Rick, the founder of 'Subway Creatures,' told Bored Panda what the passenger culture is like on the New York subway.

"One way to spot a true New Yorker on the subway is to find the person minding their own business and not distracted by anything going on around them," he said.

"They don’t sit under the subway map because they know that’s inviting tourists to stand over them while they try to navigate the city. They don’t clap for the 'Showtime' performers and they know that if there’s an empty subway car, there’s a reason no one’s on it—time to move to the next!"

We also wanted to know whether the 'culture' found in one form of public transport differs from that in another, e.g. subways and buses. Here's what Rick, from 'Subway Creatures,' told us: "A lot of the same people and same etiquette apply to all forms of transportation in NYC."

He continued: "However, the subway is unique in that there are platforms, tunnels, and subway cars which present opportunities for many different 'activities' compared to the buses or ferry. You are much less likely to catch performers, musicians, and weird situations on a crosstown bus—but I’m not saying that doesn’t happen!"

Meanwhile, Rick shared some of his insights about how the Covid-19 pandemic had affected the subway in New York City.

"For a while during the pandemic, the NYC subway system was pretty desolate and people were very wary about traveling places around strangers. That has visibly changed in the last year or so and it’s very obvious that more people are now using it again," he said.

"For some reason, crime has spiked in the subway since the pandemic and that’s another leading cause to why some people refuse to use it these days. It seems more and more people are either walking places or using other means of transportation such as bikes, electric scooters, etc. It’ll be interesting to see if this trend continues in the future."

Look, let’s have a frank chat, Pandas: hygiene is important. Everyone gets sweaty and that’s completely natural, but there’s a limit to how ‘comfortable’ you get on public transport. We draw the line at people taking off their shoes and socks on the subway.

You shouldn’t be going barefoot in places like these! First of all, it’s dirty. Secondly—and more importantly—think of all the other passengers next to you. Some folks stick their stinky, smelly, icky feet into other people’s personal space, and it’s so gross that you don’t need a list like this one to tell you that it’s wrong.

Some passengers go as far as clipping their nails on the tube. Others clean their ears and leave the q-tips for someone else to clean up. Those are definitely worse behaviors than forgetting about your empty bag of crisps. Just… pick up after yourself. Please! Public transport isn’t a public toilet. It’s also not your home where you can do pretty much whatever you want to.

Then you have your ‘classics’ like pretty awful excuses for human beings taking up way too many seats when it’s crowded. This goes beyond not giving up your seat for those who might need it more and enters the territory of So Incredibly Selfish We Can’t Believe Their Parents Didn’t Teach Them Better.

Something that the Covid-19 pandemic should have taught everyone was the importance of personal hygiene, keeping your distance from others, and wearing face masks. Alas! It seems like far from everyone learned those lessons.

And we’re back to where we were before the pandemic: personal space being invaded by people’s feet (socks optional) and clutter friggin everywhere. Behavior like that is making us seriously consider how deep selfishness can actually go. Not everyone is able to respect common-sense boundaries. But to repeat ourselves, common sense ain’t that common.

Researchers led by Christopher Mason, who had done a 2015 study on the microbes found in the New York subway system, discovered that each city had a different microbial makeup. In other words, researchers could predict with a whopping 88% accuracy which city a sample came from. 

The researchers found 748 bacteria and 10,928 viruses that had not been identified at that point. Though the vast majority of these are (probably) of no concern, it suggests that public transport can be the perfect melting pot for the spread and mutation of new illnesses.

However much we might frown at public transport, it’s not all bad. You can use your commute to catch up on various things, browse some memes, or take a break from everything (...or at least that’s what we tell ourselves to hide the fact that we really REALLY hate long commutes and think they’re soul-crushingly evil in a completely mundane way).

Rita Friedman, a career coach, previously told Bored Panda that commutes are literally transitional units of space and time, so a lot of commuters use it “as a break between the responsibilities of home and the responsibilities of work or school.”

“It's the perfect moment to look at pictures of failed cakes or animals making funny faces. It's just nice to have time where nobody is holding you accountable," career coach Rita told Bored Panda that commutes can be relaxing if we choose to take the time to unwind.

According to the career coach, “zoning out” can be very therapeutic during our journey to or from work or our studies. Different people deal with stress in different ways.

"That might be scrolling through social media or half-listening to a podcast. I'll also say some of my best ideas have come to me when I've been staring out a window or at a wall. If work is really taxing, you might find that bringing something on your ride lets you focus away from the distractions of the office—it actually might be a lot easier to knock out a report without a chatty coworker hovering nearby."

Others choose to use their commutes to catch up on their personal communications, focus on managing their work calendars, and just plain get ready for the day or the week ahead. It’s time for prep that can help you instantly get stuck into work or your studies. On the flip side, relaxing during your commute also has its upsides.

"You might also find yourself more productive at work if you spend your commute doing something like reading or playing a strategy game that gets your brain warmed up. If you are actively walking / driving / biking, taking a different route can help shake things up and break up the monotony," the coach said.

"Unless you have a very long commute, it's probably pushing it to try to get into any kind of study or meaningful work that requires a state of flow, but it could be a good time to watch a 5-minute refresher tutorial on a new skill you're working on or to skim through an article your colleagues will also have read."