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New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

nytimes.com

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Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#81

Post by colinbartlett »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #54
Mythanar wrote: post #39

I highly suspect it is plain cheaper (and more convenient) to just subsidize private car rides for disabled people than making entire transit infrastructure in huge city to account for them. Better yet, take the money that government would otherwise spend on building all the wheelchair accomodations, and just distribute that between wheelchair users. I am sure many of them would prefer that over subway improvements w…

Remember that it's not just people in wheelchairs who benefit from accessibility though. The elderly, injured infirm, people with small children etc. also find accessibility helpful. Modern accessibility policy is focused in a large part around allowing people with accessibility requirement to live as normal a life as possible. It's not going to change overnight, but by making sure that all new construction and refur…

I had very minor foot surgery recently and the first time I went to use the subway it dawned on my how none of my regular stops have elevators. My journey was slow and painful and this was just for a few weeks. I can't imagine having to deal with this frustration daily, even to the point of needing to find an apartment and a job near stops that are accessible.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#82

Post by nkoren »

ufmace wrote: post #72

This article paints a pretty negative view of it, but looking at the numbers, that might not be the case: 425 stations total 92 stations accessible Boston has 53 stations, with "90% wheelchair accessible", sounds like 48 to me. So "lousy" NYC has almost double the number of wheelchair accessible stations as "great" Boston, and 8 times the total number of stations. Sadly, retrofitting more elevators into existing stat…

> So "lousy" NYC has almost double the number of wheelchair accessible stations as "great" Boston, and 8 times the total number of stations.

That's comparing apples to watermelons.

Boston has a population of 650,000; New York, 8.5 million. So in Boston there is one accessible station per 13,500 residents. In New York, one per 92,400 residents. (The total residents per station is much more comparable, at 12.2k and 20k respectively).

This suggests that a more like-for-like basis, New York is roughly 4 to 7 times less accessible than Boston.

Edit: Actually, here's a better way to think about it, which does work a bit more in New York's favor. A variant of Metcalfe's law[1] applies to transport networks, in that the utility of a network is proportional to the total number of journeys that can be taken within it. So Boston has (48^2 - 48)/2 = 1,128 accessible origin/destination pairs, while NYC has 4,186 O/D pairs. So 1.73 accessible O/D pairs per thousand residents in Boston, versus 0.49 in New York.

For an able-bodied resident, Boston provides 2.12 trips per thousand residents, 10.6 trips per thousand residents for NYC. So if you're not in a wheelchair, then NYC is five times better than Boston. But if you are in a wheelchair, then NYC is 3.5 times worse.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#83

Post by Reason077 »

struct wrote: post #22

It's the same situation in London, only about 25% of Underground stations are accessible[1]. This seems to be the cost of old infrastructure - when most of the network was built, accessibility simply wasn't a consideration. Neither was having a decent mobile signal, or air conditioning. Fortunately, we've learned from this and newer systems like the ones in Shanghai and Taiwan seem to be far more accessible. [1] http…

Progress is being made, however. Stations are currently being retrofitted for step-free acccess at the rate of around 30 stations every 5 years.

OK, it'll be many decades before every station is fully accessible at that rate. But progress is being made. The Tube is infrastructure which will likely still be around for decades or centuries to come, so it's worth doing.

TfL's online status tools and journey planner are also pretty good at keeping track of any lift outages, etc, so it's unlikely anyone will turn up to a station to find a broken lift unexpectedly.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#85

Post by Symbiote »

struct wrote: post #22

It's the same situation in London, only about 25% of Underground stations are accessible[1]. This seems to be the cost of old infrastructure - when most of the network was built, accessibility simply wasn't a consideration. Neither was having a decent mobile signal, or air conditioning. Fortunately, we've learned from this and newer systems like the ones in Shanghai and Taiwan seem to be far more accessible. [1] http…

For mobile signal, TfL wanted more money and better cooperation than the mobile networks were willing to provide.

The speed of the upgrade programme was reduced by Johnstone, but is progressing. The three disabled people I know, have organized most of their lives around the parts that have already been upgraded or other transport methods (DLR, trams in Croydon) but still very much appreciate the improvements as they are made to the Underground.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#86

Post by Symbiote »

adregan wrote: post #17
grardb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for how often this happens? I can't find anything specifically about subway pushers in NYC. As far as I can tell, it's a very rare occurrence. That being said, I see fairly high numbers of deaths in general, mainly attributed to suicides and alcohol/drug use. How would this barrier work? Would it withdraw once the train pulled up or something?

Anecdotally: last year I was riding in a train that hit someone who fell onto the tracks because the platform was so crowded. 30 minutes later, one station away, a woman lost both her legs when a train ran them over. When I lived in Tokyo, they put platform guard walls in at many stations. They were about chest high and had sets of doors that would open before the train doors opened, and if we had them in NYC, both o…

In London, they simply close the station entrances (at street level) before it becomes so overcrowded. It can be a daily occurrence, e.g. at rush hour during a month of upgrade work on a particular line.

There is no record of anyone being killed or severely injured through overcrowding.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#87

Post by idreyn »

ufmace wrote: post #72

This article paints a pretty negative view of it, but looking at the numbers, that might not be the case: 425 stations total 92 stations accessible Boston has 53 stations, with "90% wheelchair accessible", sounds like 48 to me. So "lousy" NYC has almost double the number of wheelchair accessible stations as "great" Boston, and 8 times the total number of stations. Sadly, retrofitting more elevators into existing stat…

The author is also ignoring Boston's 70-odd Green Line light rail stations, many of which are not accessible according to the agency's map: http://mbta.com/uploadedimages/Smart_Forms/News,_Events_and_...

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#88

Post by [deleted] »

ufmace wrote: post #72

This article paints a pretty negative view of it, but looking at the numbers, that might not be the case: 425 stations total 92 stations accessible Boston has 53 stations, with "90% wheelchair accessible", sounds like 48 to me. So "lousy" NYC has almost double the number of wheelchair accessible stations as "great" Boston, and 8 times the total number of stations. Sadly, retrofitting more elevators into existing stat…

[deleted]

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#89

Post by Symbiote »

metaphorm wrote: post #65
grardb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for how often this happens? I can't find anything specifically about subway pushers in NYC. As far as I can tell, it's a very rare occurrence. That being said, I see fairly high numbers of deaths in general, mainly attributed to suicides and alcohol/drug use. How would this barrier work? Would it withdraw once the train pulled up or something?

have you ever seen the tube system in London? it's a fully blocking barrier with a set of sliding doors that lines up precisely with the doors of the train cars when they pull in to the station. that's probably the ideal solution, but not practical for New York because the system was never designed with precision stopping points on the platform in mind. there's a margin of error that is at least a meter or so in eith…

Only on the newest part of the newest line, the Jubilee Line Extension. (1999? something like that.)

There are no "platform edge curtain" doors on other lines, even though many other lines also have computer controlled trains. (The "driver" is still there to press a button to start the train, but many lines almost drive themselves.) Although, even on the fully manual lines, the driver is expected to stop the train precisely -- the platforms aren't long enough for inaccuracy.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#90

Post by Symbiote »

refurb wrote: post #77
astrodust wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insanity? That's dirt cheap . Think about how much mechanical complexity goes into each door, how it has multiple motors, servos, linear actuators and such. It has to be safe when closed, and it has to be safe when opened, it can't spontaneously shut in someone's face or pin them in the middle. It needs multiple sensors that can handle being exposed to a lot of wear and tear. It needs to operate for years on end with…

Sorry, but $20K per door is still ridiculous. This is not new technology, automatically operated doors are used in many different settings. It's pure gov't waste to pay that much. It would be wasteful if it was 1/4 that much.

As an example that most automatic doors don't have to deal with, but is essential for railways:

The door must detect a 1-2cm obstruction (e.g. fingers, child's wrist) and be sufficiently weak that a child can pull their hand/wrist free. The door must not prevent a train from departing if only a hem of a skirt/trousers/coat is trapped. They must be strong enough to prevent anyone falling from the train while it is in motion, and must not be able to be forced open between stations.

Otherwise, approximately one person per year will die.

How much would you charge, to make doors to this specification?

And, some time in the next five years, an accident will happen, somewhere in the world. Your next door will need to prevent that situation, too.

[This is the situation in "wealthier" Europe, where it's pretty difficult to die on a train. Other countries may vary.]

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