at least 2 SB E trains for every C train.
all I know is as someone who regularly commutes from Greenpoint to bed stuy at 4-5 am, the A is fucking garbage at that time. I wait at Hoyt 30 to 40 minutes not irregularly.
the g is almost ok, but if there is ANY work at all being done it gets really shitty.
You don’t hit the A train(hoyt/schemerwhatever) going greenpoint to bedstuy. And the G is the godfather of fucked trains. While I’ll concede it has improved marginally, any time after regular commuting hours it is hell. It is under construction 90% of the time. And after midnight can take 45 minutes to arrive. Oh and of course weekend shuttle busses. Remember those? If you made plans, tack an extra hour on. Seriously took me 1hr 15 mins once to get from bedford nostrand to court sq. Been using it regularly for 14 years, probably why I hate it so much
…i came for the cats