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released a new and improved Trip Planner website last week to replace the somewhat aggravating Trips123 site. The new site is supposed to be more accurate, taking into account "up-to-the-minute service changes and many of the system's lesser-known idiosyncrasies." We played around with the Trip Planner which is at travel.mtanyct.info and liked that service advisory alerts, but the options offered still leave something to be desired.
For instance, we planned a trip to leave 1 Centre Street (the Muncipal Building across from City Hall) at 5:20PM on December 31 to go to 1 Times Square. We asked to minimize transfers as well as tp walk no more than a 1/4 mile and to travel by subway. So the first option the MTA offers is to take the 4 to Grand Central and then transfer to the 7 train to go to Times Square. Eh, that transfer is okay, but walking out of the 7 at Times Square is no fun. We personally prefer the second option - taking the 4 to Union Square and then taking the R to Times Square.
The main tip is that It often produces more sensible trips if you tell it you're willing to walk a little further -- if you were to walk to the other side of City Hall, you could get the R and take that directly to Times Square. The next thing that the MTA should include in their database is the amount of walking one needs to do within a station to transfer to another line or exit.
Try out the MTA's Trip Planner and let us know what you think. We find the schedule of trains' arrivals and departures hilarious.
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hopstop.com rules! What a waste of tax payer money
Um, hello MTA? Try doing a search to go anywhere to JFK Airport. It doesn't show you how to use AirTrain. That's no way to sell it.
Yeah, not the best trip planner. Instead of me leaving from 18th Street #1 Train, it tells me to walk to 23rd St #1 line, I live on 20th St. Wierd.
It doesn't think I live near a subway. I'm a 3 minute walk away from the G train. The site is awful.
There's some options that are intriguing, like minimizing travel time rather than transfers or walking distance, but the results aren't presented as clearly as hopstop. I'd rather punch in three different hopstop searches to compare than deal with the mta format (and possibly the mta). Plus, if walking the whole way is the best route, I can find out in hopstop. The MTA doesn't want me walking more than a mile. Which, yeah, makes sense for the MTA but not for me.
I like hopstop.com better.
All hail Hopstop.com!