Originally Posted by
moondog
Bottom line:
-schedule fewer meetings per day
-plan on arriving very early (especially if the meetings are important)
-I am usually quite risk averse with respect to matters like this, but I have finally been burned (and not by a few minutes)
-bring a book
-while taking the subway makes sense in principle, the transfers will ensure that you arrive looking like a hobo
Disclaimer:
-my recent data set is quite limited
-both the rain and the holidays have surely played a major role
Just about everything said above is absolutely true. You simply cannot expect to effectively move about this city quickly without a police escort and a flag flying on the front of your car. I would suggest for important business meetings, setting up ONE meeting for morning and ONE for afternoon. Anything else you can get done over and above that is gravy. Leisure travellers should try to geographically consolidate sightseeing when possible, or at least plan logical linear movement using mass transit.
I'm more skeptical of the last sentence of the Disclaimer. While the rain makes competition for taxis worse, moving efficiently around this city has become fairly impossible under any circumstances, on any day. IMO, the situation has deteriorated markedly since the Olympics.