Did you see a higher than average amount of foreign tourists on your train this morning? I sure did.
There was a large group of what sounded like Swedish tourists on one side of me. Then on the other end were a bunch of Germans. There’s definitely no mistaking the German language.
I wonder if this is just a taste of what’s to come this holiday season.
I’m all for the foreign tourists (as long as they keep walking on the sidewalk). Bring us your Euros!
When I noticed that the market opened -300 points this morning, I almost spit my coffee on my computer screen. Way to go bailout.
The European economy is starting to feel the pain of our problem as well. So it makes me wonder if we will see even more tourism than we did last year. With our economy in the crapper, travel should be pretty cheap, right?
Domestic travel is certainly going to be down. People from around the US are definitely not going to fly to New York for a trip, and spend $500 a night on hotel rooms. So those rates will probably drop and get scooped up by international travelers.
And the stores are going to start the holiday insanity sales even earlier this year. So they’ll be here in droves to buy all our Levi Jeans and Reebok sneakers.
Of course, Europeans are fans of mass transit, so they tend to take advantage of the subway. Combine that with more and more Americans leaving their cars at home in favor of mass transit, and we’ve got crowding. It’s going to be “interesting” to see if the system can handle the load.
SUBWAYblogger 
Know what else causes crowding? Late running trains! My train was incredibly late this morning and I couldn’t get a seat…and I get on at the second station from the start of the line! Then they couldn’t open the doors when we got to my stop at 57th Street! We were stuck on the train for 15 minutes as MTA people scrambled to let us off. They took the train out of service and everyone had to get off, of course.
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I forecast less tourism from Europe. The Euro has been plummeting vs. the dollar lately (http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/currencies/currencies.asp). They are even worse off in this crisis than we are.
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@matt: Hey what do I know. I’m no economist.
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Service was terrible this morning. The 4/5/6 had two seperate incidents that completely screwed up traffic for hours. As for tourism, I think SubwayBlogger is correct. The Euro may be falling, but until it’s lower than the dollar, they’re going to come visit. Thank goodness, because the city needs the cash!
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@Todd:Yeah there were lots of issues. There as a fire on E line I believe. And that caused backups on the C. Trains were stopped for while I heard.
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My coworker took the Q today. There were service problems there, then someone got sick and so half the train had to get off. Then some woman fell on her lap when she transferred to the 2 today. Took an hour and a half to get to work, for what should be 45 minutes.
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I was in South Williamsburg about a week ago, and a large group of smoking French tourists politely asked me where Peter Luger’s steak house was.
Of course we were standing right in front of the big brown Peter Luger’s sign on Broadway, so I pointed it to them.
They must have been ready to drop several thousands dollars…
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