Earlier this past fall, the MTA announced an experiment in counter-intuitive thinking. To combat trash, the authority announced a two-month, two-station removal of trash cans. A few months into the pilot, the MTA found less trash and no increase of litter at the targeted stations, but the authority isn’t yet to ready to draw concrete conclusions. Instead, as amNew York reported this morning, Transit will expand this program to include more stations and a better public outreach campaign.

According to Transit president Tom Prendergast, the isolated stations do not provide the MTA with enough information on how people are adjusting their trash-related habits. “Two doesn’t give you enough for a sample,” he said. “We’re going to expand it.”

Various stakeholders, though, clearly do not have particularly high hopes for New Yorkers’ abilities to keep things clean. Marc Beja had more:

MTA board member Andrew Albert said he hasn’t been briefed on the new plan, but thinks it might work in lesser-traveled stations. “If it’s really scant usage in the trash cans and apparently no litter around, then that may be a good candidate at the pilot,” Albert said, though he is doubtful straphangers will hold onto their garbage instead of tossing it on the floor.

“That means taking newspapers and used coffee cups and taking them out of the station and searching for another trash can,” Albert said. “I don’t see people doing that.”

An MTA spokesman wouldn’t discuss details of the plan last week, saying they haven’t been finalized…One tweak being made for the MTA program’s expansion — expected as early as this summer — is notifying riders. When the pilot started in October, the MTA quietly removed the bins without telling straphangers. “We need to explain to people what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Prendergast said.

Meanwhile, predictably enough, union officials called upon the MTA to spend more money on their employees who half-heartedly clean stations instead of combating the root of the letter problem. “We’re spending money to change people’s ways?” Derrick Echevarria, the head of the TWU’s Stations Division, said. “Let’s spend money to clean the stations.” Why not both? Or neither? I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument for why the MTA should be in the garbage-removal business as much as they currently are.

As amNY noted, the PATH system, Transit’s counterpart, has no garbage cans and barely any litter. The Port Authority removed trash receptacles under the guise of security, but an initial period of aggressively combating litter has led to a much cleaner system. If Transit is serious about combating litter, rats and the costs associated with keeping the system free from garbage, enforcement will at some point become a necessity.

Just like every subway in the world, New York has a core with branches.

In New York City, we like to think of our subway system as fairly unique. We have no true circle line, and our Outer Borough tendrils snake throughout the city. The amalgamation of old rights-of-ways and three independent builders, the current subway system arose through fate, fortune and good luck. Or so the story goes.

Two pieces making the rounds covering the same academic journal article beg to differ. As both Scientific American and Wired noted today, two scientists using two-dimensional spatial network analysis have determined general rules for any subway system. It’s interesting research, but it’s hardly groundbreaking to those who know urban planning.

Sarah Fecht of Scientific American summarized the “rules”:

First, subway networks can be divided into a core and branches, like a spider with many legs. The “core” typically sits beneath the city’s center, and its stations usually form a ring shape. The branches, which are more linear, extend outward from the core in many directions.

Second, the branches tend to be about twice as long as the width of the core. The wider the core, the longer the branches. And subway systems with more stations tend to have more branches. The number of branches corresponds roughly with the square root of the number of stations.

Last, an average of 20 percent of the stations in the core link two or more subway lines, allowing people to make transfers. [Physicist Marc] Barthelemy says his team does not know which factors are guiding subway networks to follow these general rules; perhaps the rules maximize efficiency. For example, too many branches or connections would be redundant and unnecessarily costly. In contrast, having too few branches would reduce the range of areas that the network services, and having too few connecting points would reduce travel efficiency.

Fecht notes, as an example, that New York City doesn’t have a clearly defined ring core, but even on that point, I beg to differ. It’s a four-train loop that isn’t particularly efficient, but the area constrained by the two IRT lines on the East and West Sides, the L along 14th St. and any of the 53rd, 59th or 42nd St. lines forms a loop around the city’s major work center. Lower Manhattan throws a wrench into this ring, but that’s what makes the city’s subway system works.

That’s neither here nor there though. New York’s subway system still fits under these rules as we have a clear core with branches feeding into that core. The branches are significantly longer than the core itself, and depending upon how you define the core, many of them offer multiple transfer points. Check, check, and check.

Of course, as interesting as this summary is, we’re not really learning anything new here. Subway systems exist to offer a cost-effective and relatively quick way to bring urban dwellers from mostly residential areas into and through the commercial centers. As the commercial centers generally form a core surrounded by other neighborhoods, a subway system will always follow this shape. That’s the whole point.