In Minneapolis, the mob bought and dismantled a fully functioning streetcar system.
Same forces seem alive and well today. They just chose to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into building a new stadium.
‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
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Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#32Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?
It's already a thing, first example that comes to mind is line 14 in the Paris metro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_M%C3%A9tro_Line_14
Line 1 is even more interesting as it was converted from manually driven operation to fully automated operation without without major interruption to passenger traffic. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_M%C3%A9tro_Line_1)
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#33In Minneapolis, the mob bought and dismantled a fully functioning streetcar system. Same forces seem alive and well today. They just chose to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into building a new stadium.
I am sure those forces still exist, but the will to fix the subways in NYC and expand it in other cities (LA especially) is stronger than ever. White flight is either reversing or wants to reverse, and a group with increasing power wants public transportation.
I wish we built functioning public transportation because its the right thing to do, I'll accept it happening because young professionals demand it.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#34We, collectively, seem to accept car accidents because we think we can avoid them with good driving skills. Train accidents leave us helpless, and we can’t cope with that. The whole concept of ”bad things happen to good people for no reason” is extremely hard to bear. Somehow this reminds me of people who believe the right diet will protect them from cancer, the right prenatal care from birth defects, etc.
I'm not lack of control is the deciding factor here. People still accept car accidents even if they're not the ones driving the car, such as when you're riding a bus.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
More importantly, they used the overcrowding excuse as a means to raise $800mm+ from New York taxpayers. If this capital wasn't necessary given the problems they cited were non-existent, this amounts to fraud.
Well, fraud only if it were deliberately misleading. It seems highly likely that the MTA believes what it is saying, even if it happens to be misguided, and driven by the right motivations.
It is fraud though: they have/had an "other" category, but they called it "overcrowding" and then used the confusion on what overcrowding means to get funds (I'll bet when you hear overcrowding you think too many people not any of the many random things that can go wrong). Maybe it really is overcrowding, but since the category is really other we don't know.
Overcrowding is NOT a misc category, it is a specific situation with a specific definition (the exact definition is something they use should be published so we can decide if we agree with it), with specific training on how to tell if this is really overcrowding as opposed to a failure to get a normal crowd through in time since the solution to the two problems is different.
Other/misc is an import category to have - every system of collecting data needs to have a none of the above because there is always something you didn't think of. What is normally missing is that when other is used there needs to be a text explanation of what happened, and then an investigation to see what should be done. You collect data for things like "medical emergency" because from the category alone everybody understands that the delay is beyond control. When something is misc that means you didn't expect it and need to redesign your procedures so it never happens again. Thus the misc category should be something all operators hate to use: they get sucked into meetings on how do we ensure that it doesn't happen again.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#36Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?
There was an automatic light rail to Docklands in London when I last visited. In 1991. Helsinki metro was planning to have automated trains when the western extension opens in 2014. It opened in late 2017, without automation because of technical difficulties. I have a hard time believing there will be much automated traffic on the roads here (with uneven surfaces, unclear markings, snow, and other traffic) before the…
Docklands opened in 1987 but is only GOA3 (the train runs automatically but requires a staff member responsible for departure & emergency situations).
Port Island Line (Kobe) opened as GOA4 (fully automated) in 1981 followed by Lille Metro in 1983 and Vancouver's SkyTrain in 1985.
The US has several GOA4 systems, though they're mostly airport shuttles and people movers (AeroTrain at Dulles, Monorail at Tampa, STS at Tacoma) a few serve actual communities (DPM, Metromover, Morgantown, Las Vegas Monorail).
> Helsinki metro was planning to have automated trains when the western extension opens in 2014. It opened in late 2017, without automation because of technical difficulties.
Wow, that's a bit ridiculous.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#37Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?
Perhaps unions?
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#38Does anyone know of a source that competently compares costs across different metro systems? Total operating cost per mile, per passenger-mile, et cetera.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#39Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?
Money. The technology is not hard to create, but it does take a bunch of engineers time and effort to design it all (probably a mix of mechanical and computer work), and then more time to buy the equipment and install it. There is nothing off the shelf, even if some other subway gave them all the design (unlikely), it would still be hundreds of thousands of dollars per train to make it fit the New York trains.