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New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

nytimes.com

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Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#91

Post by ghaff »

epmaybe wrote: post #54
treyfitty wrote: post #4

I used to take the 456 line on Lexington Ave. back and forth between Home & Work for the past 5 years. In January, the Q line on 86th st. opened, and although it takes me ~10 minutes longer each way, it is a MUCH more pleasant experience. The 456 is a nightmare, and I can tell you first hand, that it is crowded to a point where it is inhumane (imagine people literally fighting for a spot to have the "privilege" to sm…

I live in a much smaller city where my total commute each day is maybe 10 minutes to basically anywhere I need to go. How do you justify the long commutes? Do you pass the time somehow?

In addition to those who don't have reasonable options to move elsewhere for family and many other reasons, NYC (and Manhattan specifically) is filled with people who can't imagine living anywhere else. A lot like the Bay Area in that regard. Even those who live elsewhere (e.g. bedroom communities to the north) often have to take the subway once they reach the city by train.

All of this, by the way, is a topic that's rarely discussed when people are going "build up!" and otherwise densify cities. Without the rest of the infrastructure it's a recipe for complete gridlock.

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#92

Post by zanny »

ablation wrote: post #27

I find it quite shocking how little of the NY subway is automated.

What would incentivize it to do so? Upgrades come effectively from the state, and need to be passed in budgets. So you need to persuade opinionated Albanian politicians to upgrade the NY Metro.

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#93

Post by jdavis703 »

danharaj wrote: post #56
saosebastiao wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the world's oldest subways have solved this problem through the use of specialized technology transition teams whose sole job is to develop minimal downtime solutions to upgrading technology. I'm no expert on these technical teams...I merely know of their existence through my own personal obsessive curiosity about infrastructure. But at least in terms of having relatively modern performance and technology, Pa…

> Give us better management. It's gonna be hard considering how many independent and adversarial managers the NYC subway has.

Can New Yorkers make ballot propositions? If so it might make sense to make the MTA responsible directly to voters who live in the counties that are served by MTA. The current situation where it exists halfway between the governor and mayor seems like a governance structure where everyone can just blame the other person, similar to the governance structure dysfunction plaguing Washington, D.C.'s metro.

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#94

Post by jdavis703 »

kposehn wrote: post #48

The biggest reason for these delays I've found over the years it the signaling system and headway spacing. Blocks on a railway system are designed to provide enough space and warning so that trains do not crash into each other. However, when you use line side signals and CTC (Centralized Train Control) to dispatch them, you end up with a set of rules that create spaces for occupancy that can easily be longer than the…

Can't you also use manual train control during delays? I was once on a badly delayed train (we were second in line to the station behind a train with "police activity"). The operator pulls up to the train that's being held with maybe one inch between the bumpers and let's passengers off through only the front-most door. More creative thinking like this could help alleviate delays and increase passenger happiness.

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#95

Post by jdavis703 »

ghaff wrote: post #91
epmaybe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a much smaller city where my total commute each day is maybe 10 minutes to basically anywhere I need to go. How do you justify the long commutes? Do you pass the time somehow?

In addition to those who don't have reasonable options to move elsewhere for family and many other reasons, NYC (and Manhattan specifically) is filled with people who can't imagine living anywhere else. A lot like the Bay Area in that regard. Even those who live elsewhere (e.g. bedroom communities to the north) often have to take the subway once they reach the city by train. All of this, by the way, is a topic that's…

Cities have multiple tools to handle building more infrastructure as density goes up. There's land value capture which is a tax developers (or new occupants) agree to pay on any excess value created by a transit improvement (i.e. chicken before the egg). Then there are development proffers, which requires developers to pay for certain public improvements (i.e. egg before the chicken).

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#96

Post by jdavis703 »

eric_h wrote: post #16
stuaxo wrote: post #7

Why would it take 50 years to install signalling across the system ? This doesn't sound right at all.

475 stations, 840 miles of track, the signals have to be 'hot patched' as the system still needs to keep running 24/7/365. 50 years might be an over estimate, but projects like these tend to slip their deadlines. [Edit] peterwwillis's answer is much more thorough than mine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14948951

Just implement speed restrictions (say 5 M.P.H.) in block sections that are being upgraded. Sure it's annoying to have your train slow down, but if you're going that slow you don't really need signals, to begin with.

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#97

Post by nidhi549 »

eric_h wrote: post #16
stuaxo wrote: post #7

Why would it take 50 years to install signalling across the system ? This doesn't sound right at all.

475 stations, 840 miles of track, the signals have to be 'hot patched' as the system still needs to keep running 24/7/365. 50 years might be an over estimate, but projects like these tend to slip their deadlines. [Edit] peterwwillis's answer is much more thorough than mine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14948951

Ozrtm

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#98

Post by Symbiote »

jdavis703 wrote: post #94
kposehn wrote: post #48

The biggest reason for these delays I've found over the years it the signaling system and headway spacing. Blocks on a railway system are designed to provide enough space and warning so that trains do not crash into each other. However, when you use line side signals and CTC (Centralized Train Control) to dispatch them, you end up with a set of rules that create spaces for occupancy that can easily be longer than the…

Can't you also use manual train control during delays? I was once on a badly delayed train (we were second in line to the station behind a train with "police activity"). The operator pulls up to the train that's being held with maybe one inch between the bumpers and let's passengers off through only the front-most door. More creative thinking like this could help alleviate delays and increase passenger happiness.

I think overriding the signalling system should only be done in extreme circumstances.

If it becomes normal, it's too easy to make a mistake during the procedure, and cause an accident.

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#99

Post by IshKebab »

chiph wrote: post #68
pavement wrote: post #21

A lot of what affects the NYC subway is the principle of the "Sick System." http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html The system is too essential for a stop-the-world overhaul, but so far gone, that only a stop-the-world overhaul can part the clouds. Without a hard flush of antiquated mission critical infrastructure, millions of turbulent eddies and vortices will ensure that the system is always afflicted by parasi…

Not a New Yorker, but what I heard was that the tunnels only have two tracks, and both are needed for daily operations. So you can't replace one when it wears out because of the service interruption. If they had made the tunnels wide enough for three tracks, they'd have a spare for when they do repairs on one of them. And give them a place to do a rolling-upgrade of old middle-20th century signaling equipment.

Why not just do work on it at night like they do on the tube?

Re: New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

#100

Post by qub1t »

zanny wrote: post #90
lasermike026 wrote: post #67

NYC MTA needs billions of dollars to fix the system. NY state must raise taxes on the rich and deploy it too the MTA. The federal must chip in too. The MTA will never make money and this is how it is.

Where does the misguided notion infrastructure should make a profit even come from? Everyone hates on Amtrak for not being a profitable company. When in history has infrastructure ever existed for the sake of the network operators profit? It is always for the sake of profiting those who use it - the infrastructure enables profits, but in the same way sticking profits into medicine cripples the efficiency of the syste…

Hong Kong has one of the best subway systems in the world and it generates a profit every year [1]. The USPS also generates profits as well [2]. I would argue that the profit motive incentivises efficiency in both of those examples.

The best innovation often happens when working under constraints; often a drive for profit results in better service for everyone using the infrastructure. Of course this isn't the case 100% of the time, like your example of medicine, which is why I think that to get the best of both worlds you need a mix of government regulation with privatized capitalism. But I think it would be incorrect to dismiss the profit incentive entirely as being bad, and probably in the case of US infrastructure we would benefit from more privatization and not the other way around.

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/news/hong-kong-mtr-subway-pr... [2] http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-s...

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