When you’re in the city…
This is one of the coolest things that the internet has brought to life!
If you live in… or ever travel to — even as a tourist… New York City, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, or Washington DC… you really need to check this out…
The computer will calculate the absolute best possible route via subway… You simply enter your starting address and your destination address and the day and time you want to travel (or “now”), and it calculates — to the minute — exactly the best possible way to get there. It includes the walking time to get to the subway station, the time on the train, the time waiting to transfer to another train, and the time it takes to walk to your destination address…
BUT, HERE’S THE KICKER…
Even if you go to the same place every day or every week… You may think you know the system very well, and you already know the best way to get there…
I encourage you to enter that address into this system… You might be shocked to find out that there is a better/faster way that you never thought of…
The computer calculates the times, the walking times, the transfer times, the waiting times, etc. far better than you or I can.
When looking at the subway map, your natural tendency is to try to find the way that involves the least transfers… because you assume that waiting for another train will take longer. BUT, that’s not always so. Also, many of the underground walkways that connect to transfer trains APPEAR to be 3 or 6 blocks long, on the map… However, the map is distorted… In order to get all the information onto one map, the map is NOT drawn to scale… and is therefore misleading sometimes.
For example, I found out that the best way home from a friend’s place on the Upper East Side is the transfer… taking THREE different trains… So I tried it. I was back at home, at my front door, within 28 minutes — exactly as the computer had predicted. That same trip had always taken me 40-50 minutes… every time… in the past.
It’s worth checking out!
And, because it takes into consideration day-of-the-week, schedule changes, and outages for repairs… It knows the best way.
You can also specify Subway Only, Bus Only, or combined Subway+Bus. So you can use it to get the best way to get to church using Subways only. Then, you can use it to get the best way to get to church using Buses only. And finally, you can check the best way to get to church using Subways AND Buses combined…
Even if you NEVER take subways, and only take taxis… It’s VERY useful information to have stored in your brain… Because…
You never know when you might need to know the best alternative way to get there… In case of, for example, a terrible traffic jam… and you need to jump out of the taxi and onto the subway. Or the subway line is down… and you need to jump onto a bus… Or, heaven forbid, there were a real emergency, and you just needed to know ALL the best options to get where you need to go.
What?
Oh!
I almost forgot to tell you what web site I am talking about! 🙂
It is hopstop.com Check it out.
~
Bruce Wagner 
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🙂