161–170 of 176 posts
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Completely agree -- not to mention that the reason it stopped being privately owned in the first place was that the original companies went out of business.
Wasn't there some story about the city prohibiting them from raising fares? I don't have a source though.
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Yes. Most of NYC real estate only exists to support the real luxury units, the top 1-5% with massive profit margins. A great many units are actually built at a loss to support the construction of the penthouses. Such not-luxury units only exist as a result of zoning. Google "poor door" to see the extreme physical manifestation.
That's sound like saying most airline fare exists only to support first class.
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> I found NYC's subway a pleasant improvement. Yet I keep seeing articles about how it needs to be fixed. Decades of underinvestment means that it's not as good today as it was ten years ago, or as good ten years ago as it was a few decades before that. That said, even with all its problems, the NY metro area still has far better and more extensive public transportation than any other metro area in the country. Over…
Living in NYC, I haven't driven a car in 3 years and haven't even renewed my driver license for 2. I still manage to go hiking during summer weekends and skiing during the winter. Accessibility really isn't the issue. I think it's optics more than anything. NYC residents pay a ton in taxes and get little back. Our state taxes get moved upstate and our federal taxes go to poor states. I really think it's just trying t…
Though dated, a 2011 Rockefeller Institute study claimed nyc paid out 5% more than it got back to the rest of the state while the burbs paid out 10% more. Per capita, they claimed nyc paid out $34 more while the burbs paid out $311 more).
Income based financing schemes almost always fail in nonhomogeneous environments to be 'fair.'
I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…
Conversely: tons of people here in Vancouver complain about our equivalent systems (the Skytrain, usually), whereas people I know who've visited from New York are blown away by how clean, fast, and efficient it is. Trains that come every 90 seconds, no garbage on the tracks, bright, open, airy stations (most are above ground on that line). NYC is a model of public transit from the perspective of ubiquity, feasibility…
It's remarkably hard to get reliable numbers on train frequency in subway stations worldwide. However, it is generally believed that the only system in the world that gets headways smaller than 100 seconds/train is the Moscow Metro at 90--95 seconds per train = 38--40 trains per hour (tph), followed by the Jubilee line of the London Underground at 100 seconds/train = 36 tph.
While it's easy to find no shortage of sources that say that SkyTrain in Vancouver can "theoretically" run at 75 seconds/train = 48 tph, the more optimistic figures of its actual peak frequency look like 108 seconds/train = ~33 tph. Some sources I found (including the official schedule) suggest 150 seconds/train = 24 tph.
I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…
Some lines are highly delayed and more congested. I ride a few different lines a few times a month when I do business in the city and Queens. It’s definately not as good as it was at its peak, but isn’t that awful either. Growing up in the 80s, it was dramatically more congested, slower and generally awful. So the tales of impending doom sound like drama to me. NY politics are a carnival atmosphere right now, even by…
I do miss some of the better exterior graffiti of the late 70s/early 80s
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Living in NYC, I haven't driven a car in 3 years and haven't even renewed my driver license for 2. I still manage to go hiking during summer weekends and skiing during the winter. Accessibility really isn't the issue. I think it's optics more than anything. NYC residents pay a ton in taxes and get little back. Our state taxes get moved upstate and our federal taxes go to poor states. I really think it's just trying t…
Not to be flip, but those who live in the nyc (ny) burbs subsidize your mass transit, as do businesses in the burbs. Though dated, a 2011 Rockefeller Institute study claimed nyc paid out 5% more than it got back to the rest of the state while the burbs paid out 10% more. Per capita, they claimed nyc paid out $34 more while the burbs paid out $311 more). Income based financing schemes almost always fail in nonhomogene…
I grew up in Scarsdale, your comments definitely aren't foreign to me.
> those who live in the nyc (ny) burbs subsidize your mass transit
The problem I see with this is that I struggle to consider it "your" mass transit. Both the MTA and Metro North are owned by the state. One of them has 300k daily riders, the other has 5.5m daily riders. 150k of those MN riders end up in the city everyday, so both groups are using state owned products, one group is potentially using BOTH (I always did when I commuted from Westchester to the financial district). The 4 commuter lines combined (NJTransit, PATH, LIRR, Metro North) have 1/3 the total daily ridership of the subway, but get almost double the amount of subsidies from state coffers. Growing up, I can count the number of parents who didn't commute to the city on both hands. Being wealthy enough to live in the suburbs doesn't mean your money is generated there. The median income in Scarsdale is $250k. I doubt that Scarsdale Flowers is the one lifting that average, so the people being taxed for it are the ones who actually use it anyway. I realize this is only one of the suburbs, but it's the one I'm personally familiar with.
> Income based financing schemes almost always fail in nonhomogeneous environments to be 'fair.'
I'm definitely not arguing for it. In fact, I usually argue against it. I'm just pointing out why I think the argument is being made, given that the subway isn't in as bad shape as the news makes it sound.
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Not necessarily disagreeing, but it's important to point out that fixing/upgrading the system comes from the capital budget, and the promises you're describing are paid out of the operating budget. The debt service for the former, is earmarked, by law, from the latter, which clocks in at 16% according to recent figures[0]. And we might have larger capital allocations if there weren't the ongoing and very generous sal…
As long as the existing system is fully funded and properly maintained, there is no pressing need to replace anything. The original signal system worked fine for a century and could continue working fine for another century, as long as maintenance is being done. I would suggest that what the system needs more than the new signal system is expansion; there were actually more transit lines the last time the system had…
I'm not saying you're definitively wrong, because I don't know from where you get your information, but that is simply not what I've heard from every other source. What I've read is that the signal system and the track structure is antiquated[0], equipment dating almost a century old, which is the cause of most delays and prevents safe running of trains at more frequent intervals, and that certain components of the track are so old that no one manufactures their replacements anymore, so the agency cannibalizes out of commission lines for parts. If you've got something to link that suggests otherwise, I'd be glad to read it and expand my horizons.
I don't deny that increasing track coverage with new lines is very important too.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
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Isn't the problem with vancouver's system the lack of coverage? And overcrowding during rush hour?
Yes. The coverage is quite poor and doesn't service certain high traffic areas at all, like UBC. The solution has been to increase bus coverage which can only take you so far. The trains are very popular, and during rush hour there might not be enough room on the train for everyone to get on. The trains come every 3 minutes during peak hours, and less often during non-peak hours, as much as 15 minutes.
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As long as the existing system is fully funded and properly maintained, there is no pressing need to replace anything. The original signal system worked fine for a century and could continue working fine for another century, as long as maintenance is being done. I would suggest that what the system needs more than the new signal system is expansion; there were actually more transit lines the last time the system had…
As long as the existing system is fully funded and properly maintained, there is no pressing need to replace anything. The original signal system worked fine for a century and could continue working fine for another century, as long as maintenance is being done I'm not saying you're definitively wrong, because I don't know from where you get your information, but that is simply not what I've heard from every other so…
What happened in the past few years is that the MTA allowed maintenance schedules to slip, hence the problems.
(Edit: to be clear, yes, there are limits to what the old system can do and modernization can improve a few things. Those shortcomings are not really what is causing the problems that we are experiencing lately. Modern equipment will also require maintenance and will fail when that maintenance is not performed.)