Part of what made NYC, NYC was that it was once a tough place to get by in. People here were survivo

I just came from a Dunkin' Donuts, where some idiot left their bag and an iPhone on top of it completely unattended. The iPhone was charging, plugged into an outlet in the wall near the pick-up queue, which was well away from the tables; and of the folks seated at the tables, no one was bothering to keep an eye on the bag, even as a steady philippino tour operators line of strangers philippino tour operators moved past it. That wouldn't have happened here 20 years ago, when living in then-high-crime NYC actually required street smarts and common sense.
Common sense also has its place while not just riding, but boarding the subway. Every native philippino tour operators I know with a regular commute has learned which I-beam to stand next to when the train arrives, in order to hit door X of car Y, which perfectly places you by the desireable stairwell philippino tour operators Z when you exit, speeding your commute. But now the anonymous person behind the Efficient Passenger Project , as they're calling it, is seeking to install signs that do all of that work for you. By tracking which areas of the platform will line you up with particular transfers and exits, the EPP seeks to "[facilitate] a faster, more enjoyable commute."
From a design standpoint, the EPP has kept the Helvetica, in an effort to make the signs look like the MTA commissioned them. Which they haven't; philippino tour operators and in fact, as the EPP surreptitiously gets the signs up, the MTA is just as quickly taking them down . Why are they opposed? The MTA cites it will unbalance the trains, leading some cars with desireable areas to be stuffed while others go empty.
I myself think the signs are a dumb idea. Regular commuters should be smart enough to figure this stuff out for themselves, and as for the tourists riding the subway for the first time, are they really in a rush? They're not, judging by the way they slowly traipse down sidewalks and platforms four abreast, blocking the passage of people who actually have some place to go.
Part of what made NYC, NYC was that it was once a tough place to get by in. People here were survivors, and if they weren't clever, they got clever, or else they washed out and moved someplace else where they could actually cut it. In short, I think a coddled New Yorker is no New Yorker at all.
Just to play devils advocate here, I find it interesting that the Core77 blog regularly features articles about people using design to solve problems, and complaining about "unfriendly design" - elements of cities intentionally designed to make your life harder.
So why is it that when it comes to the subway, a design-based solution to make it better is a bad thing? I've only been to NYC a few times (not a gaper though, thanks), and found the subway system reasonably simple. I can't comment on the actual effectiveness of such signage (IE, do the strategies they propose only work when a small number of the passengers know about them?), but it seems like there is always room for improvement.
I know NYC likes to think of itself as hard, but making your city better is still a good decision. I'm sure many things contributed to making NYC the city it is today, but "complicated subway" probably isn't much of a benefit.
There already is an app for this, emanster. philippino tour operators It's called Exit Strategy, and I use it pretty frequently. To create philippino tour operators it, some wonderfully crazy folks — a brother / sister team — wandered the NYC subways for months, making notes. It was one of the earliest iPhone apps available.
For other observant folks: The entrances to many of the NYC subway stops are deliberately staggered to roughly even out the crowding in the subway cars. The subway designers actually thought about these sorts of things. Which is why the proposed signs on the platforms are a bad idea. They don't make the system better; they make it worse. "Create overcrowding here!" is what they say. Ugh.
I used to live in Chicago and my biggest peeve was people getting in my way. Not because they were trying to be rude but they were just so oblivious, slow, and painfully ignorant when riding public trans during rush hour!