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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

#141

Post by StanislavPetrov »

twblalock wrote: post #117
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…

I think it just boils down to American voters either having lower standards or not being willing to punish politicians for incompetence. If the subway service in, say, London or Tokyo or Paris became as bad as some of the systems in the US, it would be a major political scandal and the people running the city would fear for their jobs. That doesn't happen in the US, even in places like New York where a majority of co…

>not being willing to punish politicians for incompetence.

Punish them how? Here in America (and especially New York) we have a "two-party" system that works arm in arm to steal as much money as possible to line their own pockets. Voting for a different party doesn't mean getting a different policy - it simply means that patronage money is going into the pocket of different politically connected cronies.

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

#142

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #102
slg wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the exact type of things that leads to customer complaints. Customers have to be inconvenienced in order to do maintenance on the NYC Subway. In turn the bar to require maintenance will be higher than it is in London. The natural result of years of delayed maintenance is for the system to get worse and worse as time goes on.

I disagree that maintenance is more difficult in London than in New York. I spent about two weeks in London about a decade ago. The first thing that struck me is that when you arrived at the tube station in Heathrow you'd get all sorts of information about which lines were in service that day. In trying to navigate London there was a constant shuffle about which stations or lines were out of service. Plus it took abo…

That is not remotely a representative experience of today’s Tube.

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

#143

Post by dzhiurgis »

taurath wrote: post #35
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…

I honestly don't either. It feels like everything we do costs 10x anywhere else for 10x the time. You would think the cost of building a few light rail lines in a city like Seattle would cost less than a cross-town subway in Japan. In my short life I've never seen America really build anything impressive in transportation - BART, the NYC Subway, the interstate highway system, and most of our airports seem like they w…

Perhaps the litigious nature of US? Everything has to be over-planned, over-provisioned and triple checked with lawyers in case there is a kitten on the rail.

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

#144

Post by golemiprague »

flexie wrote: post #114
notmtaemployee wrote: post #38

The MTA's problems begin and end at a weak senior management unwilling to standup to Cuomo's frivolous micromanagement and a transit union unwilling to modernize. Politicians should be pushing for serious procurement and labor work rule reforms, otherwise the systemic managerial and operational deficiencies will ensure that the deterioration of service we see now will repeat it self in 5 to 10 years, regardless of ho…

When is the last time America built any impressive infrastructure? I'd say in the 70s. Most airports, most of the interstate highway network, most subway systems, bridges, tunnels, and dams were built from the 1930s and on to the 1970s. The railroads are even older. And after that; Silence. It's like you didn't even care to maintain it. First time I arrived in America, I was taken aback by how old and run down everyt…

Because in the mid 60' the immigration laws changed and the leftist thinking took over, the whole protestant hard working American ethos was erased within couple of decades and now America is just another miserable hodgepodge of tribes who can't unite even to decide about transgender toilets let alone have the vision and capacity to run huge infrastructure projects.

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

#145

Post by MagnumOpus »

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.

> It works in Japan

However, it doesn't work in London. There are a dozen train franchises, remnants of the privatized and sliced-up British Rail system. They are all atrocious in service quality, frequency, capacity and usually price when compared to the parts of the system that were never privatised (the Underground) or that were renationalised (the Overground).

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

#146

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

f_allwein wrote: post #118

If I remember correctly, London Underground was similarly run down in the 1980s, which is one of the reasons it was renationalized. This is also debated for commuter trains now: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/11/trains...

London Underground was state-owned in the 80s too.

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

#147

Post by jacobush »

golemiprague wrote: post #144
flexie wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When is the last time America built any impressive infrastructure? I'd say in the 70s. Most airports, most of the interstate highway network, most subway systems, bridges, tunnels, and dams were built from the 1930s and on to the 1970s. The railroads are even older. And after that; Silence. It's like you didn't even care to maintain it. First time I arrived in America, I was taken aback by how old and run down everyt…

Because in the mid 60' the immigration laws changed and the leftist thinking took over, the whole protestant hard working American ethos was erased within couple of decades and now America is just another miserable hodgepodge of tribes who can't unite even to decide about transgender toilets let alone have the vision and capacity to run huge infrastructure projects.

True I guess, except for the part where it was a hodgepodge of tribes before the 60s too? Or am I missing something.

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

#148

Post by leroy_masochist »

beisner wrote: post #73
polymath21 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a native New Yorker I was blown away by the Shenzhen subway when I visited last year.

It's spotless, easy to navigate (lots of language-free signs with really clear intuitive diagrams of where to go), and almost eerily fast and smooth-riding. And 5 bars of LTE the whole time.

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

#149

Post by tialaramex »

masklinn wrote: post #138
notmtaemployee wrote: post #38

The MTA's problems begin and end at a weak senior management unwilling to standup to Cuomo's frivolous micromanagement and a transit union unwilling to modernize. Politicians should be pushing for serious procurement and labor work rule reforms, otherwise the systemic managerial and operational deficiencies will ensure that the deterioration of service we see now will repeat it self in 5 to 10 years, regardless of ho…

> London and Toronto have been able to modernize much of their transit systems in last 5 years and its not because they have more money. Once you fix the top everything else will fall into place. TBF NYC does have the exceptional — almost unique — feature that it runs 24/7.

That's an infrastructure design thing though. You literally can't run the London Underground 24/7 because there's only one pair through the centre for each line, so when you shut a tunnel to send a bunch people in, you can't run the service.

Night Tube (the centre parts of the London Underground running continuously from early Friday to the middle of the night on Sunday) is mostly about re-arranging maintenance and cleaning programmes to avoid Friday and Saturday night closures. They hired a bunch more staff, but there's no infrastructure fix, so still nothing like New York.

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

#150

Post by jacobush »

dmitriid wrote: post #136
flexie wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When is the last time America built any impressive infrastructure? I'd say in the 70s. Most airports, most of the interstate highway network, most subway systems, bridges, tunnels, and dams were built from the 1930s and on to the 1970s. The railroads are even older. And after that; Silence. It's like you didn't even care to maintain it. First time I arrived in America, I was taken aback by how old and run down everyt…

Not only the US. It seems the rest of the world managed to build most of their infrastructure in the 60s and 70s. Now if you look at large infrastructure projects, they are much more expensive, and proceed at a glacial pace. Except in China, of course.

I (half-seriously) blame computers. We can do so much now, with computers! So we do much...

Before, someone drew a line on a map, and that was that. Any problems had to be dealt with downstream.

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