Earlier quoted context omitted.
Voters don't seem to vote in ways that are consistent with improving subway building functionality.
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I can’t even begin to understand what you are trying to say here. What do you mean?
The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
81–90 of 113 posts
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm basically $200-300 round-trip to get a car to take me into the city. At that point, I'm probably going to make a weekend out of it whether I take commuter rail in or not--and I'm not going to do it very often. We're talking probably a thousand dollars at that point between hotel and transportation and whatever the actual activity is. (And I'm not sure from a driving in perspective what's actually been gained rela…
I don't get this. Garage parking + bridge tolls + gas can't cost more than $100 to drive into NYC. Boston even less due to no bridge tolls and shorter distances.
The context was the claim I shouldn't drive into Boston. That's the cost for getting a taxi or other car service. Which, as I said in another comment, isn't clear to me how it makes a difference but it apparently does because I'm not a "professional driver."
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#83It’s sad but the US peaked sometime in the last 30-40 years. NY is the only semi-functioning metro system in the whole country and it will likely crumble in the next few decades unless something on the order of the New Deal is enacted.
> unless something on the order of the New Deal is enacted
I think when people say this, or hear it, they mostly think of spending money on more infrastructure projects. But the problem today isn't having money to spend, its that the money is spent spectacularly ineffectually. NYC transit itself is famous for this.
We don't need a New Deal nearly as much as we need something more like a reckoning for the failure to use money effectually.
eg: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/mta-overtime-pay/
> Harry Dobson, a Metro-North structures supervisor, boosted his regular pay of just over $113,000 to over $345,000. At $54 a hour, that means he worked 4,255 hours of overtime.
> Kendell Ward, an assistant station master on the Long Island Rail Road, boosted his base salary of nearly $109,000 to over $335,000. At $52 an hour, that was 4,353 hours of overtime.
Suggest complete operational failure. Would be insane to give this org more money.
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#84The US will continue to fail at public transit because rich people do not use it. As an oligarchy, the government prioritizes the whims of the rich and there are no signs of change. From 1880-1950, trains and public transit were utilized heavily by the American rich in NYC and other US cities because it was the fastest way to get around. Once highways and air travel came about, they stopped. You routinely see celebs on the Tube and other European metros. You hardly see them on the NYC subway anymore. The 2000s were a bit of a golden age for the NYC subway and other US metro systems because Uber and Google Maps navigation did not exist, but now they do. It's going to cause a death spiral for alot of metros unless something changes.
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#85Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yall are going to need some elevated trains as building underground is just insane.
Ironically NYC used to have an absolute ton. In fact a number of the underground lines we have today were direct replacements for the overhead lines, which were unsightly and very noisy. These days I have to imagine we could create something much quieter but very few people are going to advocate for their sunlight to be blocked by an overhead train line.
Yeah, this is what I was referencing
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Voters don't seem to vote in ways that are consistent with improving subway building functionality.
Which office are you specifically talking about? Hochul just got a bunch of funding through: > But the biggest lifeline arrived in April, when Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers agreed to include new and recurring funding for the M.T.A. in the state budget. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/nyregion/mta-nyc-subway-s... And the mayor doesn't really have any power - although I haven't seen anything to suggest that…
Hochul just got a bunch of funding through
The MTA doesn’t need more money. At least not yet. It needs a complete and total overhaul in all aspects so it’s no longer the least efficient transit agency in the entire world.
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I can’t even begin to understand what you are trying to say here. What do you mean?
People vote along ethnic/racial lines (look at the primary voting for Adams versus Yang versus Garcia) which means that infighting overtakes quality of governance as a priority. New York has been like that forever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall
It’s the same story all over the world where you have similar sectarian politics.
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that NYC doesn't control the MTA: it was taken under state control back in 1968. And the governor has too many other issues on his/her plate to care enough to give the agency the top-to-bottom revamp it desperately needs. No one gets elected governor of the whole state of NY by campaigning on 'I'll fix NYC's subways' as a message, and indeed some of the more recent governors (Pataki, A. Cuomo) seemed t…
> problem is that NYC doesn't control the MTA New York voters are increasingly anti development. The only thing that protects it from going San Francisco is (a) Manhattan is joint to the other boroughs and (b) developers existing as a voting and lobbying constituency to counterbalance NIMBY homeowners and misguided tenants. Much of e.g. the Second Avenue subway’s delays were due to community roadblocks, not Albany.
There's a lot of Community Board BS, where in my opinion it's just another symptom of how Small Government can not work well at scale (i.e. many small governments behaving as elected or appointed officials that only very narrow interests pay attention to).
I took the opportunity to rant broadly, but I want to ask how that impacted the 2nd Ave Subway project?
Re: The NYC's MTA 20 year needs assessment reminds us they can't build
#90> Nothing there is truly designed to optimize how to improve in a place that can’t build. London can’t build either, even if its costs are a fraction of New York’s Maybe I'm misunderstanding this statement, but between 2009 and 2022 London finished the 73 miles (118 km) long Crossrail Project (Elizabeth Line), with 26 miles (42 km) of new tunnel, 10 new stations, and 31 refurbished stations (some of which were entire…
The CrossRail, and the DLR in all fairness isn't so far back in history.
Paris. Paris has all sorts of continuous transit improvements to turn the suburbs into denser areas, and exoburbs into suburbs. Grands Paris, is the name of the general long-term project, and the biggest transit upgrade is this: https://www.railway-technology.com/projects/grand-paris-expr...