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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

#161

Post by jpatokal »

dagw wrote: post #151
leroy_masochist wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A thing built 6-10 years ago will always be more modern and less run down than a thing built 60-100 years ago. Time will tell how well the Chinese systems age.

Tokyo's subway turns 90 this year, and while the older stations aren't as flashy as new ones, it remains remarkably efficient & functional.

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

#162

Post by lostboys67 »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #104
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. My two cents: things are more expensive in the United States due to us insisting on being so different in two major ways: 1.) Different safety and road standards. All of Europe, as well as many other countries have completely or partially adopted European r…

From an outsiders view its the extremely devolved nature of the USA that causes a lot of problems. In a more centrally managed country eg France or the UK if there's a major SNAFU like this quite often the tabloids go on rampage and something gets done.

Similarly with Racist Sheriffs and problems with local police forces happen the Home Secretary can sack the senior police officer in charge.

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

#163

Post by pducks32 »

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.

Well go talk to so called leftists and you’ll see we really want to work on infrastructure. While I’m at it I might ask that you reevaluate your opinion on fellow Americans who have different views than you. The ones you see in the news and on twitter are not all of us.

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

#164

Post by danieltillett »

solatic wrote: post #101
L_Rahman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's because people keep voting for Democratic candidates, no matter their performance as incumbents. Why can't people vote for the candidate of a different party? It doesn't have to be Republican. Why isn't there a "Fix the Subway" single-issue party running candidates that people can vote for? The internal machinations of political party membership are only relevant if voters no longer have a de-facto choice on e…

If you have primaries it rally doesn’t matter the label of the candidate that gets elected - the problem really is that too few people bother to get involved at the primary stage and elect new uncorrupt people.

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

#165

Post by tialaramex »

Arnt wrote: post #125
thriftwy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moscow Metro does 40 of trains per hour (doesn't save from sardine can effect tho) so one per 3 minutes is not a hard limit.

The hard limit is a function of stops, layout, train length and acceleration/deceleration ability, and finally the signal system. Each train has to approach a station, brake, stop, wait while people enter and leave, start and accelerate, all at safe distance to the trains in front and behind. Braking, standing still and starting easily add up to a minute, so a two-minute cycle time is hard even if the track layout is…

40tph is rarely achieved in practice, systems which are intended for 40tph usually actually end up running somewhere in the 30-36tph range as it basically just takes one little old lady being a bit slow or one tourist bag stuck in a door to ruin the synchronisation. Still 36tph basically already feels like there are trains "all the time" and passengers learn to just "let it go" as you would with an elevator - you know another one will arrive shorty.

Getting rid of absolute block helps, a moving block system can allow the following train to enter immediately, rather than waiting until the tail of train A leaves the far end of the station before the front of train B can begin moving. But that's not exactly something you can just drop in on a Tuesday afternoon, you'd usually have to shut the whole railway, add new signal technology, re-train staff, maybe even buy new rolling stock.

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

#166

Post by lmm »

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.

Subway systems are a natural monopoly; privatising something when there's no real competition has limited benefits and can be actively harmful if it reduces accountability. It works in Japan because under the keiratsu system nominally private companies are still closely tied to the political system and each other, so they have accountability through that channel.

Also a lot of the value created by a subway shows in land values rather than being captured directly in fares - the article says the MTA is 60% funded by fares which is high but, well, not 100%. You need a mechanism for those who benefit (i.e. owners of buildings near subway stations) to fund the subways. In some countries the transport authority will essentially own large shopping mall complexes around each station and fund the subway that way; in Japan employers often pay for workers' subway tickets.

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

#167

Post by lmm »

thriftwy wrote: post #106
nerdponx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Moscow Metro does 40 of trains per hour (doesn't save from sardine can effect tho) so one per 3 minutes is not a hard limit.

No subway system in the world runs 40tph with western safety standards; the Moscow Metro achieves that rate because they leave it to the passenger to clear the doors before the train departs.

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

#168

Post by ForHackernews »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74
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?

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...

> The average MTA employee made $70 thousand in 2010

So about the same as the average CRUD app developer? This doesn't seem outrageous to me.

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

#169

Post by chimeracoder »

nerdponx wrote: post #90
kenferry wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What opportunity are you referring to?

There was a referendum to hold a constitutional convention which would be able to propose amendments to the state constitution. For some reason I still don't quite understand, labor unions were viciously opposed to it, supposedly because they were afraid of losing their pensions.

> For some reason I still don't quite understand, labor unions were viciously opposed to it, supposedly because they were afraid of losing their pensions

That's the excuse they gave, but the real reason is simple. Labor unions already wield disproportionately massive power over the legislature in NY. Any attempt to reform NY government and hold elected officials more accountable to voters would inherently weaken some of their power, by comparison.

Labor unions don't want voters to have power for the same reason elected officials don't.

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

#170

Post by chimeracoder »

Chathamization wrote: post #79
L_Rahman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 real…

> 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).

Not if they run unopposed in both the primary and general election.

New York election law is incredibly arcane and structurally makes it almost impossible to win a primary without the backing of the party, and the two parties have an agreement not to compete seriously in each other's districts. It's like how Comcast and Time Warner Cable divide up turf, so they don't ever really have to compete for the same customers.

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