I don’t understand why American governments are so bad at providing public services. Money often isn’t it. The NY subway has an operating budget of $8 billion for about 1.7 billion riders per year ($4.7 per rider per year). The London Tube has an operating budget of (2.2 billion pounds—$3.5 billion pre-Brexit) for 1.4 billion riders ($2.5 per rider). The systems are in extremely similar cities, are almost exactly the same route miles, and are similarly old. Yet NYC’s system costs almost twice as much to run.
How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
21–30 of 319 posts
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#22“17% of the budget is to pay down debt”
Is that bad? The real problem is when you're stuck only paying the interest, and the debt increases. If you were to buy something on your credit card, you're spending most of your money to pay down the debt - but that's not particularly a problem unless you're living above your means. The alternative - to wait until you've accumulated enough cash to build a bus depot - seems kind of a bad idea.
One reason it's bad that MTA is only paying interest is that the transportation world is changing. Autonomy, Uber/Lyft, and other technologies may mean that subways systems like the MTA is in a death spiral where fewer riders means less fare revenue and less ability to even meet interest payments. In places like Washington, DC it looks like the death spiral is well underway.
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#23IMHO the real source of a lot of these problems is that the subway system is a city resource that is primarily payed for by city taxes (and fares of course) but it's actually administered by the state government (which the MTA reports into).
If it was a city controlled thing it would be a huge huge issue in every single mayoral election. But it gets somewhat drowned out in governor elections.
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#24I take the subway almost everyday since the past 7 years and its been getting worse. NYC should learn something from Toronto and London. They have the best subway systems IMHO.
I love Toronto, but its subways (and transit as a whole) need improvement as well. Not just that, council seems hell-bent on throwing 3+ billion dollars down the morass that's the Scarborough extension.
[rant over]
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#25“17% of the budget is to pay down debt”
It depends what interest rate the debt is. Borrowing at the scale of NYC probably gets rates lower than inflation.
> Borrowing at the scale of NYC probably gets rates lower than inflation.
hah. vanguard's VNYTX (NY long term bonds) has historically done better than inflation, and that's after costs and such.
spot checking MTA bonds available on etrade, i'm not seeing anything nearly as low as inflation. (looks like ~4.5%? not a rigorously computed mean.)
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#26I take the subway almost everyday since the past 7 years and its been getting worse. NYC should learn something from Toronto and London. They have the best subway systems IMHO.
Everyone in Toronto loves to complain about the TTC, but the few lines we have here are pretty reliable. We just need to expand the system further. The Eglinton line and the Finch LRT will help.
If you look at the TTC system as a whole it's the streetcar lines that take a lot of flack, but I blame that on:
* General age of the fleet (not helped by Bombardier's delayed deliveries)
* Lack of dedicated streetcar lanes; it's still shocking to me that streetcars packed full of passengers are allowed to be held up by single-passenger vehicles
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#27I don’t understand why American governments are so bad at providing public services. Money often isn’t it. The NY subway has an operating budget of $8 billion for about 1.7 billion riders per year ($4.7 per rider per year). The London Tube has an operating budget of (2.2 billion pounds—$3.5 billion pre-Brexit) for 1.4 billion riders ($2.5 per rider). The systems are in extremely similar cities, are almost exactly the…
Uh, mind sharing where you got those numbers? The budget for TfL I see here says a total operational cost of 10.2 billion pounds (http://content.tfl.gov.uk/transport-for-london-budget-2017-1...)
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that bad? The real problem is when you're stuck only paying the interest, and the debt increases. If you were to buy something on your credit card, you're spending most of your money to pay down the debt - but that's not particularly a problem unless you're living above your means. The alternative - to wait until you've accumulated enough cash to build a bus depot - seems kind of a bad idea.
One reason it's bad that MTA is only paying interest is that the transportation world is changing. Autonomy, Uber/Lyft, and other technologies may mean that subways systems like the MTA is in a death spiral where fewer riders means less fare revenue and less ability to even meet interest payments. In places like Washington, DC it looks like the death spiral is well underway.
I guarantee no amount of self-driving cars, Uber, or any other car-related technology will make people stop taking the subway in New York.
The car bridges and tunnels into and out of Manhattan are at full capacity all day long. It is vastly faster to take the subway in most normal cases.
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#29The MTA is a government mandated monopoly. What they need is free enterprise.
Are you suggesting other companies build their own subways?
A subway seems like a natural monopoly to me.
Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways
#30DC's system is pretty bad too. this morning I had to choose between a 50 minute commute via metro for $4, or a 20 minute Uber ride for $10. I'm so so glad I got the Uber.
Same here it's either $12 for a total commute of 2+ hrs via metro, or $3 to drive for a total of just over an hour.
wait you paid 3 dollars for an hour of uber? How does that make sense? The minimum wage is way more than that.