How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by kingkawn » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:15 PM UTC

I’ve lived in Nyc on and off my entire life. The train’s are completely utterly normal, everyone has just become impatient and whiney. You’ve always had to plan extra time, there’s always been an unmanageable mix of politics, the Unions have always been Riddled with negotiation-PTSD and can’t give an inch anywhere for fear of exploitation, the governor has always siphoned money away to pay for other things, all of this is the same old shit. It’s never gonna be whatever suburban mall everyone is comparing it to, nor will it be like other major urban areas whose transit systems were built decades or half-centuries later.

Chill out and ride the train. It’s a good excuse to be late that nobody can argue with.

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

#202

Post by mgbmtl » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:19 PM UTC

theklub wrote: post #197

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…

Unions have a lot to do with it.

Why?

It always surprised me how few employees there are in busy NY stations. Those that I see always seem busy and exhausted.

In Montreal, there were some newspaper articles about how a few bus/metro drivers make $100k/year by doing a lot of overtime, blaming unions. However, this was an intentional policy from management who consider it more cost-effective to encourage staff to do more overtime, rather than hire more people (who may not have a full workload).

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

#203

Post by bogomipz » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:25 PM UTC

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…

>"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."

Did you read the article? The problems began in the 1995 under Governor George Patakis administration. Cuomo has only been in office for 6 years.

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

#204

Post by michaelhoffman » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:25 PM UTC

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…

And who hires the "weak senior management"? And has the authority to remove them?

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

#205

Post by untog » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:25 PM UTC

kingkawn wrote: post #201

I’ve lived in Nyc on and off my entire life. The train’s are completely utterly normal, everyone has just become impatient and whiney. You’ve always had to plan extra time, there’s always been an unmanageable mix of politics, the Unions have always been Riddled with negotiation-PTSD and can’t give an inch anywhere for fear of exploitation, the governor has always siphoned money away to pay for other things, all of th…

Every piece of data we have disagrees with you. They all show that train reliability has been tanking and on time performance has suffered as a direct result.

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

#206

Post by dzdt » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:27 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #178

Chathamization wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I brought up Cuomo's election in 2014 - let's look at that example. Teachout was running a reformist campaign against Cuomo in the 2014 Democratic primary (and Credico was running as well). Only 594,287 people bothered showing up to vote. Of those showing up to vote, 361,380 voted for Cuomo[1]. In November 2015, there were 5,778,460 registered Democrats in New York[2]. So in 2014, after a fairly serious issue inv…

> only 4% of registered Democrats - four percent! - bothered to show up and vote for someone other than him in the primaries. New York has low turnout because it has a set of laws that serve to disenfranchise voters in ways that other states could only ever dream of. (Yes, people technically have the right to vote, but because of a set of laws which I've described elsewhere, there's no way for them to use these votes…

I am genuinely interested in more details. Any links you can give?

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

#207

Post by briandear » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:30 PM UTC

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…

Not generally like that in mug of Texas. Houston proper has some questionable roads — but that has been due to a series of mayors that are more interested in farmers markets and “pocket parks” than actually doing the dirty work of actually running a city. The state of Texas has great roads. Far better than anything you see in places like NY, NJ or other states with Byzantine labor agreements. I live in France now and the highways here in the south (such as the A7 are extremely good — and generally privately managed (our area is run by Da Vinci) while up near the Dijon area the roads get pretty bad by comparison (highways there are run by a different group,) while in Germany, I was generally unimpressed by the Autobahn — especially driving from Hamburg to Berlin. The southern French autoroutes are luxurious by comparison. Infrastructure in Paris is a bit decayed, especially the RER going to CDG airport, while the PATH train in the NYC area is actually really nice. Florida roads are generally really nice and historically, Louisiana roads were pretty bad — you noticed it immediately crossing from Texas — that was a result of years of the Feds denying federal funding for highways because Louisiana refused to be bullied into a 21 year old drinking age.

The Houston airport is nice — a lot of work done in the 1990s and a lot of renovation done recently funded by United Airlines. SFO is nice too. CDG in Paris is a shithole airport compared to Frankfurt and SFO and Houston. Heathrow seems pretty nice, at least Terminal 2 but they don’t compare to Seoul Incheon airport.

My point is that generalized statements about the American infrastructure aren’t generally fair since the US isn’t a monolithic organization — things vary widely due to local history. Heavily union places like NY and NJ generally have far worse infrastructure than places that aren’t so influenced by corrupt union “machine” politics. When labor bosses and the mafia have material control of infrastructure politics, you are going to have sluggish development. Another problem in New York is that’s you have seemingly dozens of agencies all stepping on each other: you have the City, the Port Authority, the states of NJ and New York, individual boroughs, multiple unions and then the Feds on top of that — and everyone in that chain has to get paid. It’s a mess.

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

#208

Post by joekrill » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:31 PM UTC

kingkawn wrote: post #201

I’ve lived in Nyc on and off my entire life. The train’s are completely utterly normal, everyone has just become impatient and whiney. You’ve always had to plan extra time, there’s always been an unmanageable mix of politics, the Unions have always been Riddled with negotiation-PTSD and can’t give an inch anywhere for fear of exploitation, the governor has always siphoned money away to pay for other things, all of th…

That's an outrageously flawed thought process. Just because it's been that way for a very long time, doesn't mean it's a good thing and that it shouldn't be fixed.

By that logic, a child who has been abused their entire life should be fine with it -- it's "utterly normal" for them. It's always been that way. They just have to plan for the beatings.

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

#209

Post by bogomipz » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:39 PM UTC

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…

>"In the middle of Manhattan some streets were in a state that in Europe you would only witness in the Balkans or in rural areas."

This is complete nonsense.

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

#210

Post by krisdol » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #141

twblalock wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

NYC’s subway system doesn’t see improvement because upstaters are conservative and aren’t going to benefit from it. The wealthy boomer republican districts believe that expanding public transportation into their towns will bring in the undesirable poors, and also oppose allocating funds to projects that don’t benefit them directly.