This is my favorite youtube video of the NYC subway.  It really captures the essence of what riding the subway late at night is like.  “You sitting on the bench?  You’re gonna be sitting there til 5 o’clock in the morning… there’s no trains…hello? with the red shirt on, sitting on the bench… there’s no trains! … with the beard?”

You might say “well, at least she’s helpful, right?”  Umm… I guess.  Helpful would have been putting a fucking clear sign ABOVE the entrance so poor red shirted bearded guy didn’t have the potential to wait around til 5am.  This woman’s tone is a whole lot more annoyed than helpful… which describes most of how MTA workers approach passengers with questions.

Also, I love how the MTA announces things like “to get to XYZ st, you’ll have to take a DOWNTOWN train to ABC stop and transfer to the 4 uptown…”  without a hint of acknowledgment that taking more than 1 train late at night will literally tack on 45 minutes to your ride, probably more.  They say things like that and if you didn’t know better, you’d think “oh, it’s just a hop skip and a jump down and then back up.”  There have been nights where it took 2 hours to go 50 blocks.  If I had known when the fucking trains were going to come (ie, 35 min from now), I would have just left and walked or tried my luck at a bus stop.  Quick word to the wise: if you ever have to transfer to a train that is in the opposite direction of where you want to go… get the fuck out of there immediately and start hoofing it or cough up the green for a cab.  You have about an 80-90% chance of tacking on at least 1 hr onto your trip.