the abysmal state of their technology is completely to blame. problems described point to an inability to monitor trains or operators in ways that don't create massive slowdowns as knock-on effects.
‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
41–50 of 243 posts
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#42This would not be the first time that the MTA has willfully deceived the public by maintaining two sets of facts - the private set which reflects the truth and another set of facts that are used in discussion with the public. 15 years ago the MTA was caught maintaining two different sets of books - one internal that showed the agency had a surplus of cash and another set of books for the public which showed the agenc…
> The culture of this agency is rotten and its corruption endemic
How does one realistically reform something like this?
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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's either fraud (deliberate) or incompetence bordering on fraud. They have declining ridership, yet are claiming increasing overcrowding. In either case, probably time to clean house and get rid of the "better safe than sorry" crowd.
If they’re running fewer trains slower, then declining ridership is not incompatible with increased overcrowding.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#44This article has a lot of text before getting to describing the problem.
Summary: Train wreck 1995 and a installation of a safety-first, CYA response that slows down the trains and does not increase safety.
Longer Summary: Train wreck in 1995. Maybe driver was asleep. Start installing new signals that not only automatically stop the trains when there is a train ahead (good idea and already in place), but also when going over 45mph. Trains used to go up to 55mph with no systemic problems. Drivers go even slower than 45mph because the train is automatically stopped when going faster (as you would want to do if there was a train ahead) instead of just giving a warning and letting the train keep going.
As more of the system gets these new signals, more of the system has slower trains. Thus the increase of delays that are labeled generically as "insufficient capacity, excess dwell, unknown" from about 20% of delays in 2012 to about 60% in 2017.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#45Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?
Nothing. Viennas subway has semi autonomous trains since 1960 or so. The driver just presses a “leave station” button after verifying nobody is stuck in the doors.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#46We, 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.
This will be the hardest thing to accept about self-driving cars. If the US goes from 37k auto deaths per year to 1k deaths, but some of those are "my Tesla sped into a brick wall at 200mph with little Susie in it," how many people grab the steering wheel?
[deleted]
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#47We, 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.
This will be the hardest thing to accept about self-driving cars. If the US goes from 37k auto deaths per year to 1k deaths, but some of those are "my Tesla sped into a brick wall at 200mph with little Susie in it," how many people grab the steering wheel?
For Susie parents it's basically: "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#48Risking 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.
> There is nothing off the shelf, even if some other subway gave them all the design (unlikely)
VAL[0] has been a thing since the Lille Metro opened in 1983 and AnsaldoBreda[1] is being deployed all over the world (it's the platform for Honolulu's upcoming HART).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Véhicule_Automatique_Léger
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnsaldoBreda_Driverless_Metro
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#49Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?
Nothing. Viennas subway has semi autonomous trains since 1960 or so. The driver just presses a “leave station” button after verifying nobody is stuck in the doors.
Stockholm metro has this as well but I wouldn't call it "autonomous", it's just a departure button to get the train moving faster. The driver still has to grip the vigilance device after a certain amount of time.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_U-Bahn#Fifth_expansion_... it seems that vienna isn't driverless yet.
Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’
#50Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?
I've said it before [1] and I'll say it again, even if I get downvoted to hell again: Unions
NYC has some of the strongest unions in the country. Everything from hotels to the MTA are plagued by really, really strong unions that only care about their interests -- leaving the city with a shameful transit system, in this case.
Unions make up nearly 25% of workers in NYC[2], that's more than the double the national average. The corruption is rampant[3] and the city is literally powerless against them[4].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14948921
[2] http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20170910/BLOGS01/170909...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/nyregion/carpenters-nyc-u...