[Music] people say when it comes to New York Transit there's nothing else like it in the
entire world I think that's true in a cultural sense because of how New York City operates and
the bizarre mix of people in this city think the train that had Thanksgiving dinner served
The Duel of Two saxophone players
or the guy who brought an i-beam on board and everyone helped him out think vendors
and buskers official art and unofficial art relics of history and all the patchwork designs
it's the culture of New York that makes New York Transit uniquely New York and I'm sure every city
around the world has their own set of cultures that they bring to their public transit that makes
it unique to them but concept wise many cities across the United States pretty much refer to the
same textbook ideas on how to hurt people on mass transit take Seattle for instance while New York
has its Subway Seattle has the link and sort of an extension in the street cars when it comes to
buses these two cities similarly have local buses special service buses Express buses and County
buses and some of you are thinking but Seattle has that monorail and you know what New York
has the Roosevelt Island Tram and when it comes to commuter rails the equivalent of New York's
Long Island Railroad and Metro North Railroad is Seattle's Sounder not to mention that both cities
have ferries and micro Mobility options but as far as cities go New York and Seattle are different in
many ways for one thing population while Seattle is a metropolitan area with about 700 000 people
New York is a mega City with over 8 million people that's Seattle multiplied 11 and a half times so
while on paper these two cities have very similar public transportation options they're going to be
slightly different and that's what we're going to talk about today but before we do that I want you
to all know that half of you watching this video right now are not subscribed to this channel
that's right I see the analytics every video that I make half of you are not subscribed that means
either half of you are new to this Channel or a lurker either way hit that subscribe button
and not too far from the Subscribe button is the like button so let's start with payment
New York is lucky in the sense that all the major public transit systems meaning all the
buses Subways and dinner rails are operated under one operator so the payment system is somewhat
unified with the other systems currently being folded in well the Subways and buses use this
touch-free payment method to pay for fare there are roadblocks to getting the commuter rails which
are the Long Island Railroad and Metro North into the system but the overall goal is to get all the
New York City Transit on this payment system so it's a seamless transfer from one to the other
even the other systems that are not operated by the MTA like the JFK AirTrain and the Roosevelt
Island Tram Seattle is sort of like this let's break it down there's the Seattle area which is
part of King County which is part of the Puget Sound region which are all in Washington state
there are Transit agencies that operate within each one for example Seattle City operates the
monorail King County operates some buses and street cars within the Puget Sound region is the
Transit Agency Sound Transit which operates lines like the link and the Sounder and Washington State
operates the Washington State Ferries and because these Services overlap within Seattle it can get
confusing if you're traveling within Seattle you might need to transfer in between these lines
operated by different agencies and since these are all operated by different agencies payment
is going to be different among them but there's this thing called the Orca card and most of these
Transit agencies not all of them except the Orca card for example the the Washington ferry does
not but all the others do so by participating in accepting the Orca card as payment it makes
it easy for commuters to transfer from one system to the other even though these transit systems are
operated by different agencies as a side note the NYC Ferry also does not accept the multi-pass of
New York City which is the OMNY card and some of you are wondering why am I not talking about the
metro card I could talk about the metro card but I'm going way too deep on payments on top of that
the metro card is going to be phased out there's no definite date but the plan is to phase it out
one major advantage the OMNY system has over the Orca card is that it can straight up accept a
credit card with the OMNY card as optional because of this even if there are transit systems in New
York City that decide to not participate in OMNY and set up their own method of payment
if that method of payment accepts credit card then it's still easy for commuters to transfer
between the two there's also a convenience factor of just using your credit or debit card because
you don't have to buy an OMNY card refill it and keep tabs on the funds that you have on
it having said that one advantage that the Orca card has is that you can order this card by mail
so if you're traveling to Seattle and don't want to bother with getting in line using the
machine buying a card you can just get one mailed to you prior to your trip and you can
manage it all in the app which I find super convenient so even if I had to go through the
process of buying an orca card and keep refilling it it was an easy experience
let's talk about turnstiles what I found surprising was the lack of turnstiles in Seattle
there were a couple times that I got on Seattle's trains and didn't pay because there was no
turnstiles to remind me and add another layer to this at some stations the device to type your ORCA
card on can be hard to find on the link which is equivalent to New York Subway they are not
on the platform where I first logically thought they may be I walked up and down this platform
looking for that little yellow device to pay I later learned that they were at the top of the
escalators leading to the platform and sometimes they're even right before you enter the building
in Seattle it's not a flat rate like in New York City so when you enter the system you have to tap
in and when you exit you have to tap out and there was this one station I couldn't find
where the yellow device was to tap out I swear I walked around and around that station and I
was on a time crunch and so I ended up not tapping out and I was charged the full fare
so these are pretty subtle unlike these which are blaring at you as you're approaching the
entrance if you haven't seen this video on Fair evasion I recommend giving it a watch
it's a big deal in the city New York is losing somewhere around 700 million dollars unfair and
total evasion so it's not just Subways not just buses it's also the tolls that the city collects
when I first got on the link and saw these fabric seats the first thing I thought was nah not in a
million years will this work in New York city so I introd this video talking about culture and in New
York subways can get extremely disgusting thanks spilled food vomit sweat and other body fluids and
there's always that threat of bed bugs in New York in fact the city has a whole page of resources on
how to deal with bed bugs so fabric seats are not gonna cut it I don't know how the culture
is in Seattle I'm really surprised that the seats on their Light Rail are upholstered in Fabric and
surprisingly the street cars as well funny enough I started chatting with a random stranger on the
lane and they were on their way to a city hearing to talk about potholes and the seats on the link
because they were starting to wear out overall I think cushion seats are fine New York has cushion
seats on their commuter rails but these are in vinyl and can be easily wiped down unlike fabric
that absorbs everything thankfully Seattle's buses and ferries are upholstered in vinyl
what I love about the Seattle link is how much safer the tracks are where someone doesn't have
to fear falling into a deep ditch other stations have real traps but they're easy to get out of in
case you fall in because they're not that deep and cleaner too compared to New York
didn't do some over there falling and being pushed onto tracks in New York is a huge issue
one incident last year in particular sparked outrage rallies and gained national attention
if you fall on the tracks it's not easy to get back onto platform the tracks are five feet down
with no wall for leverage if you're trying to climb back up New York is starting this
pilot program to install platform doors so there could be barriers to prevent people from getting
on the tracks and not only that people often drop their cell phones onto tracks as well if
this ever happens to you if you ever drop your phone or anything valuable on the tracks never
ever in a million years in any universe of the Multiverse try to retrieve it yourself just as
an attendant because they have special skills to get these skills I have acquired are for a very
long career aside from being unsafe New York subway tracks are disgusting it's common to
see rats and garbage [ __ ] on them and in the wee hours of the morning I've seen people regurgitate
the night's Libations onto the tracks to all Seattle lights who are watching this comment
below if there's a station that's not clean because all the stations I went to in Seattle
looked pretty clean from my perspective but then I'm using New York as a Baseline
this is the one line to Northgate stay on the train for University of Washington campus on the
Seattle link you gotta appreciate the consistent signage and how clear the voice of the train is
there's even this pop-up here to avoid confusion with another station sure New York City has signs
but I would say they work only 80 percent of the time there was this one time I was on the train
and it was going north on the Upper East Side I think it was the four five six but the board on
the train was not indicating the stations for the four five and six it was indicating the stations
for the L train so if you didn't know the route of the four five and six you would have no idea where
you were going because of New York's density the New York City subway system is massive it
has trains of different models that come from different eras so the board on the train that
tells you what station you are at are going to look different from train to train and there are
some trains that don't even have this so you kind of just have to look out the window or the door
to see which station you're at New York does have newer model trains and there are working
on bringing more of these new trains to retire the older trains and the newer models will have better
sound and Better Way finding and when it comes to speakers the newer trains have nice Crystal
Clear voice of the subway but the older trains you cannot understand a thing of it it's all [Music]
the link system in Seattle is new so it has the advantages of having more modern signs and clear
voice of the train I'm so excited for New York to retire these older trains and have newer trains
on the tracks because it's just not fun it's not fun to ride old trains that are not functioning
well that are slow and they don't give you an indication of where you're going with these newer
trains you can rely on them to have functional doors functional signs clear announcement and
and the cleaner interior surprisingly I was flabbergast when all of Seattle's trains buses
and ferries were all on time to be fair I was only there for a week so I'm not sure if I just
got lucky or that's just how it is in New York you just have to do what you can and hope for the best
I would say 90 of the time trains are going to be fine by that I mean you'll arrive at
your destination within a 10 minute window of your appointment time that's why in New
York City restaurants tend to be forgiving if you're a little bit late to your reservations
and it's generally understood that if you're 15 minutes late you're still on time so 7 PM
usually means anywhere between 7 and 7 15. while the Subways in New York are fine 90 of the time if
you happen to chance upon the other 10 which are the bad days the bad days are really bad
days I was on a train once that broke down and so they dropped us off to the nearest station it
didn't seem like there was another train coming so everybody was just standing around trying to
figure out what their next move will be and what their alternative Transit would be but there was
this person storming down the platform yelling this one time this one time I paid 275 to ride
the subway and it breaks down of course they're decorating their sentences with a lot of colorful
cussing but I can definitively say that person was not having a lucky day and of course both
cities are on water so they will both have ways to make use of the waterways through fairies
there are more nuances with public transportation between Seattle and New York City I have to say
population and density do play a role in creating these differences on how public transit is managed
but that's not an excuse to have bad facilities and bad service other cities have the same density
as New York if not more and they are successful at transporting people from place to place let
me know your thoughts on this and if there's anything that you'd like to add comment down
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with that said thank you so much for watching and until the next video Happy new yorking