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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

#91

Post by nerdponx »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #56

What's most obscene is that no effort is made to compensate for lost trains on partially shutdown express/local lines. The mayor could fix that immediately by just demanding more service on the sections that run rather than forcing everyone into sardine cans. It's pretty clear that MTA is using repairs as an excuse to cut spending on service and are unlikely to ever run it at full capacity. The system carried more pa…

To be fair, the 4/5 between Union Square and 125th St is a sardine can from 7-10 AM and 5-7 PM daily even when they run every 3 minutes or whatever the rush hour gap is.

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

#92

Post by pravda »

L_Rahman wrote: post #71
gggvvh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

He makes a lot more than 80k a year!

He's also getting about another 70k in benefits, for a total compensation well into the 6-figures.

People wonder "why is the subway so filthy?" Well, if you wanted to hire people to keep the subways clean, they would have to be paid $100K+ in total compensation.

Ok, so why not hire a private company to keep subways clean? A private company would be able to pay free-market compensation to hire cleaners.

Can't do that either! Subways must stay filthy!

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

#93

Post by vinay427 »

obmelvin wrote: post #76
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

I can't agree enough. GP should visit a country where if you're killed in a hit and run by a relative of a politician, it's expected that your death will be a suicide and you will receive no compensation. Or even a country where that's a milder event.

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

#95

Post by vinay427 »

dionidium wrote: post #36
zzzzzzzza wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait you paid 3 dollars for an hour of uber? How does that make sense? The minimum wage is way more than that.

Maybe he's saying that he drove himself for $3 in gas (while conveniently ignoring all the other costs of car ownership, not to mention the massive externalities).

It's reasonable that if GP needs and already has a car for other non-commuting purposes (shopping, road trips, etc.) the choice in their specific case is between paying for public transit and only paying for gas to cover the commute.

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

#96

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pravda wrote: post #92
L_Rahman wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He makes a lot more than 80k a year! He's also getting about another 70k in benefits, for a total compensation well into the 6-figures. People wonder "why is the subway so filthy?" Well, if you wanted to hire people to keep the subways clean, they would have to be paid $100K+ in total compensation. Ok, so why not hire a private company to keep subways clean? A private company would be able to pay free-market compensa…

> People wonder "why is the subway so filthy?"

Because we run our system 24/7. We can’t flood our stations with bleach like they do in D.C.

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

#97

Post by oasisbob »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #81

I was riding the NYC Subway a year or two ago, when my brother in law asked me if I noticed anything strange about it. After thinking it through, I realized that I had ridden that exact same subway car in the past. It was a recommissioned car from Toronto! So they're obviously doing something to try and save money. It really made me question my own city's transit system as well. How could NYC make do with something t…

It could make sense if you consider different car series, in the same way that airliners will move between carriers depending on what kinds of fleets they want to run.

Or, old OEM parts.

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

#98

Post by ajmurmann »

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…

In addition to what others have been pointing out, I think the government is also frequently being forced to be penny wise and pound foolish.

I remember reading here a few years ago that one example of this is how writing the proposals for big projects for which construction companies than put offers have to be outsourced because all experts have been fired by the government. This apparently frequently leads to the government getting a much worse deal than anybody else would. I think another thing that happens is that do much oversight gets added that all costs explode. You can't iterate on anything because if the first version isn't perfect it surely was a waste of tax payer money when you need to go back for the next iteration. So you better have several committees and a long proposal process to make sure everything is perfect and no money gets wasted. Great example is the TSA iPad app for random screening selection that was a big topic a few years ago. The app randomly showed a left or right arrow and and cost millions to make if I recall correctly. I think the government being inefficient is somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy.

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

#99

Post by pravda »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #96
pravda wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He makes a lot more than 80k a year! He's also getting about another 70k in benefits, for a total compensation well into the 6-figures. People wonder "why is the subway so filthy?" Well, if you wanted to hire people to keep the subways clean, they would have to be paid $100K+ in total compensation. Ok, so why not hire a private company to keep subways clean? A private company would be able to pay free-market compensa…

> People wonder "why is the subway so filthy?" Because we run our system 24/7. We can’t flood our stations with bleach like they do in D.C.

From the NYT article comments:

"In terms of cleanliness, which is also an issue of public health - why doesn't MTA have a dedicated crew of 4 or 5 people with a power washer, soap and squeegees to move methodically through each station, working on the weekends or overnight? "

Can't have it, because the MTA is not in the moving-people-business, they are in the wealth-transfer-business.

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

#100

Post by dionidium »

vinay427 wrote: post #95
dionidium wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he's saying that he drove himself for $3 in gas (while conveniently ignoring all the other costs of car ownership, not to mention the massive externalities).

It's reasonable that if GP needs and already has a car for other non-commuting purposes (shopping, road trips, etc.) the choice in their specific case is between paying for public transit and only paying for gas to cover the commute.

I understand what you're saying; it's just not a reasonable way to perform a complete or useful cost analysis.
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