Metro Train Ride - Save $!

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Sometimes having a car can be a Godsend in the city, its nice to know you can go anywhere with the radio blasting when you need to without a bus or a train. On the other hand, it is wonderful to be able to take a good book or some yarn and crochet while being "metroed" to where I have to go! For awhile when I had my own car and drove to my classes in Queens, I loved the first few weeks. After enough of trying to find parking, paying for parking tickets, not having time to read all that I wanted without that extra hour 2 hours on the subway, I actually missed it!  Its amazing how much you can read and crochet with full focus and when you have nothing else you can do on the train. And as long as you have your own ipod, you can pretty much keep the songs you want blasting if you want!  A train ride on the metro is currently 2.25$ each way, so if you are heading into work on the train and leaving on the train, it will cost you 4.50$ for a day. Not bad! If you are moving to the city just to move or attending college or you are just coming to visit, taking the train will save you big bucks compared to a cab ride or even renting a car especially when you take into account gas prices, parking prices and tolls. The MTA (who runs the subway and bus system in the city) has a great website where you can find great deals and discounts - www.mta.info/metrocards/promos is the site.  over the summer there is a great discount where you can bring your metrocard to places in Coney Island like Luna Park, Cyclones games, the Aquarium and the Beach Shop and receive discounts.

When purchasing a metrocard you have a few options. If you have children who are 44 inches or shorter, they ride free with an adult. You can purchase a full day unlimited pass for 8.25$, a 7 day unlimited for 27$ or a 30 day unlimited pass for 89$. There is a great deal that if you put 8$ or more on your metrocard, you receive a 15% discount, so a metrocard for 23$ would be 20$. These fares change sometimes every year and maybe changing soon so be sure to check www.mta.info 's site to make sure! 

When you get into the city, you will definetly want to pick up a subway map before your first subway trip.  You can download a free subway map on the mta's site at http://www.mta.info/. 

Would you want to live UNDERWATER?

On my way into work today I picked up a Metro like I usually do. I flipped through to see if there was anything interesting to read...and I stopped at page 9 because I saw this:

(photo courtsey of Metro)

I searched online and found it here, in the Metro Vancouvers's online paper.  In this underwater skyscraper, you would work, eat, sleep and run electricity in and from the same structure. It uses solar, water and wind energy for power. The Metro calls the structure a "floating city". The floating city was designed by a Malaysian architect Adre Sarkum. I understand the wanting to be green and I think it would be great to wake up next to blue water with fish swimming by, and to wake up and take a nice big stretch in the sun while having the ocean by my side, but ultimately, I feel like what we'd be doing is just contaminating more of the earth. Its as if we've used up so much space on the earth and so much of her resources, that now we are moving to the water. I'm all for solar, wind and water energy but isn't this us just taking up more space?? Spreading ourselves and more of our manmade structures out into nature to, inevitably, pollute more of the planet? And I wonder how this would effect the fish and the other marine life. Its not like they would know what a metal underwater skyscraper was. Wouldn't the metal rust as well? Would certain cleaners need to be used on it, like to clean a boat? I don't know how anyone would be able to move an underwater city from the water, and then place it back in.  Would chemical leach back into the ocean? The article says that the underwater skyscraper is something that is currently being worked on.  I hope its not anytime soon. How would you like to live in a floating city?