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

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

#281

Post by apaprocki » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

Tyrek wrote: post #238

apaprocki wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The roads are mostly resurfaced on a schedule that has them resurfacing nearly every day of the year. There is just so much more abuse on Manhattan asphalt from large trucks, heavy trucks, cars, construction, etc. that any given individual point can appear run-down, but then look fresh and new as soon as it is cycled through. You don't see many 16m trucks abusing streets in Rome :) http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/mo…

Resurfacing every day of the year is kind of a meaningless metric, though. If the entire resurfacing department is 1 dude, he can be resurfacing every day of the year and only get a (couple?) streets done. The argument there is that the department isn't large enough, which fundamentally impacts the availability of good roads. Trucks are another thing entirely, and I'd be delighted for them to be both taxed at a highe…

Re: Truck taxing, it doesn't have to be a long time -- we just have to not elect idiots. Bloomberg pushed it in 2008, NYC Council voted for it and the NY State Assembly shot it down.

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

#282

Post by Feniks » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #218

Feniks wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes. Every politician in the last 30 years got elected by promising lower taxes. Literally nobody in the US has ever asked: if taxes are cut how will it impact the budget? All people want is lower taxes.

The personal tax rate in the US seems generally on par with the EU. The United States certainly does not present as an outlier by any measure in this aspect. From what I have read, the particular issue around public transit surrounds cultural trends around city population. The middle class left cities in droves after WW2, leaving city budgets starved (I believe the MTA's ridership peaked shortly after WW2 as well). A…

https://www.businessinsider.nl/trump-tax-plan-federal-defici...

Americans are YOLO. Part of me is in awe, there are rules against increasing the deficit and politicians are just wiping their ass with it.

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

#283

Post by apaprocki » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

TheReveller wrote: post #140

slg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

The NY subway is also able to run 24/7 because of redundancies in routes, so they can perform maintenance without the subway stopping. London doesn't have this option.

Worth pointing out that there are redundancies in some routes, not in others. Sincerely, L train rider :)

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

#284

Post by apaprocki » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #122

New York's transport is baffling to me. The lack of a proper subway or special express train option to get quickly to the airports is doubly baffling. I guess the cross-state jurisdiction is one of the issues with Newark, but the AirTrain solution over at JFK is way subpar if compared to other major cities. I've been there twice in a few months and it's simply a disaster. 2.5 hrs by car to get to Newark from Williams…

L train -> 2,3 train -> Penn Station -> Newark in 15 minutes. This is where the plethora of apps out there really help if you're not intimately familiar with these options.

Also, people should not be afraid of the connecting M60 bus when taking the subway en route to LaGuardia.

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

#285

Post by apaprocki » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

mlrtime wrote: post #257

crazygringo wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? From Penn St you take the NJ Transit train to Newark airport, or the LIRR train to Jamaica where you transfer to the AirTrain which brings you to your desired terminal at JFK. LaGuardia doesn't have a train option though. But yeah, taking a car from Newark to Williamburg in the afternoon, I guess you've learned not to do that again. :) NJ Transit is your friend.

From Manhattan, you need to take 3 trains to get to EWR. Subway, Path (NJT), shuttle. LGA: None JFK: Subway,AirtRain Compare this with HKG or LHR, it is pathetic.

I'm very familiar with NYC's options and with LHR. You compare JFK with LHR, not EWR or LGA (I suppose you'd compare EWR to Gatwick and LGA to City). To get to any reasonable business destination in London (City) area, you take Heathrow Express and then transfer to at least 1 or more tube. That is directly analogous to taking the AirTrain to an express train. When I leave my office on 59th & Lex, I walk to the 53rd street subway station and I'm at Terminal 8 in JFK in exactly 50 minutes, consistently. How is that any worse than LHR?

Just like when you're booking a ticket to/from "London", you don't pick Luton if you really mean Heathrow. If my destination was Williamsburg I would pick LGA if at all possible, otherwise JFK. Picking EWR and having to go across the city is not a good plan to start with.

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

#286

Post by lloyd-christmas » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 6:00 PM UTC

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…

I think you're confusing national politics and local politics. DeBlasio has been Mayor for 4 years. The prior 20 years worth of mayors were Republican^. The Governors of New York have been 12 years rep, 12 years dem in that same time period.

^ Bloomberg flipped around parties for convenience of elections. In regards to this topic he would be on the conservative side given that he was constantly butting heads with the transit unions.

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

#287

Post by theYipster » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

The Europe vs US road/rail infrastructure debate is misinformed, woefully tired, and generally meaningless.

It's all state by state, or country by country anyway, and when we are specifically talking subways, it's city by city. It's at the city level that the debate leaves out of consideration the one city that is orders of magnitude above and beyond any other city in the world in terms of complexity and operational performance: Tokyo.

Forget the NY Subway, forget London's Tube, forget the Paris Metro or the Berlin U-Bahn, or the Hong Kong MRT for that matter... Everyone's attention should be focused on really understanding the Tokyo system and how it works.

NYC has 25 services over 20+- lines (depending on how you count.) That doesn't include PATH nor does it include Airtrain or any of the commuter lines that connect to the system and are part of the greater transit network.

Tokyo, when you really look at the whole interconnected system of rapid transit, and not the small part that is arbitrary, and IMHO incorrectly, called the "subway," (referring to the Tokyo Metro and Toei lines generally situated within the Yamanote circle,) you have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of services over hundreds and hundreds of lines...

The fact that all of these lines run on time to the second, with well maintained trains, with well maintained stations, with clear and up-to-date communications, with service focused on the passenger... Tokyo should be the model for the world.

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

#288

Post by apaprocki » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 6:04 PM UTC

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…

It's not rocket science. It's just called CBTC and is what the MTA has on the L train line because it was in comparison built much more recently and is "simpler". You can't stack the old cars close together until they roll out all the CBTC upgrades, which is a massive engineering project. I don't think they're as efficient as they could be, but we shouldn't underestimate the amount of work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications-based_train_con...

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

#289

Post by majos » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #139

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 New York we have a public service union for virtually every public employee. Politicians buy the votes and political support of these unions (and their union members). This means that the average cop, transit worker, prison guard, and members of most other public service unions often make well over $100,000 a year salary (plus massive benefits) with many making upwards of $200,000 a year (with some making far more…

Here's a list for NYC:

http://www.seethroughny.net/payrolls/city-of-new-york

I do wonder how many of these are one-offs -- the cop making 650k (Adrian Schoolcraft) is on a closer look way less egregious than it sounds. He was something of a whistleblower in a way that fellow cops disliked, and this culminated in his house being raided and an involuntary hospital stay; the 650k is a settlement for all that. Daniel Carione is a cop on there for 450k, but that seems to be from a settlement after he was forced onto disability/retirement when he started wearing a hearing aid.

Even so, that list is amazing. Most of the entries are guys clocking a ton of overtime. The organization clearly wants to show public employees are overpaid, but it seems accurate. The NYT has cited them in the past.

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

#290

Post by silverlake » Mon, Nov 20, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #258

zwischenzug wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my experience of the US as well. Not only the state of the roads, but the poor quality of the buildings, and the incredible number of power cuts. It was more reminiscent to me of the third world than the richest country in the world.

>"This was my experience of the US as well. Not only the state of the roads, but the poor quality of the buildings, and the incredible number of power cuts." Power cuts? This comment can not be taken seriously. Power cuts in the US are quite exceptional and generally concern circumstance such natural disasters or a severe heat wave. An "incredible number"? Yeah right.

I know in New Jersey people often lose power after big storms knock trees over power lines. Everyone has a generator. I once lacked power for a week.