NEW YORK SUBWAY EXPLAINED | NYC Guide from a LOCAL

how to get around new york city using the new york city subway hi i'm megan a licensed new york city tour guide and today i'm going to teach you how to use the new york city subway it can be a little confusing but once you get the hang of it it's usually the easiest the fastest and the cheapest way to get around the five boroughs chill out people in the comments i know you're going to tell me that walking is the cheapest and the helicopter is the fastest but in general the subway is the preferred mode of transportation of the eight and a half million people living in new york city so stay tuned make sure that you hit subscribe so you never miss a new york minute and let's get ready to ride the new york city subway the reason why new yorkers love to ride the subway is that for 2.75 cents you can get anywhere in the five boroughs you really can't beat that price yes i know you can walk but the subway is much faster than walking and much more efficient also using the subway you don't get stuck in new york city's most famous landmark which is traffic you can spend hours sitting in traffic it can take you longer to go like five blocks while you're waiting in traffic than it can to walk from the tip of mount the northern tip of manhattan to the southern tip of manhattan so new yorkers love to ride the subway true new yorkers know that it is usually the fastest the easiest and the cheapest way to get around so now we're going to learn how to use the subway the first thing you need to know is how to buy a subway ticket so if you want to buy a subway ticket you're going to want to find one of these kiosks in the subway station now it can be a little daunting when you look at it you can pay with a credit card an atm card and uh not this one but there are a lot of ones that you can pay in cash but today i'm paying with a card so this will be fine you'll see that there is a touch screen you're going to hit start i'm going to choose english because that's the language that i speak now you get this option where you can refill a card get card info or get a new card the refill a card is if you already have a card right now we're buying our cards brand new so i'm gonna go to get new card you're gonna notice there is a one dollar fee that applies now you can choose a regular metrocard or an unlimited ride usually i want tourists who are visiting to get an unlimited ride because that way you can ride the train as often as you want and i would say just get the seven day unlimited ride for thirty three dollars a person there is no limit you could hop on and off the train as often as you like [Music] so you would select seven day and then you select your method of payment and then you would dip your credit card now right now i'm gonna go back i'm gonna teach you how to get a regular metrocard if you're gonna do pay as you go so you click regular metrocard and then it gives you some like prepaid amounts or you can select an amount of your choice with other amounts right now i'm going to select the the lowest amount of the prepaid amount which is 5.50 it says how would you like to pay credit card and then i'm going to dip my credit card so when they say dip it is typically a pretty fast thing uh i'm gonna hide my zip code so you don't see where i live bum bum [Music] [Laughter] all right and this is i will be charged 6.50 that's because there's that extra dollar because i'm buying a brand new metro card i click ok it says processing payment and then when it's processed it's going to pop out right here and i am a card carrying new yorker here we are standing in front of a subway map it shows you all of our subway lines it kind of looks like someone threw spaghetti at the wall but we're gonna make sense of that and you'll also see how the subways cover all five of our boroughs here in new york city you have the bronx you have queens you have brooklyn you have manhattan that's probably where you're going to spend most of your time if you're visiting from out of town and then you have staten island staten island it kind of cheats you have to take the staten island ferry to get there it's absolutely free watch my video on the staten island ferry to learn how to do that now when you're looking at this map one of the first things that i want you to know is whether or not you are going north or in new york speak that is uptown or south in new york speak that is downtown if you know whether or not you're going uptown or downtown that's really going to help you one of the keys like a secret in new york city secret is as you go north or you go uptown the street numbers actually get higher so if you're on the numbered street for example you're on 42nd street then you go to 50th street 59th street 66th street as they're going higher you're going uptown and as they get lower like if you started at the northern end of manhattan 215th street 207th street like man that's a name street 191st 181st the street numbers are getting lower so you are going downtown and this is going to help you find the train that you need if you know whether or not you're going uptown or downtown when you look at this map you're going to notice that there's a whole bunch of different colors it's the first thing that i usually notice and i'm like oh do i want the red train or the green train or the yellow train or the purple train which is my favorite color the colors are great they're really pretty but they're actually not that helpful while you're trying to navigate when you're trying to navigate what's more important is the name of the train so our trains are named with letters or numbers so for example we have the a train the b train we have the m the r train when you're trying to find a destination make sure you know exactly what letter train you need or exactly what number train you need because they all go different ways even if they're the same color so for example this red train right here it runs almost the same in midtown but when you get up to 96th street you'll notice that the one train which is red is going to take you all the way up into the bronx through washington heights into the bronx then if you go back to 96th street and you follow this the 2 and the 3 train branch out and look the 3 train ends here in harlem and then the 2 train branches way out and takes you to a totally different area of the bronx if you're trying to find for example the bronx zoo and you take the one train you're probably going to end up very sad or if you take the 3 train you're probably going to end up very sad so you want to make sure that you have the exact number train that you want similarly if you're taking the blue train let's look at the blue train down here the e which is blue ends at world trade center that's exactly where we're filming this right here then you'll notice that the a and the c they branch out here and then if you follow this around this can is where it gets kind of really important one of these trains takes you to jfk airport and the other train takes you to far rockaway beach so if you take the the wrong train um and you'll see that these are actually both a's but one of them goes to ozone park lefferts boulevard and one goes to far rockaway make sure you get on the right train so that's really important make sure you know the exact letter or the exact number of the train when you are figuring out where to go on the subway you have to be really careful that you know exactly the stop that you want and the train that you want because to make the subway even more confusing a lot of our stops actually have the same name so for example we have 59th street right there columbus circle at that 59th street you get the a the b the c the d or the one but then if you go way down here in brooklyn we have another 59th street that's where the n and the r are so if you were like oh i'm looking for 59th street and you see that the n and the r go to 59th street you're going to end up like in bay ridge brooklyn instead of at columbus circle about to go on a walk through central park so you have to be really really precise with that and i'm going to tell you about some apps that will help you be really precise with that my favorite apps for riding the subway are my mta transit and underway i personally find underway to be the easiest to use and i love that it gives me train arrival times and a really great map of the subway i'm now going to teach you how to swipe your subway card like a pro so your subway car is going to have two sides there's like the pretty yellow side and then there's the white side that gives you subway emergency instructions sometimes there's actually like fun patterns but but right now we have the typical yellow and white side you'll notice the yellow side has this black strip so when you're going to swipe you want the yellow side of the card to be facing you and you want the black strip to be down that's what this like reader thing is going to read so yellow side towards you black stripe down and we're then going to do a nice swipe i i've been swiping for like years i still always get a little nervous you want to make sure that you don't go too slow if you go too slow you're going to get a like you can't enter if you go too fast you're going to get uh you can't enter but right now we're going to do a moderate swipe and then it's going to say paid and i'm in the subway i'm going to show you another maybe easier way to enter the subway than swiping your card in may 2019 the mta started to install these uh tap to pay or touch to pay features in all of the subway stations so today you can use your smartphone if you click on apple pay for example and you get it ready you see this little screen you tap it oh my goodness and then i can go it's so easy i love it the one downside is you can't get like a monthly pass or a week pass it is pay as you go but i almost always have my phone in my hand so it's really easy to click to pay it's fast in and out and you don't have to deal with any of those like swiping problems so yay mta technology pro tip whether or not you're paying using your phone or a card do not just like chill out here this is not the place to check your tax or to figure out like open up your subway card or anything people are going to get angry at you because you are blocking the entrance you do not want that you want your your phone to be ready to go get the payment ready uh enter this and you're just like whoa i'm in have your card out don't be like fumbling through your bag have your card ready swipe and be in and then new yorkers are going to love you because you're going to be experiencing new york like a local one of the really cool things that i love about the new york city subway system is that it's always well it's 20 21 right now and in 2021 it's always 2.75 to ride the subway this means that you could go literally anywhere in the five boroughs of new york city for two dollars and 75 cents we don't have zones like a lot of other cities they'll have zones where like if you're traveling a couple of blocks it's one price and if you're traveling further it's another price and even further it's another price not the case always two dollars and 75 cents for a single ride on the subway this also means that when you are exiting the subway you don't need your card you don't need to swipe your card again so after you swipe your card you go through those turn styles put your card away put it in a nice safe space um i have noticed if you put it by like a magnet so like if your purse for example has a magnet to close it sometimes that can deactivate the stripe so you don't want to do that you don't want to fold your card then your card won't work make sure that your card is nice and stored perhaps in a wallet but put it away because you don't need it to exit the station 2.75 cents gets you anywhere in the five boroughs it's awesome this is a very different looking subway map i don't see a lot of subway maps that look like this in our subway system but it's a cool map and i wanted to point out that when you swipe your card that 2.75 also allows you to transfer so you can transfer um to any train as long as it's in the same station so for example here at times square 42nd street you have a lot of trains that you can that you can get to so you can get to the a the c the e the n the q the r the w the one the two the three the seven and also the s the shuttle train from 42nd street and that 2.75 cents covers the transfer so that's really cool another thing to just mention is when you look at this map the reason why it kind of looks like it doesn't make a lot of sense like what was the one person thinking when they planned out this map it wasn't one person all of these lines used to be owned by different companies so we'll talk more about that in another video about the history of the subway system and the mta but just wanted to point that out if you're looking at it going hmm this is really confusing but we'll unconfuse it for you we're going to head down to the 203 train here at fulton street and i'm going to show you something about uptown and downtown so as we walk down the staircase you'll notice you'll see uptown and downtown remember you have to know which one you are going to so the uptown will be on my right hand side right here and the downtown will be on your left hand side you want to make sure that you get the right one if you're going downtown you're gonna want this train approaching right here and then if you wanted uptown you would ignore that train and you would wait over here underneath the uptown sign so make sure you look on the platform for uptown and downtown and sometimes you actually have to look for those signs above ground because not every platform is like this where both the uptown and the downtown train are on the same track so make sure when you swipe your card that you find the uptown or the downtown train a lot of people ask me megan is the subway safe i've been riding the subway almost every day for the past 20 years and i'm still alive to tell the tale we have a saying in new york city that says the later you go the better the show and mostly what that's referring to is street performers you'll see some pretty crazy performers inside of the train but sometimes there are some more interesting characters as you go late at night if that's the case you're maybe feeling unsafe i strongly suggest that you find the conductor's car if you're trying to figure out how to find the conductor's car while you're waiting on the platform i'm about to tell you some people like to be in the car of the subway that's next to the conductor if you're traveling late at night perhaps you want to be in the car with the conductor it'll make you feel safer and perhaps will possibly be safer and if you're trying to figure out what car the conductor is in you want to look for this sign it's this weird like zebra stripe sign and watch because this train is pulling in i'm waiting under the sign for the train to pull in conductor car and i don't know if you noticed but he um actually very quickly pointed towards the zebra sign that's something that they're supposed to do at every stop to make sure that the conductor is paying attention if you want to be a true new yorker when the subway pulls into the station when the doors open as like you're waiting for the doors to open you want to make sure that everybody gets off the train before you get on it is way easier to get on the train um after everybody else has gotten off and trust me i know how much like every new yorker has their favorite seat if their favorite seat is open they want to run on the train and grab it or if there's any seat at all they want to grab it but the few times when i have like pushed on that's when i end up getting shoved or pushed or had unpleasant experiences and encounters with people on the train so be polite let people on the train before you get on another pro tip for you if when the train cars pull in it's really busy and all of the cars are really full but one and you're like oh my goodness it's a totally empty car the subway is fine um there's usually a reason why that subway car is empty um oftentimes it doesn't have air conditioning so it can be like really hot but more likely than not there's probably a smell or something else in there that you don't want to be near so if you see a packed train with one empty car go to the packed cars on either side pro tip from a local take my word for it i hope this was useful for helping you learn how to use the subway we learned how to buy subway tickets how to swipe your card and your phone how to navigate the subway know about uptown downtown know your exact stop don't pay attention to the colors of the trains pay attention to the exact numbers of the trains and we learned some useful pro tips from locals about like which car to get on and how to be polite on the subway if you have any questions about how the how to use the subway please comment below i would love to know your thoughts and if you have any suggestions for videos for me to make in the future comment below make sure that you hit subscribe so you never miss a new york city minute i have tons of videos my goal is to help you have your very best new york city experience so thank you so much for watching and enjoy your time in new york city

Channel: The Megan Daily

Views: 58,036

Keywords: nyc subway, new york city subway, new york city, subway nyc, new york city subway (mass transportation system), new york city travel guide, nyc subway guide, New York subway explained, nyc guide from a local, local guide, nyc local guide, how to ride the subway in nyc, how to ride the new york city subway, new york subway, before you travel to nyc, new york city tips, public transportation, living cheap in nyc, how to ride the new york subway, NYC subway explained, mta

Id: Hj_wI3_7w_g

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 02 2021