transportation in new york?

[edds_bestfriend]

so i guess this is to anyone that is going to school in new york/living in new york.

i just might be going to art school in new york this fall and was looking at the housing and such and i wanted to know the sort of transportation options i have and how much it would cost. i briefly looked up the method of paying and a site tells me that you can buy tokens/cards/etc. is there maybe a card for students living in new york because looking at that site, it seems that paying for transportation everyday would end up being pretty expensive...

do most people end up walking to school? and are bikes used commonly?

and in case anyone wants to know the school, its parsons the new school for design. most of the housing are around 3-15mins walking distance...

[jeremygordon89]

Well I've been to NY a few times, and all I can say is that subway is the cheapest mode of public transit I've found there, and it is usually 2.00 a trip, but I think you can get an unlimited metro card for a week for 25.00. That would be about 100 dollars a month for the subway. You could walk to places around you, but I guarantee you'll probably want to use the subway often, so getting a metro card is the cheapest option for you that I can think of. Good luck and have fun : ]

[Candy Rain]

Most students at any school in NYC will walk 15 minutes to get places. People who really like walking will walk up to 30 minutes on a regular basis to get places. There are no student discounts on transportation.

My advice would be to figure out how often you will go places that require more than the most you'd be willing to walk. As a student, I had a refillable metrocard, as I never really used the subway often enough to justify buying any of the unlimiteds, be it day trip, weekly, or monthly. When I was working, though, I invested in a monthly pass because I calculated that at the time I only needed to take 15 trips to recoup the cost of the monthly. Prices have changed since then, though, so you're going to have to figure out what best works for you.

The easiest thing to do might be to get a refillable metrocard with a 20$ bill, and after a few weeks, determine whether to invest in any of the unlimited cards (and keeping whatever remains on your original refillable card as a backup if you're in a hurry and your unlimited comes up on the card reader as expired. Just be aware of the expiration date on the refillables - the refillable cards DO expire after a time and any money left on the card goes bye bye as well).

To be honest, though, aside from the rare occasional trip, there's a ton of stuff in walking distance to Parsons. You could easily spend your entire time at school within a 30 minute walking radius and have pretty much every need met: there's a farmer's market, several supermarkets/groceries, clothing stores, doctors, dentists, parks, bars, clubs, movie theaters, bookstores, art supply stores, comic book stores... (I do recommend getting out beyond that once in a while, though.)