NYC Transit: MTA Subway & Bus

I visited NYC for about three days with my family, and this app definitely saved our lives. Coming from California, we never take the train or bus to go places, so taking the subway would be a huge issue. But this app made traveling so much easier. We knew exactly which train to get on, what stops were being taken, and when we had to get off to either our destination or to transfer to another train. Of course, I can’t give it five stars because sometimes the times are inaccurate, but the times are usually off by a couple minutes. To get an accurate time, the signs in the subway do give better times of when a train is arriving (i.e. 1 minute, 5 minutes, etc.). Also, the service does cut off when the train is in motion, so the app doesn’t work and doesn’t show us our exact location, but once the train stops for the next flow of people, you are able to see exactly which station and street you’re on if the train itself doesn’t provide a sign or you cannot hear the conductor. If I ever go back to NYC, I will definitely be using this app again :)

I tried this app and ‘NYC Subway’. This is a far better app. I was visiting from out of town and had visited many years earlier. I like the NYC subway. It is easy to get around. But some things are confusing and this app just does not get it right. We were staying at a hotel near the 33rd street, green, #6 line. During most of the day, only the #6 train stops there, it this app’s map says that the 4 also stops there. It does, but only late at night. It took me a day to figure out this error in these maps. But the route directions to get from one place to another were fine most of the time. We wanted to go to Yankees stadium. The app sent us south on #6 to 14th street to change to the #4. We ended up going north on #6 to Grand Central Station, then switch trains there. That seemed far more logical. Still, I could not have found my way around the NYC subway without this app.

This app has a lot of potential. The best thing about it is it's reasonably accurate display of subway arrival times. But there are at least four things about the app that are annoying. 1) Certain multi line subway stops, like W. 4th St., only show the information for the blue lines, not the orange lines. 2). The subway arrival time display for each station often displays at the top of the screen where you can't see it without resuming your screen. 3) the app should remember the zoom state when switching between bus and subway. 4) you should be able to turn on or off bus/subway info in preferences so that the display is cleaner and tailored to ones main use.

We just came into town to celebrate a birthday and wouldn’t have been able to get around without this app! It rerouted us when the subways were down for maintenance and gave us multiple options. I wish the app would keep your last searched trip’s information on the home screen instead of opening fresh every time (it got annoying having to constantly re-search our route when I just wanted to double-check the numbers), especially when you’re in a subway station with poor reception, but it was a minor inconvenience.

And keeps getting better. Every crappy thing you hate about the official MTA is not an issue with this app. The app opens to the information YOU want to see; no stupid animation of a train every time you open it, no convoluted menu screen. The map scrolls to where you want to go, not some arbitrary point that it picks - and it shows an overlay of the subway, something that the MTA thinks is unnecessary. Your favorites are displayed in an intelligent way, as are nearby stops. Bottom line: you’re getting what you paid for when you use the MTA app.