The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation? • Hacker News Board

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#161

Post by setr » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #141

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because only 50% of the money goes towards things you expect it to go toward: labor costs, operations, and maintenance. The other 50% goes to unfunded pensions, debt service, and health care (mostly unfunded). http://interactive.nydailynews.com/project/mta-spending/

Man, it's almost like we could suddenly afford to do a lot of big projects if we just nationalized healthcare and pensions so it wouldn't have to be factored into labor costs.

The cost still exists — you’re just moving it. Instead of factoring it into the labor cost and being part of the money allocating to the particular job, you’d just see lower allocation, and have the same problem.

The only real difference would be that the comparison in funding/cost between equivalent US and EU work would be more fair (also achieved by de-nationalizing healthcare and pensions in the EU).

Unless of course you’re also suggesting that nationalization would reduce global costs, but nothing about this particular thread supports/suggests that

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#162

Post by jeromebaek » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

> There is at least one bright spot: Citi Bike has become an essential part of the city’s fabric. The bike-share system has 12,000 bikes across Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens and recently announced plans to expand under new ownership by the ride-hail company Lyft, which will triple the number of bikes.

Almost a non-sequitur to mention Citi Bikes in particular when there are far more notable examples like Lime. This must be a paid advertisement.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#163

Post by popcorn49 » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #127

hannasanarion wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the thing though: Western cities are increasingly de-prioritizing cars, and Eastern cities are falling behind. There are parts of Phoenix that are more bikable than much of New York. LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle have started pouring money into their new transit systems, while MTA and NJ Transit and Port Authority keep having their budgets cut, leading to reliability so low that it's driving people into c…

Genuine question - what has SF poured money into? What we need here is expanded BART service and electrified Caltrain, unfortunately NIMBYs in Atherton/Palo Alto block that at every move.

Totally agree. In fact, the BART board recently rejected an extension into Livermore, which would have brought down a lot of car trips from the East Bay Area into San Francisco. And a BART train through the South Bay would be great, as would extension to Santa Cruz, Marin, and Napa.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#164

Post by joshAg » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #127

hannasanarion wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the thing though: Western cities are increasingly de-prioritizing cars, and Eastern cities are falling behind. There are parts of Phoenix that are more bikable than much of New York. LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle have started pouring money into their new transit systems, while MTA and NJ Transit and Port Authority keep having their budgets cut, leading to reliability so low that it's driving people into c…

Genuine question - what has SF poured money into? What we need here is expanded BART service and electrified Caltrain, unfortunately NIMBYs in Atherton/Palo Alto block that at every move.

$3.5 Billion into BART in 2016: https://www.bart.gov/better-bart

~$2.0 Billion into caltrain electrification: http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/Caltrain+Modernization+Progra... (page 13)

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#165

Post by chimeracoder » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

raiflip wrote: post #151

chimeracoder wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> eh it's flashier and more fun to build something new than maintain something old. Not to mention people forget that building new stuff means needing to allocate budget to maintain it... This statement may be true, but it's completely irrelevant to the specific problems facing the NYC transit system at the moment.

At least from what I've read, the primary problem have been a lack of financing for maintaining the current system. The subway does need to move to a more advanced signaling system, but there's no reason why the old-fashioned signaling system has to be falling apart.

> At least from what I've read, the primary problem have been a lack of financing for maintaining the current system. The subway does need to move to a more advanced signaling system, but there's no reason why the old-fashioned signaling system has to be falling apart.

Since 2010, Cuomo has raided the coffers in order to fund his own personal projects (like an upstate ski resort), yes. But it's not just a matter of funding: due to corruption and a complete lack of oversight, costs are out of control because the MTA and TWU, as well as private contractors, are able to siphon off absurd amounts of money by inflating costs or even committing outright fraud: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#166

Post by vechagup » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #127

hannasanarion wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the thing though: Western cities are increasingly de-prioritizing cars, and Eastern cities are falling behind. There are parts of Phoenix that are more bikable than much of New York. LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle have started pouring money into their new transit systems, while MTA and NJ Transit and Port Authority keep having their budgets cut, leading to reliability so low that it's driving people into c…

Genuine question - what has SF poured money into? What we need here is expanded BART service and electrified Caltrain, unfortunately NIMBYs in Atherton/Palo Alto block that at every move.

- $1.5B: https://www.sfmta.com/projects/central-subway-project

- $0.5B: https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/ecc

- $3.1B (thus far): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension

- $2M (each): https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/cars

- $1.2B: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Muni-s-new-light-r...

- $1.9B: https://calmod.org/

So stuff happens, and I'm grateful when it does -- the new BART cars are nice -- but generally at a snail's pace. It's hard to tell whether NIMBY obstruction (https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2018/03/01/caltrain-and-ath...) or contractor incompetence and mismanagement (https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-subway-stalle...) is more to blame.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#167

Post by TheCoelacanth » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #129

jcranmer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single bus can move about 100-200 people. A single subway train can move about 1000-1500 people, an order of magnitude more.

wouldn't it be more fair to compare a single subway car with a bus? nothing stops you from running a "train" of buses.

Even a "train" of two buses is impractical for most bus routes because of the weight, poor turning radius and so on. I'm pretty sure going any longer than two is virtually impossible.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#168

Post by floatrock » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #147

flexie wrote: post #10

The article doesn't really mention that most of these expansions will be ready 20-40 years into the future (if not delayed). If you buy a house in an LA suburb hoping that you will soon get subway nearby, you might get it once the mortgage is paid out and the kids have left for college. What will the technology be like in 20-40 years? Everybody surely have cheap electric scooters and bikes or other electric devices a…

>Everybody surely have cheap electric scooters and bikes or other electric devices and airbag helmets. Few, if any, combustion engine cars are left on the streets. Truly self driving cars are likely too. None of those are mass transit. Personal vehicles are fine and dandy, but they can only move one person at a time and will always, by definition, take up more space and resources per person than a solution that can f…

Scooters and bikes are not exclusive of mass transit -- they complement mass transit by working on the "last mile" problem that no mass transit system has ever really found a good solution to.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#169

Post by naravara » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

setr wrote: post #161

naravara wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, it's almost like we could suddenly afford to do a lot of big projects if we just nationalized healthcare and pensions so it wouldn't have to be factored into labor costs.

The cost still exists — you’re just moving it. Instead of factoring it into the labor cost and being part of the money allocating to the particular job, you’d just see lower allocation, and have the same problem. The only real difference would be that the comparison in funding/cost between equivalent US and EU work would be more fair (also achieved by de-nationalizing healthcare and pensions in the EU). Unless of cou…

>Instead of factoring it into the labor cost and being part of the money allocating to the particular job, you’d just see lower allocation, and have the same problem.

Why would you have the same problem? The project gets cheaper because the labor to do it (and administrative overhead to make sure the benefits are given) are cheaper. In a world where dollar values and sticker shock aren't significant determinants of transit policy your point might make sense, but we don't live in that world.

Also, transit funds are usually raised locally while nationalized social services are funded nationally. So the costs would actually fall on different entities and a broader tax-base if you did it this way.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#170

Post by naravara » Wed, Jan 02, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

floatrock wrote: post #168

naravara wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everybody surely have cheap electric scooters and bikes or other electric devices and airbag helmets. Few, if any, combustion engine cars are left on the streets. Truly self driving cars are likely too. None of those are mass transit. Personal vehicles are fine and dandy, but they can only move one person at a time and will always, by definition, take up more space and resources per person than a solution that can f…

Scooters and bikes are not exclusive of mass transit -- they complement mass transit by working on the "last mile" problem that no mass transit system has ever really found a good solution to.

In a walkable area there is no "last mile" problem for able bodied people. A mile is a perfectly reasonable 20 minute walk provided the streets are safe. And if the streets are built safely, scooters and bikes will be usable as a natural consequence.

And if you're disabled, scooters and bikes aren't helping you much anyway.

Scooters and bikes are great supplements to a system, but they won't actually do much good without a mass transit system to be the backbone for getting around.