[brooklyn and queens by the numbers]

Gothamist has a fascinating post that demonstrates just how closely population density is related to subway access in Brooklyn and Queens. The graphic, unlike the official MTA subway map, is to scale, and it reveals just how much more to Brooklyn and especially Queens there is beyond the reach of the trains.

Most of us who live subway-oriented New York lives have little notion of what exactly is out there in those territories beyond the subway. Who lives there? Where do they work? How do they get around What do the neighborhoods look like?

It also raises the question of what, if anything, the MTA is doing to expand subway service and bring those less densely populated areas into the NYC fold, so to speak. After all, population pressures are intense along the main subway lines, and the whole purpose of the subway from its beginning was to get people out of the overpopulated sections and spread them across the five boroughs.