When I saw the map with all the subway lines, I had it at the end of a travel guide, I was scared. And when we arrived at the first subway station, looking for a specific subway line that would take us to Harlem, I felt so overwhelmed by the situation that I said that we would definitely get lost in their stations.
With a little help from the nice locals, we managed to orient ourselves in space, and after the first two days, you could say that we were born in New York City. However, we still had a headache with the exit, we always got out at a different exit, because a subway station in New York stretches over several blocks.
But I understood the map and the way the stations are marked, so there was no need to stand with the map in hand or ask desperately left and right. I thought I would write this article, in which I would tell you everything about public transportation in New York.
All about public transportation in New York City
Do we need to use public transportation?
Of course! I'm not telling you not to walk, but you will see that some tourist attractions are located at great distances from each other. Even if you are staying in Manhattan, and this area looks quite small on the map, believe me, you will have to walk.
The subway is the fastest and cheapest way to travel around Manhattan. I say you can forget about those yellow taxis because they are just expensive and you will waste looooooong time in traffic.
New York City Map Explained
I said it’s pretty easy to orient yourself in space when it comes to Manhattan, and believe me, you won’t even need to keep your eyes on the map all the time.
In Manhattan, there are 12 large, wide avenues that traverse the neighborhood from North to South and a few dozen streets that cross it from East to West. You don’t need to remember the names of the streets because they have names like 5th Avenue, 6th Avenue, 34th Street, 110th Street, 81st Street, and so on.
In other words, if you start from the east side of 1st Avenue and want to go to the west side, you will notice that the avenues are in ascending order. The same goes for the streets.
The avenues and streets are perpendicular, and if you ask where the Empire State Building is, New Yorkers will tell you that it’s 2-3-4 blocks away, a block being the distance between the streets/boulevards.
Unlike big cities in Europe where we have all kinds of streets with all kinds of names, in Manhattan things are very simple. We have numbers, streets and boulevards.
The fact that the streets are in ascending order will help you a lot. For example, Rockefeller Center is located on 5th Avenue and 50th Street. If you want to get to Central Park from there you will have to go up 5th Avenue to 59th Street, if you want to get to the Empire State Building you will have to go down 5th Avenue to 34th Street. In other words, if you go north, the streets are in ascending order, if you go south, they are in descending order.
Subway – the cheapest and fastest way to travel around NYC
There are dozens and dozens of subway lines connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens (although Queens is not very good in terms of subways, which is why I wouldn’t recommend staying in this neighborhood).
A subway station in Manhattan spans at least two levels and a few intersections. That’s why you have to be very careful which exit you’re heading to.
You might arrive at the subway station and not understand which direction you want to go. That’s what happened to us! But, I’m telling you, it’s not as complicated as it seems, quite the opposite.
If you want to go North, follow the signs for Uptown-Bronx. If you want to go to Lower Manhattan, follow the signs for Downtown-Brooklyn. That way, you can’t go in the wrong direction.
You’ll need a subway map. There is a free app that works offline, called subway NYC.
There are local lines and express lines that usually have the same name. For example, the D line, which goes to the Bronx, can be both express and local. Local lines stop at every station, while express lines stop every 4-5 stations.
How much does a subway ride in New York cost?
A subway ride costs $3.
I recommend getting an unlimited travel card if you plan on staying in NYC for more than 3 days. The price for a 7-day unlimited travel card is $34.
How do you get from JFK Airport to Manhattan?
We had to take an internal train that took us all the way through the airport, passing through each terminal. I think it depends on the terminal you land at, in our case it was Terminal 4.
Once we got to Jamaica station, we had to pay $5 per person for the ride through the airport. From there you have a direct connection to the E subway line that will take you directly to One World Trade Center.
The first day there was chaos at the public transportation section. We went in the wrong direction a few times, we got to the wrong exit and we kept turning around to find our apartment, we were shocked by the huge distances between the stations, our cards didn't work, we asked left and right, etc.
But after that day we started to get the hang of how things work and we had absolutely no problems, I even said that it is one of the easiest cities in terms of the underground transportation system.
I hope I was able to shed some light and that this article will be useful to you. Although at first glance, everything seems so complicated that it becomes overwhelming, after the first two or three trips you will see how simple it is to travel by subway from one side of the famous New York to the other. And if you don't manage to figure it out on the spot, you can always ask a local.