Ugh. Terrible traffic on BQE. Definitely missing my flight to San Diego.

— John Carney (@carney) February 13, 2013

There's nothing I hate more than being stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, losing minutes and the probability of catching my flight.

— felix salmon (@felixsalmon) January 31, 2013

There's an epidemic of smart people messing up their travel plans. (To be fair, Felix was not in NYC during that tweet, but he did ask "Is there a good guide for how long it takes to drive from Manhattan to JFK at various times of day/week?" the other day.) Yes, New York City [...]

This weekend the Times travel section wrote about frequent flier security programs, including TSA PreCheck—or, as the government likes to call it, TSA Pre✓™. Mostly it was just speculation from the writer: "I’m anticipating an expedited stroll through a special security checkpoint." Oh honey! Well, let me tell you about that expedited stroll, as a bona fide government-approved flying person who has now strolled security more expeditiously than can be believed.

A column that compares different aspects of New York City to cities elsewhere. For this installment, we asked Alexander Basek and Paul Brady to weigh in. Alexander is a co-founder of the travel planning service Fortnighter. Paul is an editor at Huffington Post Travel. They both could point out the differences between an Airbus 320 and a Boeing 737, but they won’t because you don’t care that much.

Paul: Before we get into the whole New York v. The World debate, shouldn't we talk about which one of the airports that serve New York best represents the city? A lot of people gloss over the fact that [...]

Trouble. It’s out there. Sometimes you find it; sometimes it finds you.

I first met Edward T. Hall III last October at TEDxGotham, one of those independent TED offshoots that spring up around the world. A friend had invited me to attend her presentation on social robotics. Edward—Ted to his friends—distinguished himself from the rest of the speakers by reading a poem on the steps of Cooper Union after the event.

As the poem concluded, he wept openly, tears streaking his cheeks between long locks of hair. There’s a special kind of person who can authentically cry in public, bridging the gap between goony political [...]

There are those who say that leaving ironic product reviews on Amazon is proof that we have ultimately failed in our haphazard pursuit of a higher purpose, but those people would be wrong. What was Jonathan Swift's famous op-ed about eating dead Irish babies if not a proto-Amazon review done in irony? Is the Book of Revelation anything more than a parody of Roman imperial politics and luxury obsession? Anyway, here's a Playmobil playset that Amazon doesn't even sell, and the Freedom Writers are leaving some very biting fake reviews that are probably really more about their unhappiness with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

Not long ago, I got a letter from my airline of choice, explaining that they'd partnered with the fine people in the U.S. government to help prevent terrorism faster. If you've spotted people at airports being whisked into a special line, where they don't have to take off their shoes, don't have to take out their laptops or even remove their belts, you've already spotted this program in action. The rollout of TSA PreCheck—branded as TSA Pre✓™—started just back in October, with seven airports, including Los Angeles and Miami, and just for American and Delta passengers. Then the TSA announced they'd be including JFK airport—which just happened last week—and then [...]

New York City's airport problem is legendary. JFK is extremely far, LaGuardia is extremely small, and Newark is in New Jersey. (One secret is that in many ways Newark is the best airport for New York—depending! It all always depends.)

Sloppy thinking in New York City might tell you that the best way to go long distances is via cab. You don't have to think, you can see the speed you're making and, you know, you feel like a rich lady. But the transit systems of New York have been improving radically over the last ten years (though the improvements can destroy your weekends!) and now? No one agrees on [...]

Important features in airport seating: The ability to withstand knife attacks, according to the British (of course) airport-seating designer Rodney Kinsman. Kinsman's company OMK tests out its airport seating in courts and prisons ("If they'll survive that, they'll survive anything," he says), and he even brandished a knife and stabbed his seat at a recent airport-design expo in order to prove his designs' ability to withstand his homeland's preferred form of expressing its rage; the scar that resulted from his attack was "barely visible" post-attack, thanks to the strength of his firm's preferred polymers. One would think that this particular feature would be somewhat beside the point in [...]

We have spent a lot of time talking about New York City's airports (down to our obsession with how to get to JFK from Williamsburg). Our experts' surprising summation here was that LaGuardia was secretly the most pleasing airport in New York: "You know what the problems are, but it’s quiet in the evenings, has a cool mural and is still the easiest to reach, all other things being equal. Ultimately, the approach up the East River, with Manhattan out the left side window, is one of the most beautiful in the world, every time." Yeah sure, while that is true, I also particularly like the [...]

• Intimidating track-suited Khazak dad; some facial scarring.

• Estonian snowboarder with extra abrasions.

• Stubbly-hot chunky commuter in a bad grey suit and a reverse ring-tan.

• "His leg hair says he's an adult, but his clothing says he's 15, probably we should look away now, oh Jesus, is that his mother, or a girlfriend, or what, why does everyone under 26 look like a fetus now?"

Man, soon we won't even have those sealed-off cancer boxes to smoke in at airports. Expect already harried travelers to be even more pleasant in the future. (Until, you know, they die off.)