Live data from Hacker News

‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

villagevoice.com

91–100 of 243 posts

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fire everyone. However, if I remember correctly, they're unionized, which is why this hasn't happened yet.

Doesn't a union make that easier? That's the point of unions.

A union makes it easier to fire workers? What?

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 8 years ago there were a few house ads in the cars that were effectively gaslighting riders. It was one of the craziest things I'd ever seen as a consumer -- borderline antagonistic. The agency, and the workers to some extent, can be pugilistic when criticized. http://cdn.journalism.cuny.edu/blogs.dir/176/files/2010/03/f...

For those of us who aren't familiar with the price history what's the lie here?

The MTA is comparing single-ride fares with "effective" cost per ride of a then-$81 30 day pass, which they amortize over around 70 rides, which is a bit high for the average person in my experience (though not ridiculous).

It might be more accurate to compare the single-ride fare then with the single-ride fare at the time the photo was taken, which was either $2.00 or $2.25 (the price changed in 2009, I think).

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#94
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general principle in railway movement authority is that there's an easy fail safe: stop moving. If nothing moves, there can be no collision. If something goes wrong? Stop the train. You can then figure out what went wrong and address it with no risk. Things shouldn't be going wrong, speeds shouldn't be being exceeded, etc.

Even then you should have some give aka Speed of X+3 MPH break, speed of x+1 MPH warning. You want fault tolerance not simply a hard limit without feedback.

Just a PID speed controller, maybe. Then, some boundary condition where when the controllers inputs mismatched from predicted outputs, then throw an error. But, if you're trying to drive 45, and you achieve 46 with a tail wind it doesn't seem necessary or safer to stop the train.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#95
post #50

Risking 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 aver…

that's weird, the best subway in america is the most unionized one?

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#96
I think the topic of a declining/slowly collapsing society needs serious research. How do you definitively measure if a society is progressing or regressing? If you measure by infrastructure the US probably hit its peak in the 60s and has been declining since then.

https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#97
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So really the answer isn't unions. It's corruption. Unions work in many places in the world.

Per the linked articles, unions are intertwined with the corruption. This wouldn’t be the case if unions were politically touchable. As long as there enough voters who will always say, “unions aren’t the problem”, they will be part of the problem. They get money for nothing and nobody blames them.

Unions get money to fund lawyers to protect their members, and to be able to go on strike. This protection and feedback is essential for preventing companies from taking advantage of their employees.

The increasing inequality in the US can in large part be attributed to corporations winning the war against Unions. Corporations have been ruthless towards this end, including funding think-tanks that gaslight Americans.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#98

I think the topic of a declining/slowly collapsing society needs serious research. How do you definitively measure if a society is progressing or regressing? If you measure by infrastructure the US probably hit its peak in the 60s and has been declining since then. https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

"Progress" seems subjective and political. I posit no definitive measure of progress exists.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#99
post #6

We, 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’

#100
post #53

Single shot timers? Exclusion locks on fixed sections of the track? Modern control systems such as ETCS3 can allocate virtual track segments (moving blocks) to individual trains and adjust the reserved length based on the current speed.

Far easier to install in greenfield (fresh) projects.
Post reply on HN