The Subways of the Future Are Going to Be Really Cool, Make Everything Better
Shouldn’t we already be traveling like this?
c/o whatculture.com
Not too much about the future excites me. I mean, I don’t want to be turned into a robot! And that’s inevitable, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s not, because maybe rising temperatures and encroaching oceans will make life virtually unlivable, and then there are those palm-sized killer hornets in China that are probably going to attack us all. But! If there’s one thing to be excited about, it’s this. There are pretty cool new plans in the work for the subways of the future. Yay.
The New York Times reports that the MTA is weighing “the benefits of articulated trains — similar to accordion-style buses — that have no doors between cars, allowing unrestricted flow throughout the length of the subway.” The pros of such a system would include allowing passengers to move the full length of the train, no matter where they enter. This is huge for those times when you need to get away—far, far away—from the woman putting on nail polish in the seat next to you, or the man across from you is eating a wheel of stinky cheese. Instead of having to make the perilous in-between-cars journey while the subway is in motion, you can just run the hell down to the other end of the subway. Plus, you never need to worry about getting on the right car for the easiest access to the exit at your destination stop, you can just walk the length of the subway once you’re inside. A con, obviously, is that you’ll hear the mariachi music no matter where you are on the train. And those dancing kids will have more room to do some pretty extreme acrobatics. But, you know, you win some, you lose some.
Don’t get too excited, though. The MTA will probably not be upgrading to articulated trains for a couple of decades (if ever, I guess) because…well, I don’t know? Because the MTA is a tease? Maybe. Maybe it’s waiting for a surplus bigger than the $1.9 billion it’s currently in possession of? Who know. But I don’t think I’m too far off base when I say that no matter what the subways of the future look like, a monthly pass will probably cost $1,000 by the year 2023.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen
