GTJ

I am not quite sure I understand what is being asked. If you're asking if all yellow taxis are the same, then the answer is that there are multiple vehicle types of yellow taxis, and only some are accessible for people with disabilities, but the rates are the same for all. If you're asking if there are options other than yellow taxis, then yes, there are multiple options. From JFK, other hired car options include black cars and TNC vehicles, and all require prearrangement through a base station or an app. There are also public transportation options, including several bus routes and the AirTrain system, all of which connect with subways or commuter trains into Manhattan and elsewhere. Might you be asking something else?

A reasonable decision. Some people like arranging their ground transportation in advance. Generally, I find it more troublesome trying to connect with a specific for-hire vehicle and driver--particularly when the time of arrival and checked baggage is not always precise--and it is convenient to simply board a bus or taxi at the airport when ready to do so. No advance reservation, no commitment, ready when you are.

In TLC parlance and generically, these are E-hail Applications. The applications were not designed for reserving transportation at a future time, and the TLC rules generally treat these applications in the same manner as hailing a taxi by hand. Accordingly, just as a potential passenger might hail a taxi by hand, but upon the taxi stopping that person might decide not to ride (perhaps choosing a "better" taxi, a different means of transportation, or just no longer wanting to travel), the same is true for E-hails as noted by the drivers to whom you have spoken. The E-hail Applications were intended to provide a more level playing field for yellow taxi drivers to compete with TNC vehicles. Generally, yellow taxis must not refuse to transport passengers. 35 RCNY 80-20(a). There are a limited number of exceptions to this general rule, one of which is "The Driver has already acknowledged a Hail from another person, and that other person is being picked up or is about to be picked up." 35 RCNY 80-20(b)(2). In other words, if the driver has already acknowledged an E-hail, then that driver can refuse other potential passengers who attempt to hail by hand. I am not certain of the details of yellow taxi Technology System--upon the driver acknowledging an E-hail the available light should be extinguished--but perhaps some others with knowledge here can explain in more detail.

It has lifted slightly over the past hour, and I can now see the apartment buildings across the street. The orange tint has dissipated a bit. But still not good, and our air has now been deemed to be hazardous to all. Everyone should be inside. Weekend events are being cancelled. Airports are having flight delays and cancellations. The Viking Saturn is departing Manhattan today, and over the next few days there will be departures on the Oasis of the Seas (Friday from Bayonne), Liberty of the Seas (Saturday from Bayonne)Celebrity Summit (Sunday from Bayonne), MSC Meraviglia (Sunday from Brooklyn), and Norwegian Joy (Sunday from Manhattan). Not good for the passengers on any of these vessels. Visitors to our city these next few days may want to consider staying in their hotel rooms instead of venturing out.

There are two trains direct from Whittier to the Denali area. Earliest is the McKinley Express, departing Whittier at approximately 7:15 a.m., destined for McKinley station. It carries passengers who will be staying in Talkeetna at the Princess Wilderness Lodge. Next is the Denali Express, departing Whittier at approximately 8:15 a.m., destined for Denali station. It carries passengers who will be staying outside the national park. The McKinley Express uses single level Panorama Dome cars owned by the Alaska Railroad. The Denali Express uses bilevel Ultra Dome cars owned by Princess Cruises and Holland America Line. Both car types have a full dome-type ceiling so as to provide full panoramic scenery viewing. This precludes both car types from have any overhead baggage racks at all. None. Nada. Anything you carry goes under the seats. I would not expect there to be stringent control over carry-on baggage, because there are no regulations mandating baggage to be "stowed during take-off," but there will be reasonable control so as not to infringe on the space of others on the train. Best advice is to limit your carry-on and not expect that all of your baggage will fit. These trains do not have baggage cars. Any baggage not taken on board for under seat storage gets transported by truck on the parallel highway.

The smoke from the fires in Canada is absolutely awful in New York City right now. From my apartment in Flushing, Queens, at 2:00 p.m., it is dark, like an slightly-orange colored heavy fog. Awful smell, and a hazard to be outside. I am sorry for those persons arriving in New York City now for their cruise, as your time here will not be pleasant, with authorities urging people to stay inside. It seems unclear (no pun intend) if things will clear up by this weekend. I have never seen outside as bad as I am seeing it right now. The picture below, from NY1, understates the situation.

No, you cannot call for a yellow cab (lower-case "yellow": it is a descriptive adjective, not the proper name of a company). Yellow taxis are prohibited from taking radio calls. Taxis will transport up to four passengers (three in the back, one up front), but some vehicles have a small trunk. Other taxis use larger vehicles which should be able to accept your baggage. Look for a Toyota Sienna as pictured below.

I would agree to that assertion for most embarkation ports. But for the Alaska one-way cruises, the schedule is more diverse. Only Carnival has arrivals and departures on weekends, while its fifth vessel and all other lines arrive and depart on other days of the week, relatively uniformly distributed (at least at present). Do take a good look at the schedules, for the Alaska timetables are quite distinct from what one sees in Florida. I am not certain I agree entirely with your projection on bus passenger numbers. The largest vessels now carry about 4,000 passengers, so a complete turnover could involve some 8,000 passengers (4,000 arriving passengers and another 4,000 departing passengers). Yes, there's some crew as well, but most should remain in Whittier. If NCL Holdings is building its new terminal in Whittier with the intention of having in Whittier at the same time as Carnival vessels, then you might reach the numbers you're projecting. This then goes back to the question of whether an additional cruise line terminal in Whittier ought to be built at all . . . if the tunnel can handle the traffic from two large cruise vessels in port simultaneously. The observation on bus use of the tunnel, if true, is troubling. As a matter of transportation policy, buses should have priority. But you're suggesting that fire policy take precedence over transportation policy, ordinarily a good setting of policy priorities. Nonetheless, my experience is that emergency response people do have a tendency to assert themselves aggressively, and persuade decision-makers to acquiesce to their worries, even when not rigorously supported with data and analysis. I would consider the number of people transported simultaneously by bus through the Lincoln Tunnel: it handles 650 buses in the peak hour through three tubes with two lanes in each (up to four lanes in the peak direction). At the same time I remain aware of the Caldecott Tunnel fire in 1982 (though that was caused by a tanker truck hitting an automobile, not a passenger bus). So while I am not prepared to make an argument that the bus throughput limitation is excessive, it is something that is difficult without adequate support.

You're thinking of Charlie. Indeed, fare media in Boston are known as CharlieTickets and CharlieCards. The story is that the MTA (the prior subway operator) had instituted a 5-cent charge to exit the subway. Poor Charlie had no money, and for that reason he could not exit from the subway. Anything meaningfully less expensive than a hired car is either walking or using the T. It is a pleasant enough walk along Summer Street and Winter Street, about two miles to Boston Common. If you were to use the T, you would find the silver line immediately outside the Flynn Cruiseport Boston, a.k.a. Black Falcon Cruise Terminal. Change at South Station to the red line (towards Alewife) and alight at Park Street.

At present, Carnival is hosting only its own vessels, which serve Whittier every Saturday, every Sunday, and alternate Wednesdays. The Alaska Marine Highway has its own separate terminal, at which its Prince William Sound service, using the vessel Aurora, visits Whittier every day, being docked for about one hour during the middle of the day; and its Bellingham, Washington, service, using the vessel Kennicott, visits Whittier every two weeks, northbound on Thursday mornings, southbound on Monday evenings, for about three hours (this service is not operating in 2023). NCL Holdings is planning to build its own separate terminal in Whittier, and it seems likely that it would continue the same schedule it now operates at Seward when it opens its new Whittier terminal. That is, every Wednesday and alternate Mondays. The Alaska Marine Highway clearly needs a separate terminal for its operations, as it provides service every day of the week, and needs distinct facilities to load and unload motor vehicles. Its vessels carry fewer passengers than the cruise lines, the Aurora carrying 250 passengers, and the Kennicott carrying 499 passengers. Since passengers using the Alaska Marine Highway are more inclined to travel to and from Whittier by their own motor vehicle--the Aurora can handle approximately 33 twenty-foot vehicles and the Kennicott can handle approximately 67 to 78 twenty-foot vehicles--these vessels will affect tunnel usage disproportionately to the number of passengers carried. Does NCL really need a terminal separate from that used by Carnival? If it is to continue operating its current schedule, then the answer is "yes," as there would be an overlap with both Princess Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises vessels in port simultaneously on alternate Wednesdays. This does mean that there is the potential for stressing tunnel usage on those alternate Wednesdays, though that stress would be mitigated by the fact that the NCL Holdings vessel, Seven Seas Mariner, is small, with only 700 passengers (the Carnival vessel, Sapphire Princess, carries 2,670 passengers). If there were coordination between Carnival and NCL Holdings, then there would be no need for another terminal in Whittier. The Carnival terminal is not used Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, nor on alternate Wednesdays. NCL Holdings could easily fit its schedule into these openings. But I suspect that NCL Holdings does not trust Carnival to provide access for NCL Holdings vessels--they are competitors--so to be safe NCL Holdings is building its own terminal. Perhaps instead of Carnival controlling the facility it was controlled by an independent port authority, there could be assurance of fair usage, and that could obviate the building of a new terminal, at least until another carrier wanted to move to Whittier. Indeed, what will happen when Royal Caribbean Cruises wants to move its operations to Whittier? Their present schedule, to and from Seward, is every Thursday and every Friday. No overlap with either Carnival or NCL Holdings, but would Royal Caribbean Cruises want to the at the mercy of either of those two lines?

Yes, indeed! I believe that the excursion trains operated by the railroad constitute the single largest tourist attraction at this port. From a competitive standpoint, Carnival controls the cards. Passengers on all the cruise lines want to ride the train, and Carnival will certainly take their fares. The interesting question is what would happen if Carnival held back from allowing the other lines from selling its railroad tickets? It could give Carnival an advantage in selling its cruises, being able to advertise that it is the only line able to sell railroad tickets directly. Of course, railroad tickets can be bought be anyone, simply by going to the railroad station and paying for them there. But expecting passengers on other cruise lines to buy tickets directly from the railroad, instead through their cruise line, would be a barrier that would cause a decline in railroad tickets sold; and it would cause more administrative work for the railroad for it to staff its ticket office to sell individual tickets. Well, the railroad might seek to cease being a common carrier, and operate as a private carrier, serving only Carnival cruise line passengers and no walk-up tickets for the general public. (Whether the railroad could get past any carrier regulatory controls is a separate matter.) That would have an even steeper decline in railroad patronage, and would likely amount to a wasting of the railroad's infrastructure (i.e., its right-of-way, track, and equipment). In sum, I think that the highest and best use of the railroad by Carnival is to continue as it is now, selling tickets to its own passengers, authorizing other lines to sell railroad tickets to their passengers, and selling tickets directly to walk-up passengers at the station.

Rarely do I ever rely on hired cars (the last time I did so was about 16 months when requesting a ride through the Uber platform from the Bayonne cruise terminal to the local light rail station). The legal name of the corporation is Continental Radio Dispatch Corp. Be mindful that Continental is not a company that provides transportation. Rather, it is a TLC-licensed base. In other words, Continental arranges for transportation, but does not, itself, provide any transportation. The base is located near the hotel, at 98-02 Astoria Boulevard, in East Elmhurst. The hotel probably suggests calling this base because most of the drivers who take calls from this base are likely located locally, and are more responsive than drivers who take calls from larger city-wide bases. It is difficult to evaluate hired car services because the services are not employees of the bases. You can get a good driver or a bad driver, and drivers jump from one base to another. You can check with the TLC to see if a base is lawafully-licensed: http://data.cityofnewyork.us/Transportation/For-Hire-Vehicles-FHV-Active/8wbx-tsch/data. Continental is licensed by TLC as a base. I see no reason to use, or not to use, Continental with respect for it arranging transportation for you.

No, more coordination must be done by Carnival Corporation divisions in Whittier to avoid divisions within the same organization from stepping on each other's own toes. The Princess Cruises division needs to be helpful to the Holland America Line division, and vice versa. Less effort need be expended in coordinating with outside organizations. No one at Royal Caribbean Cruises would have much concern if it stepped on the toes of NCL Holdings at Seward. And no one at Princess Cruises or Holland America Line is going to do anything helpful in coordinating with NCL Holdings as it prepares to enter Whittier. Indeed, there should be competition between separate organizations, and efforts to coordinate among them could well run afoul of antitrust law. (Where I worked, we would make certain to coordinate among all of our divisions, but we really did not care as much about coordinating with other organizations, only doing so if it were useful to the industry as a whole.)

While public transportation can work well between the airport and hotels in central Charleston, it is not available at the hotels at Patriots Point (absent significant inconvenience), so that is likely not a viable option. The choice of hotel location likely constrains you to a hired vehicle.

The tourism market that supports these types of options is centered in downtown Anchorage. Your hotel is in midtown, which is much more oriented to local commerce than to tourism. Local commercial activity is very auto-centric (wide streets, huge intersections, relatively swift traffic, lots of parking lots) and devoid of much of interest beyond that which most cities possess. Use Google Maps street views and take a look at the car-filled roads and empty sidewalks in this area. The auto-centric culture of this community does not lend itself to a well-developed system of shared ride transport; the existence of Uber is a big plus. From a city planning perspective, it does not surprise me.

I cannot vouch for the present quality of service with the hotel, but I have no reason to believe it does not meet ordinary expectations. It is a busy area for hired transportation--lots of yellow taxis pass through the area--so that type of transportation should not be unduly difficult to arrange. Public transportation from this hotel is doable, but not the best (the Q23 bus begins its route from just outside the hotel, but requires a connection in Corona, Queens, for the subway into Manhattan). There is little commercial or pedestrian activity along the streets immediately outside the hotel, and very few dining choices outside the hotel restaurant, but if all you're seeking is a place to sleep, it should work out fine.

Interesting news article outlining management movements at Carnival Corporation, though I am not completely persuaded that is much more than rearranging the deck chairs by the new corporate CEO. I previously worked as a corporate executive with a large primarily-transportation organization, with multiple brands and groupings, so there is some familiar territory here. Generally, the answer is neither an entirely integrated organization nor fully autonomous divisions, but rather an in-between. For management and oversight of service operations it is usually best to have autonomous control, to hold each divisional chief accountable for operational performance. But where there are identical services being provided (including such matters as purchasing, legal counsel, security, accounting), there are both efficiencies and lowered risks with consolidation. This is what we did, and is likely best as well at Carnival. It is also important that the left hand know what the right hand is doing, even when some tasks are split among divisions. For example, in Alaska both Princess Cruises and Holland America Line are providing service, and even if each is in separate divisions, neither should be competing against each other for sales (instead they should be competing against Royal Caribbean Cruises and NCL Holdings). There is shared infrastructure in Whittier, which must be coordinated. Ground operations in Alaska include regulated motor carrier operations (through Royal Hyway Tours), which must either be conducted jointly with that carrier or face unnecessary proceedings before the Surface Transportation Board. And when negotiating with the Alaska Railroad for the carriage of private cars, a single point of contact is best. In short, HAP Alaska operations should continue as is--as I expect it to continue being--with only with sales and marketing handled by separate divisions. In the larger scheme of things, the separate divisions should not be compete against one another, or chose operating strategies that are adverse to the strategies of other divisions. By having separate reporting lines the divisional chiefs might be tempted to show off how much better they are doing compared to other divisional chiefs, so CEO Josh Weinstein needs to keep on top of things to avoid this internal squabbling possibility. I don't know all that's going on within Carnival Corporation--I am a mere shareholder and not in the C-suite--but I do know it can be complicated.

Just in case you were not already aware, Princess Cruises and Holland America Line are commonly owned; both are part of Carnival Corporation. The ground tour business of both brands is commonly operated as HAP Alaska ("HAP" being the acronym for Holland America Princess). Most of the elements of their ground tours are identical (save, perhaps, how the exterior of some motorcoaches and railcars might be painted). That said, there are some differences as duly noted. Most notably, Princess Cruises, on Saturdays and alternate Wednesdays, uses the Alaska Railroad chartered train between Whittier and McKinley, whereas Holland America Line, on Sundays, uses the same train between Whittier and Anchorage. Thus, the primary difference is whether you have a hotel night outside Talkeetna (near the McKinley train station) with Princess Cruises, or a night in Anchorage with Holland America Line. Do you want to be at a remote hotel far away from anything, or do you want a hotel in the center of a city? This is where I would make my decision. The differences at Denali are minimal and superficial. Both hotels are operated by the company, and are going to have the same quality of service. I would expect that the hotels are used interchangably when demand warrants. Moreover, both hotels handle lots of tour traffic, designed as assembly line hotels. I would be tempted to say that both have the same degree of being authentic "Alaskan" as any mass market facility can have. The main difference between Wednesday and Sunday is that they are different days of the week. The various mass market cruise lines spread their arrivals fairly evenly over the course of the week, so not much a difference otherwise between a Wednesday or Sunday tour start.

The trip is 5 miles. Public transportation is not particularly convenient for this trip, nor is hiring a large vehicle is not particularly cost-effective for this trip. (Very short trips with a large vehicle are almost always going to be very expensive and inefficient.) Not many other collective choices. I recognize that some people cannot be left along and must be attended at all times (e.g., infants, elderly people with dementia). Are there enough chaperones in this family that it is possible that all can survive being separated, in multiple taxis, for ten minutes?

Hopefully you rode on Amtrak more often in the 1970s than in the 1960s. Amtrak was created in 1971. Before then the Delaware and Hudson operated along what is now the Adirondack route. 1964-04-26D&H_systemPTT.pdf

I would not be so certain. While I don't know this hotel specifically, what I see is a Chinatown hotel with a non-functioning website and mixed reviews. It is clearly a budget hotel, and likely has room clerks that are not going to be as capable and professional as one might find in a first class hotel. This may be a good place to stay if saving dollars is important, and unreasonable expectations are avoided. Requesting car service to be arranged from afar is something that I would place in the category of unreasonable expectation. Given that a budget hotel is being sought, I would hesitate to endorse a hired car over public transportation that, as a whole, is fairly convenient. Yes, disruptions more frequently than most people would like, though usually the disruptions are restricted to nights and weekends. But sometimes the disruptions are actually helpful. For me, that includes trains running express, instead of local, providing a quicker trip. For this particular trip I saw that this past weekend the uptown Sixth Avenue trains were operating along Eighth Avenue, so would could travel direct from either Grand Street or East Broadway to 50th Street without having to change trains at West 4th Street. So here, too, the disruption would provide more convenient travel. Again, check the live map when actually raveling to see if there are any relevant disruptions.

As noted above, for price, Queens County, both near the airports and Long Island City, are generally a better choice than Manhattan. Long Island City, is very close, perhaps 30 minutes by either hired vehicle or subway. From LaGuardia Airport, allow about 45 to 60 minutes by hired vehicle. There are some "airport hotels" in central Flushing, from which you could also easily travel to Manhattan (Pennsylvania Station) via Long Island Rail Road in about 20 minutes . . . add another 20 minutes to that getting to the port itself.

Saguenay is not really a single community, but rather an agglomeration of several communities into a single municipal corporation. Cruise vessels arrive in the borough of La Baie, which itself is the merger of the former communities of Bagotville and Port-Alfred. The cruise terminal, the Pavillon des croisières, is in the heart of the Bagotville section of La Baie, and is readily walkable. It is a small community, however, so you might not find a lot within reasonable walking distance. There is a city-wide bus transit system should you elect to travel elsewhere within the city of Saguenay. The largest commercial centres within the city are the boroughs of Chicoutimi and Jonquière. In Sydney, cruise vessels arrive at the Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion. The terminal is on the periphery of the city centre, which is easily walkable. After walking out of the terminal and onto the street, turn right on Esplanade, and walk a few blocks to the commercial centre. The main street in the city centre is Charlotte Street, which is one block further inland from Esplanade. I have been through Shelburne, but by bus, not by cruise vessel. I am not entirely certain where cruise vessels deposit their passengers. There's a few possibilities, some readily walkable, but I will leave this to others for an answer.

This is the former LaGuardia Aiport Hotel, redeisgned by Peter Poon Architects. http://www.newyorkyimby.com/2016/08/former-hotel-getting-new-life-as-six-story-93-key-ibis-styles-hotel-148-key-aloft-hotel-100-33-ditmars-boulevard-east-elmhurst.html

Of course, every public transportation system differs from the others. Does that mean a person living in Chicago who rides the 'L' train regularly would have difficulty riding the subway in New York City? Of course not. And compared to bus and tram (streetcar) systems, subways are generally easier to navigate because of the extensive wayfinding signs posted throughout the system, something that is typically not present for the surface transit systems. Below is a schematic of the Melbourne tram system. There are approximately 160 route miles of tramways in Melbourne, compared to 248 route miles of subways in New York. Are persons who are able to navigate Melbourne trams unable to navigate New York subways? If that were the case, imagine the chaos that would happen if Aussies attempted to drive on American highways . . . American highways are not at all like highway systems in Australia! Yes, scale and details may differ (and above I provided some of those details for the particular journey intended here), but with the basic life skills that all adults should possess, and minimal cognitive ability, there is no problem in using New York's subway.