‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by somecontext » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:05 PM UTC

mrbabbage wrote: post #115

stcredzero wrote: post #26

But there is one type of delay that’s gotten exponentially worse during that time: a catchall category blandly titled “insufficient capacity, excess dwell, unknown,” which captures every delay without an obvious cause. This smacks of corruption or of elements of society deciding that systems aren't going to simply work anymore. The population of New York City when I lived in Queens was 7.3 million when I lived there…

NYC's transit mode share for commute trips is above 50% [1]. Of the additional 1.2 million people, this means that this population growth probably produced at least 1.2 million additional daily rides, since 50% of the 1.2 million rides the subway twice a day, to and from work. 1.2 million additional daily riders is about double the entire Washington Metro daily ridership and triple that of BART's daily ridership! Ind…

For some context in case anyone was curious: according to old news articles, the average weekday ridership in 1989 was ~3.7 million rides per day. It is ~5.7 million rides per day now. Ridership in the past few decades has increased faster than the population. One factor cited in some analyses of this phenomenon is the significant decrease in the crime rate relative to the 1980s and 1990s, but that is likely not the only contributor.

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

#142

Post by notriddle » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:18 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #128

bsder wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you agree with the optimization that the man in charge is implementing. If you don't, well, in China, sucks to be you.

It depends. You may not enjoy certain micro-optimizations, but to me it seems perfectly possible that even though living in a communist dictatorship has many negatives, the net benefits under a benevolent dictator could easily surpass the drawbacks, especially when compared to a free but largely corrupt Western society where the benefits may not make it outside the top 10%. And this isn't even getting into the longer…

> benevolent dictator

First of all, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/nov/19/cra...

Second of all, and this is probably something that was brought up in your high school civics class, the advantage of a democracy is that the overall quality of a government will be the average of all of the people in it. Speaking metaphorically, you can roll N dice and average the results together; doing this repeatedly, you'll notice that as N goes up, the resulting averages will follow a normal distribution more and more closely. If you have enough dice, you can assume that you'll hit the middle of the curve most of the time, instead of having to worry that you might roll a 1.

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

#143

Post by gracenotes » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:22 PM UTC

nikanj wrote: 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.

It's worth looking at "for no reason" in greater detail for cars, which is different from those other medical cases in significant ways. We collectively as a society decided that motorization of roads was worth pursuing at the expense of human health and safety, if you look at rhetoric at the time of cars' introduction, in no small part due to input from car manufacturers. This wasn't about driving skills; it was about restructuring all of society to make cars close to the bottom rung, not infrequently at the expense of minority groups. More recently, car-related deaths occur from bad design and usually refusal to fix it until sufficiently many lives have been taken. Any kind of "Vision Zero" which is focused on enforcement rather than infrastructure fixes is bound to fail.

So if "bad things happen to good people for no reason" is unpalatable and it's the narrative for mass transit, and "bad things happen to drivers for reasons in their control" is the easy narrative for cars, I'd say "bad things happen to good people for reasons that are in our control but we still do nothing" is closer to the true narrative for cars, but it is also unpalatable. There is an element of this in many risk-related scenarios, but it is especially clear here.

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

#144

Post by jpatokal » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:26 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #36

ptaipale wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The main cause of the cancellation was political: there were difficulties with the supplier (Siemens) and the price spiralled up to the point where it would never have paid off.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/helsinki...

The Helsinki Metro is also a bit unusual in that it uses Russian wide gauge track (for compatability with the rest of the rail system) but Western tech otherwise, meaning basically everything has to be custom made and is priced accordingly.

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

#145

Post by ant6n » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:40 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #111

voidlogic wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trains used to go up to 55mph with no systemic problems. During the age of steam, express passenger trains regularly exceeded 55 mph. For example, during the 1930s the Burlington Zephyr regularly exceeded 85 mph. For example it made the Chicago to Denver run in 1934 in 13 hours rather than the 18 hrs it takes today. Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/transport/2009/05/stop_th...

Realistically speaking, you are talking about two different use cases here. A long distance train benefits from very high top speeds, because it spends a lot of time at those top speeds. Conversely, increasing the high speed of a subway train is subject to the law of diminishing returns, since the train has to comfortably accelerate and decelerate within the span of half a mile. With subways, the main concern is that…

The "super-express" on the A-train is 5.3km and takes 8 minutes, that's 40km/h average (e.g. half of 55mph, with no intermediate stops).

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

#146

Post by cortesoft » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:43 PM UTC

DiabloD3 wrote: post #62

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The culture of this agency is rotten and its corruption endemic How does one realistically reform something like this?

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

If you fire everyone, wouldn't that stop the trains? I mean, you have to hire new people and get them trained on what to do?

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

#147

Post by vnj23iwe » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:59 PM UTC

DiabloD3 wrote: post #62

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The culture of this agency is rotten and its corruption endemic How does one realistically reform something like this?

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

Fire everyone at Agency A for shitty behavior. Then turn around and realize everyone at Agency B is cooking the books, so fire them. And so on.

Then turn around and realize basically every large institution humans have ever built relies on shady, selfish, behavior and stop caring about reforming individuals since thousands of years of policing have done jack and squat to remove the behavior from the species.

Seriously, this forum is the worst for overlooking relevant variables (human biology and contemporary culture as a whole) for their trite commentary, usually rooted in nothing more than culturally acceptable bullet points.

Hundreds of years of the same sort of thinking. Still happens.

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

#148

Post by taneq » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 12:04 AM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #85

gsnedders wrote: post #70

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.

>If nothing moves, there can be no collision. If no train on the line moves, sure. But stoping just the one train won't improve safety, and was historically the cause of many accidents. I remember just the one in Shanghai in 201x. One train stopped, the following train hit it.

If stopping doesn't fix things, you're not using enough of it. Time for networked emergency brakes on all trains!

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

#149

Post by bogomipz » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 12:30 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #117

bogomipz wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"How does one realistically reform something like this?" Slowly and methodically. For starters: Create legislation that prevents construction firms from making campaign contribution and MTA employees from taking jobs as political consultants. This is probably the largest source of corruption, graft and waste.[1] The MTA's Board of Directors is predominantly controlled by the Governor of the state. The Board of Direc…

The main issue is that the MTA and its predecessors have always been dependent on one person (now the Governor, formerly the Mayor). The actual board members have no credibility and no accountability, hence why we are here today. The MTA would be much better off if the appointed representative of the county was replaced with the actual elected executive of said county (so county executives, borough presidents, mayor/…

It's never been "entirely" dependent of one person, although the majority control seems to be the Governor. Either through his direct 5 seat appointments or indirectly through the 7 other non-NYC seats.

I don't believe it was ever under Mayoral control. The current governance structure came under then Gvernor Nelson Rockefeller.

But anyway Nassau, Suffolk, Westcheste, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, and Putnam counties each get to appoint a board member. That's nearly a third of the 17 total seats. Beside Wescheter and Nassau counties none of those counties even border any one of the 5 boroughs.

That's 5 votes by people who most assuredly do not ride the subway to work and maybe not at all. As such it's hard to believe they would ever have NYC residents best interests at heart.

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

#150

Post by mancerayder » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 12:39 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #74

iooi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Paris has been able to convert an existing line to fully automated (GOA4) and is currently working on a second one. Unions sound more like your personal bogeyman than an actual cause.

Excellent counterpoint, and deserving of greater visibility. London is another example - the transit workers are heavily unionized and regularly go on strike, and yet there've been massive improvements to the Tube, which predates NYC's subway by 50 some odd years. Ever notice how narrow those tubes are, and how deep down they're dug?

To add insult to injury, construction costs for transit are much lower in Paris and London than NYC.

But let's attack the unions again, because that's less complex (and matches a popular and old political narrative) than pointing to systemic incompetence and short term thinking at the administrative level.