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The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

nytimes.com

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Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#161

Post by FortuneSheer »

closeparen wrote: post #20
jorblumesea wrote: post #6

I'm confused as to why the US seems to fail or fall so far behind in infrastructure compared to other developed nations. It seems that we throw money at our problems but seemingly get nowhere. It's sad because there's many amazing things about this country, but we cannot do basic things like make trains run on time.

Plundering the funds meant for unsexy long-term projects to fund services well in excess of current tax revenue is extremely good politics. Liberals love sexy new infrastructure and services, conservatives love the relatively low taxes, no one really gives a shit how smoothly public transit will be working in 30 years. It's a reassuring signal that American democracy is working as intended: its results truly reflect…

Second avenue subway comes to mind. Was a bit funny seeing ads for it all over the subway while the QoS was plunging. Cuomo was certainly quick to come to NYC for endless photo ops when it opened. That was funny too considering it was behind schedule, over-budget, and significantly downsized from the original plan.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#162

Post by FortuneSheer »

dmode wrote: post #145
jorblumesea wrote: post #6

I'm confused as to why the US seems to fail or fall so far behind in infrastructure compared to other developed nations. It seems that we throw money at our problems but seemingly get nowhere. It's sad because there's many amazing things about this country, but we cannot do basic things like make trains run on time.

I may be totally wrong, but I believe that the core of the problem is that a lot of infrastructure here is funded by local and regional governments. And they simply don't have the massive funds and resources of a Federal government, which leads to always have to raise funds for a project through a measure and then having to cut corners. Many other nations fund infrastructure projects centrally and that leads to more…

True in general, but the NYC subway has its own set of unique problems so I would exempt your comment as the cause.

Now it could be if the unique issues that are causing problems with the NYC subway were not present, it would still be a disaster due to the problems laid out in your comment.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#163

Post by bradleyjg »

m_ke wrote: post #32
wgerard wrote: post #24

It's interesting seeing the ways people work around this, even for people who don't have hard start/end times (e.g. tech employees). I have one friend who uses Citi Bike to get to important meetings I think people who don't live in the city don't realize how (relatively) stressful it can be when the trains are late. Riding the train during peak hours is already a pretty stressful experience: The sardine analogy is ve…

I just work from home most days now because of how bad it has gotten. I had to move back to Queens a few months ago near where I grew up and the trip to SoHo that used to take at most 45 minutes is now 60-90 min. A few times I was stuck on the E for around 2.5 hours. Living in the outer boroughs has become a huge disadvantage.

The LIRR is more expensive but it may be worth it. You still have to get from Penn to Soho but at least you have line options.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#164

Post by squiggleblaz »

closeparen wrote: post #89
bsder wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The personal car took over America for a reason: it's the fastest and most pleasant way to get around. The personal car took over America because the auto companies waged a campaign to dismantle the transit systems that American cities already had. "Car culture" and "suburbs" are only something that started in the 1950's after the Eisenhower Interstate System got built. And ridesharing is showing that people will g…

>And ridesharing is showing that people will give up a personal car if there is an alternative. Ridesharing is still cars. Whether the steering wheel is operated by you, a robot, or a contractor is irrelevant. Ridesharing takes you directly from door to door in a private, enclosed, climate-controlled bubble. >The personal car took over America because the auto companies waged a campaign to dismantle the transit syste…

The big differences between a private car and a taxi. Is it always available when you need it? Can you leave your stuff in it? If you need to stop for fifteen minutes to conduct an errand, what happens?

From the perspective of the infrastructure required, there's huge differences in parking and land space needed. Taxis have to keep moving, so you need to dedicate more land to vehicle movements (instead of human movements); on the other hand, private cars need somewhere to go to sleep at each destination, so you have to dedicate land to parking instead of more productive use. Considering the massive subsidy to cars in the form of minimum parking requirements, it's a surprise anyone in America does anything other than sitting in a car getting fat.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#165

Post by innocenat »

mschuster91 wrote: post #66
borne0 wrote: post #35

The trains should only run on tracks that are completely enclosed (More control on the environment will realize better reliability, and as an aside nicer living space. Raised tracks are ugly.), Also they should run on rubber wheels like the Montreal metro has since 1966. Both metros should have barrier between platforms and tracks since they know where the doors will open. It's sad but a non-negligible cause of delay…

> Both metros should have barrier between platforms and tracks since they know where the doors will open. This only works for environments with one type of rolling stock only. It's not uncommon that you take a ride in a decades-old train (e.g. the oldest trains in the Munich subway hail from 1971, they are expected to run for essentially over 50 years!), switch lines at a station and end up in a train that rolled off…

Japan accomplished that though. They just use a very wide barrier door, or (still in development) movable barrier.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#166

Post by scarface74 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #149
scarface74 wrote: post #112

Just to put things in perspective. https://www.moneycrashers.com/worst-us-cities-traffic-commut... I've been commuting (by car) for 30-60 minutes one way depending on my job for 20+ years in Atlanta. I didn't realize that a 30 minute commute was considered "bad". It really doesn't bother me. I put on a podcast and enjoy the downtime. I also don't have young kids. When my 15 year old son has to stay late and I can't g…

The idea of spending all weekday hours working and "cherishing" weekends is terrible to me. If I can't go out on any weeknight and enjoy time with friends or family due to having to commute, then I'm looking for a change.

My friends are so disbursed in the metro area we wouldn't even think about trying to deal with the traffic in the evening. I have a group of friends that work close enough together to meet for lunch with proper planning but we wouldn't dare voluntarily deal with evening traffic to meet up.

When I was dating my now wife, we lived in opposite sides of town - 38 miles apart. That's life in a major metro area.

You either live in the burbs where you can get a nice affordable big house or live closer to where the jobs are and live in a shoebox.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#167

Post by squiggleblaz »

seattle_spring wrote: post #71
oh_sigh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't talk like that and you're misrepresenting their viewpoints.

Why don't you enlighten us on what their viewpoints are?

The reason their existence is subsidised by the city is because the city is implementing policies that benefit the city and not the country. Consequently the relative inequality is entrenched.

The country people see that and think, "Well whatever they're axin fer that I can stop - I'll stop that. Maybe then I'll have some influence."

They probably don't see it with quite the same analysis as I've put here, but it's much closer to what's really happening than your rendition.

It's probably necessary that in any developed economy, the cities will do better. But over the last several decades, it seems the problem to any complaint has been "let's just reduce business taxes and increase free trade", which is obviously aggravating to the people who are hurt by those policies. The policies proposed by the left have usually been "let's try to increase the lot of the absolute worst off without affecting the top of the middle", which of course squeezes the people in the middle and makes it easier for them to fall into the worst off category. Moreover it's kinda obvious to everyone that the left is using the resources that traditionally have gone to middle to help the worst off (instead of taking some of the top's excess). So there isn't a clearly pro-systematic way of getting better short of complaint and preventing things. And you get a culture of "us against them, black against white, city against country", rather than "all for one and one for all".

It takes just a moment to look back at everything that's happened over the last couple of decades and realise that this analysis is accessible to the distressed, fair to them, and accounts for the data.

[ed: they're -> their in first sentence]

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#168

Post by Eridrus »

wgerard wrote: post #24

It's interesting seeing the ways people work around this, even for people who don't have hard start/end times (e.g. tech employees). I have one friend who uses Citi Bike to get to important meetings I think people who don't live in the city don't realize how (relatively) stressful it can be when the trains are late. Riding the train during peak hours is already a pretty stressful experience: The sardine analogy is ve…

I live on the F, it's not so bad if you don't have hard start times and can afford to get a car when shit goes real bad. Definitely not something to shrug off for others, but I thinks it's largely a non-issue if you're in tech.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#169

Post by DrScump »

pmiller2 wrote: post #81
cheeze wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber/Lyft? Cab?

Works great, assuming I can get someone to actually take me across the bridge (I had to complain to Lyft about this before), and spend 7-10x as much as BART would cost.

  assuming I can get someone to actually take me across the bridge
That would generally mean the driver would have to eat the entire return trip; Lyft won't pay for that time, mileage, or loss of other fares.

Re: The Subway Is So Late, It’s Making New Yorkers Early

#170

Post by DrScump »

ng12 wrote: post #156
parent5446 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the sole advantages of NYC taxis: they are required by law to take you anywhere within city limits you ask.

Yes, and an NYC cabbie would _never_ willingly ignore a regulation like that.

But there's a legal sanction for doing so; it's a condition of their license.
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