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BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

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Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#61

Post by yardie »

adrianmonk wrote: post #54
yardie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these large capital contracts leave very little money for profit upfront. That comes from long term maintenance. If they are the lowest bidder they are probably losing money even at 95% payout.

While true, once you reach a certain point, that's all water under the bridge, and the only question that remains is how motivating it is to pursue that last 5%.

I’m not sure about civil projects. I’m mildly familiar with commercial construction projects. Those have milestones and due dates built in. And if those are missed the GC doesn’t get paid until they are met. If dates are missed they can incur penalties. This is done to ensure the GC doesn’t pull resources off to another project.

Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#62

Post by throwawaycert »

bobthepanda wrote: post #58
throwawaycert wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still a serious linguistic disconnect here. You’re talking about what are essentially suburbs. Big cities are mostly apartments and condos. This is true throughout the developed world including in the US, but for some reason in the US we ended up calling every group of houses and a general store “city”.

I mean, if you want to split hairs, then yes most Americans live in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, which is because of and also the reason for shitty American infra. If you are looking for Berlin+ levels of density that would be the 7th percentile of American zip codes. The person you are responding to never even used the word cities.

Yes. It’s not splitting hairs, it’s looking at the root of the problem: Americans live inefficiently and in our bubble it seems “normal” because we have normalized severe deviance from good social, economic, and environmental practices and lifestyles.

Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#63

Post by 0xB31B1B »

mhb wrote: post #31
hyperbovine wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really a fair comparison. In terms of where people actually live (the upper two thirds of Sweden is almost empty) its roughly comparable to Ohio: about ten million people clustered in 4 or 5 major cities within a few hours drive distance from each other. Of course it will be easier to provide superior rail service there. This is not so say that Ohio has its act together as far as public transit is concerned…

Is there any Ohio-sized area in the US that has a system comparable to the Swedish one?

The Acela corridor in the north east US connects DC, Philly, NYC, and Boston. Many trains run per day and most of them are full capacity. The Acela corridor revenues support the entire other ~Amtrak routes. Most cities along the Acela have sufficient public transit and density to not require car rentals on arrival.

Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#64

Post by tialaramex »

throwawaycert wrote: post #56
qaq wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I say that it's about rural areas vs big cities ? In most US metro areas majority of people of people live in houses. In US people either drive or fly. There is good infra for long range driving. This has nothing to do with large cities vs rural areas for the most part.

There is still a serious linguistic disconnect here. You’re talking about what are essentially suburbs. Big cities are mostly apartments and condos. This is true throughout the developed world including in the US, but for some reason in the US we ended up calling every group of houses and a general store “city”.

Yeah. In the UK a city needs central government paperwork (notionally through the Queen). They hold competitions to pick new ones. If a million people go live somewhere that's a really big town, but it only becomes a city when the Queen says so. Being a city makes no direct practical difference to anything, it's like being elected homecoming king.

In the US city status makes an important practical difference to how an area is run and what the people running it can do independently of the State they're in. So it makes sense every settlement with a general store and a paved road would want that status.

Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#65

Post by bobthepanda »

mhb wrote: post #31
hyperbovine wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really a fair comparison. In terms of where people actually live (the upper two thirds of Sweden is almost empty) its roughly comparable to Ohio: about ten million people clustered in 4 or 5 major cities within a few hours drive distance from each other. Of course it will be easier to provide superior rail service there. This is not so say that Ohio has its act together as far as public transit is concerned…

Is there any Ohio-sized area in the US that has a system comparable to the Swedish one?

Funnily enough, the Midwest is pretty much a spoke and hub of medium sized metro areas focused around Chicago.

There’s the Northeast corridor (and its cousin the Southeast corridor going down to Atlanta).

The PNW cities also are clustered like this but have difficult geography.

California and the Central Valley with the Bay and LA also meet this criteria, but CAHSR is run by a mix of incompetents and constrained by the wording of the ballot initiative that got it approved.

Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#66

Post by BurningFrog »

wbl wrote: post #34
hyperbovine wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really a fair comparison. In terms of where people actually live (the upper two thirds of Sweden is almost empty) its roughly comparable to Ohio: about ten million people clustered in 4 or 5 major cities within a few hours drive distance from each other. Of course it will be easier to provide superior rail service there. This is not so say that Ohio has its act together as far as public transit is concerned…

We're talking about one of the richest parts of the US.

We're also talking about Ground Zero of the BANANA movement.

BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone

Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#67

Post by BurningFrog »

throwaway_17426 wrote: post #45

Is anyone else concerned about the surveillance in the new BART trains? It looks like there are 7-9 small CCTV cameras in each car. This means that there is nowhere inside the vehicle where you have private space to enter a password, or check your work email, or pull out a laptop to do some programming. For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious. Also, this is another step toward pervasive…

It's a public space. I don't expect privacy, and I appreciate that criminals can't either.

The password issue you raise has some merit though.

Re: BART slows rollout of new trains as it contends with more repairs than expected

#70

Post by umeshunni »

throwaway_17426 wrote: post #45

Is anyone else concerned about the surveillance in the new BART trains? It looks like there are 7-9 small CCTV cameras in each car. This means that there is nowhere inside the vehicle where you have private space to enter a password, or check your work email, or pull out a laptop to do some programming. For people who spend 60 minutes (or more) commuting, this is obnoxious. Also, this is another step toward pervasive…

Given that the San Francisco now has the highest crime rate in the country thanks to lax enforcement, this is a step in the right direction..

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/02/16/property-...

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