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How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

nytimes.com

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Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#71

Post by L_Rahman »

gggvvh wrote: post #64
specialp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYC subway system started as 3 organizations; only one of which was city owned. I am normally not for privatization but it is probably the only thing that can save the MTA. The NYT points out a lack of funding but really their funding has not dropped tremendously. Politicians do not have the right mindset to run this. Sure Democrats tend to spend more on infrastructure, but then support obscene union contracts. M…

> MTA police make 130k+ Do you actually know a real person who makes that much, or are you just parroting?

My uncle is one of those people who sits in subway booths. He does almost nothing.

He makes 80k a year.

My political ideology is deeply in favor of the working class. I believe in strong worker protections, in the unionization of labor in most industries, and that capital controls a disproportionate amount of wealth and power in this country.

But I must also insist that these costs are unfair and insane.

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#72

Post by mjmahone17 »

Afforess wrote: post #59
rayiner wrote: post #21

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…

Public services are for the working poor, and politicians don't represent the poorer classes. The wealthy and middle class are larger, more dependable blocs, and politicians support policies that favor these two groups. Few in either of these groups use (or want to use) public services like mass transit. So the problem is pretty basic at its core: poor citizens are one of the largest non-voting blocks[1], and so unde…

That’s entirely untrue in NYC: 55% of commuters take public transit. I guarantee you that is not only “the working poor.” And of those who do not, a significant percentage still use the subway a few times a week.

So while this would be a plausible argument outside NYC, it’s a ridiculous one given the parent article.

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#73

Post by beisner »

polymath21 wrote: post #15
victor106 wrote: post #2

I 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.

If you think London is good, wait til you try the subway in big Asian cities like Taipei, Tokyo, or Seoul.

Don’t forget the subway lines in basically every Chinese city! Beijing has overcrowding issues, but Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou all have phenomenal metros.

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#74

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gggvvh wrote: post #64
specialp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYC subway system started as 3 organizations; only one of which was city owned. I am normally not for privatization but it is probably the only thing that can save the MTA. The NYT points out a lack of funding but really their funding has not dropped tremendously. Politicians do not have the right mindset to run this. Sure Democrats tend to spend more on infrastructure, but then support obscene union contracts. M…

> MTA police make 130k+ Do you actually know a real person who makes that much, or are you just parroting?

The average MTA employee made $70 thousand in 2010 [1]. That’s nearly $80 thousand today [2].

In those data, one sees Mr. Arthur Harkin, a Long Island Rail Road conductor, made $195,000. ($220 thousand in 2017 dollars.)

[1] https://www.empirecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MTA-...

[2] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=69.489&year1=2...

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#75

Post by jcranmer »

gggvvh wrote: post #64
specialp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYC subway system started as 3 organizations; only one of which was city owned. I am normally not for privatization but it is probably the only thing that can save the MTA. The NYT points out a lack of funding but really their funding has not dropped tremendously. Politicians do not have the right mindset to run this. Sure Democrats tend to spend more on infrastructure, but then support obscene union contracts. M…

> MTA police make 130k+ Do you actually know a real person who makes that much, or are you just parroting?

I don't doubt that such people exist, but it's definitely not the norm. If you start with a base salary of 70k or so (not terribly unreasonable if you've got seniority), you rack up overtime (usually at 1.5× multiplier), and you work lousy shifts like nights and holidays, making 130k isn't impossible.

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#76

Post by obmelvin »

dzonga wrote: post #34

I have always said America is a rich 3rd world country. The politicians in NY are no different from Mugabe's Zanu PF in Zimbabwe.

While it is bad, it is an insult to people suffering from true 3rd world problems to make that comparison

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#77

Post by slg »

rayiner wrote: post #21

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…

>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.

There is one fundamental difference between the two systems and that is that the London Tube stops service overnight while the New York City Subway remains open 24/7/365. Having a nightly maintenance window of several hours in which they can do preventive maintenance is likely a big factor in keeping costs down. Throw that in with the reduction of labor with limited hours of operation and I bet those two make up a solid portion of the difference in cost per rider.

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#78

Post by mjmahone17 »

AznHisoka wrote: post #46
greggman wrote: post #42

I know this isn't a popular idea but any thoughts on why privatizing them is a bad idea? It works in Japan. There are at least 10 train/subway companies in Tokyo alone. JR, Tokyu, Keikyu, Keio, Odakyu, Eidan, Seibu, Tobu, Toei, Keisei and they seem to be best in class by most measures.

On that same idea, I would love to see private buses replace the subway. There is a large van that takes 15-20 people from Queens to Chinatown that runs everyday 12 hours a day and it costs under $5. Would love to see similar systems for Queens -> Times Square or Brooklyn -> wall street.

Yes, let’s have more deadly, congestion-inducing, loud and smog-producing private buses filling up our streets, rather than making a cheap, electrified mass transit system better.

The Queens to Chinatown bus fills a gap in services from Flushing to Chinatown. If that bus is really transporting multiple subway trains worth of people each day, that in my mind means we ought to build better mass transit between those two places. Not that we should cannibalize our working people-moving infrastructure for something worse.

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#79

Post by Chathamization »

L_Rahman wrote: post #69
Chathamization wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people in London and Toronto care enough to pressure their leaders about this? In my experience it's hard to find people in the U.S. who even bother to pay attention to who has oversight when it comes to transportation (and not just transportation, this is true for a lot of local issues).

I promise you that New Yorkers care about this deeply. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-human-cost-of-subway... Any survey of New Yorkers and government services will tell you how much this matters. The biggest problem is that the New York government at city and state levels is one of the most corrupt, oligarchic and undemocratic organizations in modern society. I cannot begin to describe how broken it is. Her…

> This leaves us with no levers of power over government decisions.

I'm not sure I understand this. Yes, the hand-picked successor will be able to fulfill the rest of the term, but then he's up for re-election. If people were actually outraged about this, they could vote him out the next time there's an election (just like they could have voted out the predecessor that set this process in motion). If people were really upset about corruption, they could have voted Cuomo out for killing the anti-corruption panel when it started to look in to corruption connected to him (IIRC, this happened just a few months before the 2014 primary).

It's hard for me to believe that these things really bother people when they keep voting back in the people who are doing them.

Re: How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

#80

Post by spyspy »

slg wrote: post #77
rayiner wrote: post #21

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…

>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. There is one fundamental difference between the two systems and that is that the London Tube stops service overnight while the New York City Subway remains open 24/7/365. Having a nightly maintenance window of several hours in which they can do preventive ma…

MTA liberally shuts down service for hours/days at a time. I wouldn’t chalk it all up to not having enough time to do maintanence. It was 24/7 back when it was functioning more consistently as well.
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