Personally, i’ve always found the NYC subway system extremely easy to navigate. It’s certainly a little more complicated than the London Underground, but if you actually take a moment to figure out where you are, where you need to be, and how to get there, then it really isn’t very difficult to find your way around.
Funnily enough, i’ve probably been asked for directions more in New York than in any other city. Despite the fact that i’m not a local, and have never actually lived there, i can usually help the person pretty easily, whether they need a subway line or just walking directions. I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who actually have maps, yet who seem to lack even the most rudimentary map-reading skills. I guess i can understand if you get lost in the mazes of little streets in Chinatown or Tribeca, but if you can’t work out how to get from Lexington and 23rd to 7th and 42nd, then you probably should avoid big cities in the first place.
As far as politeness/rudeness goes, i’ve generally found New Yorkers to be pretty friendly people, and ready to help if asked. They do get a little tetchy with people who dawdle on the sidewalk or in the subway, but as someone who likes to move at a decent speed, i like this attitude. If you want to move slowly, fine, but at least try to stay out of the way of people who need to go places.
As for the OP, maybe this simply betrays the fact that i’m not a NYer, but i often refer to the subway lines by color. There’s a very good reason for that, especially for a large proportion of NYC visitors: while the 1, 2 and 3 all start and finish in very different places (same for the green 4-5-6, blue A-C-E, orange B-D-F-V, etc.), the fact is that each of those lines describes a rather singular course when on the island of Manhattan, which is where most tourists spend their time.
If i need to get from midtown to Greenwich Village, or Chinatown to the Upper East Side, knowing the line color is often good enough, because i don’t need to know which part of Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx is the train’s final destination. If i’m trying to get around in Manhattan, all i need to know, for the most part, is the line color, and then to make sure that i know whether i need a local track, or whether an express is OK.
Of course, numbers become more important if i’m going off the island. I made a trip to Shea Stadium this summer, and knew that i needed the 7 to get there. I know that if i’m visiting my friend in Brooklyn, the L gets me a lot closer to his place than the J-M-Z.
But if referring to the subway by line color is the biggest problem you have in New York, then you must lead a pretty idyllic existence. I think you should just get over it.
