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‘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’

#221

Post by jandrese »

joncrane wrote: post #16
smilekzs wrote: post #14

Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?

Poor initial implementation combined with fear. The DC Metro used to have a semi-autonomous mode that's been turned off for years since there was a glitch that caused a crash.

The "glitch" was decades of deferred maintenance that left sensors inoperable along the line. Theoretically now that the SafeTrack initiative is complete they should be able to return to semi-autonomous operation, but I doubt it.

I'm not expecting the DC Metro to go autonomous anytime soon either. It's a huge jobs program for inner city residents. Basically a commuter tax for a social program.

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

#223

Post by klodolph »

matt4077 wrote: post #216
klodolph wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those comments that is annoying to respond to because it may be technically correct because the original comment wasn't worded ever so precisely, but we all know that "does not increase safety" is not an absolute statement. You could strap a pillow to your chest and get ready to jump out of an airplane, and I'll say "that won't cushion your fall," but "technically, it will," you argue. Besides--reduced…

Enforcing the speed limit the system is designed for intuitively sounds like very reasonable and effective safety measure, not comparable in any way to your fantasy scenario.

The whole point of having an analogy in the first place is to sacrifice accuracy in order to illustrate a point in a more obvious way. Analogies are often fantasy scenarios. And making arguments about how things “intuitively sound” is a big step into a world of unscientific thinking.

The question here is, “What is the relationship between train speed and safety?” My guess is that the risk has a bathtub curve to it. At low speeds, certain factors dominate, the dangerous effects of reduced capacity. At high speed, other factors dominate, like crashes. This type of curve is found in many different types of systems. This curve exists in automotive traffic, where both high-speed and low-speed drivers are known to be dangerous, and speed limits that are either too high or too low make the road more dangerous. With an actual study, you could try to measure the curve. Perhaps you would find a large, flat area where changes in speed have small or even negligible effects on safety.

Kind of like the negligible effect on safety that wearing a pillow on an airplane would have.

But we don’t know the answer to the actual interesting question, do we? We don’t know what the exact effect of speed on train safety is. We know that train safety is very different from car safety—I was just looking at some statistics comparing them. But here we are, dodging the real question and complaining that an analogy isn’t realistic enough.

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

#224

Post by TheCoelacanth »

himlion wrote: post #206
klodolph wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MTA subway isn't really intercity, unless you think of the boroughs as different cities. Although the express trains should be able to go much faster than they do, like the A from 59 St to 125 St, which takes ~8 minutes for 5.3 km even though there are no stops and no other trains on the track. This kind of thing makes a huge impact on the quality of life for people living in the city.

For intercity trains in the Netherlands some stops are only kilometers apart as well. 50 kilometers between stops would be the absolute maximum.

Many of the subway stops in Manhattan are only hundreds of meters apart, so it is still an order of magnitude of difference.

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

#225

Post by timje1 »

davedx wrote: post #185
njarboe wrote: post #44

This 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 go…

Wow. In the Netherlands, intercity trains can go up to 135 km/h (83 mph), and they’ve successfully increased the frequency of these trains on some lines this year. Suffice to say with Dutch population density, the train network is also quite dense. Quite an achievement I think.

A closer parallel might be the London Underground, that manages 55-60mph.

The new Elizabeth line is apparently going to go up to 90 miles per hour, but that is probably only for when the train leaves London and heads out to neighbouring towns (it's essentially a subway line that also connects commuter towns to London).

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

#226

Post by bluGill »

gsnedders wrote: post #52
bluGill wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), it would still be hundreds of thousands of dollars per train to make it fit the New York trains. What? Alstom, Ansaldo STS, Bombardier, Siemens, and Thales all have off-the-shelf designs that they will happily sell. And I've probably forgotten some here. I realise none of these are American companies, and "Buy American" i…

I semi stand corrected. Only semi because even if you buy those system isn't isn't a plug and play effort to make them work.

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

#227

Post by bogomipz »

CPLX wrote: post #213
bogomipz wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and that's also a huge structural problem. The LIRR, the Metro North and NYC Subway system are completely independent lines, with completely separate payment systems, completely separate citizens as their majority riderships and they don't share any tracks. They are completely separate concerns - the LIRR and Metro North serves the commuter belt people that most likely have a car or two in the driveway. The NYC S…

This comment doesn't really make sense. There are people that never fly on airplanes but still vote for Federal officials who manage the FAA. There are people in NYC who vote for Federal officials that administer cattle grazing. So what? If anything the problem with regional transit systems in the US is that they are far too provincial and federated, leading to all sorts of overlapping and wasteful things. For exampl…

>"There are people that never fly on airplanes but still vote for Federal officials who manage the FAA. There are people in NYC who vote for Federal officials that administer cattle grazing. So what?"

Yes exactly those people vote in those instances. The key word being vote - i.e they have a say and can research the candidate before casting a ballot. The context here is positions where people CAN'T vote because those MTA board positions are political appointees. Ir'a apples and oranges. Your comparison makes no sense.

>"Or stuff like how they didn't bother to connect the 4/5/6 line to the PATH system during WTC reconstruction despite the fact that they are compatible"

Except you are wrong those are actually connected via the Dey Street Concourse. See:

https://www.metro.us/new-york/mta-to-open-passage-connecting...

>"The idea that separating LIRR from Metro North from the Subway and creating yet another set of competing bureaucracies is going to somehow help things is delusional, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how NYC area politics works."

No its quite simple, if infrastructure passes through multiple counties its under the purview of a state agency. I its infrastructure that falls within a single county or just the 5 boroughs then it should be a city specific agency.

Lastly I have actually worked in NYC politics so I'm pretty sure I have a firm grasp of how NYC politics works.

It's interesting that you choose to make statements like that without knowing anything about a person's professional background. So an opinion contrary to your own constitutes delusion and indicates that someone misunderstand how things work? Is that correct? That seems like a pretty fool-proof prescription for an echo chamber.

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

#228

Post by mistermann »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #173
mistermann wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No benevolent dictatorship has ever existed. It is hard to imagine how it could exist; it seems that corruption is such a natural and apparently reasonable behavior that we will always see it. Your a theoretical should be discarded.

Do you believe it is possible for outcomes to vary under different forms of government?

It's interesting how many people on HN seem to believe they are fortune tellers and mind readers now. Personally, I am speculating, but it sounds like all you guys know that I'm wrong.

I've continued to be mostly right for the last decade, I think I'm going to stick with my predictions rather than those of people who don't take too kindly to disagreement.

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

#229

Post by bobthepanda »

bogomipz wrote: post #211
CPLX wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MTA isn't just the subways it's the regional rail and transit system too, including Metro North, LIRR, and so on. It's not obviously irrational for all the constituent counties to be involved.

Yes and that's also a huge structural problem. The LIRR, the Metro North and NYC Subway system are completely independent lines, with completely separate payment systems, completely separate citizens as their majority riderships and they don't share any tracks. They are completely separate concerns - the LIRR and Metro North serves the commuter belt people that most likely have a car or two in the driveway. The NYC S…

The question is whether or not it has to be this way. Short of politics there is no reason that the LIRR and Metro-North could not also work for intra-city or intra-regional travel; in fact, many umbrella organizations contain merged separate railroads for exactly this purpose (STIF operates the Paris RER, Berlin's BVG operates the S-Bahn, TfL operates the Overground and TfL Rail, etc.)

Without the regional integration, we would probably never get things like the Freedom Ticket; utilizing commuter rail lines as de facto subways, even premium ones, is much preferable to the much more expensive option of duplicating existing corridors.

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

#230

Post by CPLX »

bogomipz wrote: post #227
CPLX wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment doesn't really make sense. There are people that never fly on airplanes but still vote for Federal officials who manage the FAA. There are people in NYC who vote for Federal officials that administer cattle grazing. So what? If anything the problem with regional transit systems in the US is that they are far too provincial and federated, leading to all sorts of overlapping and wasteful things. For exampl…

>"There are people that never fly on airplanes but still vote for Federal officials who manage the FAA. There are people in NYC who vote for Federal officials that administer cattle grazing. So what?" Yes exactly those people vote in those instances. The key word being vote - i.e they have a say and can research the candidate before casting a ballot. The context here is positions where people CAN'T vote because those…

> Yes exactly those people vote in those instances. The key word being vote - i.e they have a say and can research the candidate before casting a ballot. The context here is positions where people CAN'T vote because those MTA board positions are political appointees. Ir'a apples and oranges. Your comparison makes no sense.

That's flatly untrue. People don't vote for FAA administrators or USDA policymakers, they vote for representatives who pick civil service people and so on. The MTA governance isn't strange or unusual, that's my point.

> Except you are wrong those are actually connected via the Dey Street Concourse.

Well yes, the lines are connected if you get out of the train and walk. By that definition all transit lines in the country are connected.

But we could have had a subway that runs from Grand Central to Newark: https://newyorkyimby.com/2014/09/the-port-authoritys-missed-...

I mean in Europe they can figure out how to run fast trains through three countries in an hour or two. But I have to transfer three times to get to the airport. Our way of doing this sucks.

> No its quite simple, if infrastructure passes through multiple counties its under the purview of a state agency. I its infrastructure that falls within a single county or just the 5 boroughs then it should be a city specific agency.

But.... what if you don't want the infrastructure to just fall within a single jurisdiction. That's the entire point I'm making. I want transportation infrastructure to be planned out and integrated on a larger scale. I want to consolidate the various agencies. Having MTA and PA and Amtrak and NYC DOT and NYS DOT and NJ DOT and so on makes for insane schizophrenic policy. Your idea that the subways and regional rails should be split into separate agencies makes that worse not better.

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