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NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

theguardian.com

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Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#151

Post by DoubleGlazing »

The problem with urban transport systems is that no one sees them for what they really are... an expensive thing that drives the economy. There seems to be an obsession in the west with making public transport pay for itself, but the reality is that a few billion invested in better public transport results in a lot more billions being made elsewhere.

We need to get away from this idea that public transport systems need to break even or turn a profit. They are there to help make money in other ways. An efficient reliable transport system should cost the taxpayer money, but they will get that back in profit elsewhere through a thriving local economy.

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#152

Post by GarrisonPrime »

Dowwie wrote: post #136

Expressed in Millions: Payroll: $5,392 Overtime: 811 Health & Welfare: 2,129 Pension: 1,354 Other Labor: 400 ---------------------- Total Labor: $10,086 Non-Labor: 4,205 Debt Service: 2,692 BTL Adjustments for Expenses: (251) ===================================== Total: $16,732

Thank you.

Not a surprise.

Bring on the 'bots!

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#153

Post by [deleted] »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #130
whack wrote: post #99

This is a really depressing story to read. I've always believed that a good indicator of a country's health, is its ability to tackle complex large-scale projects. Projects that require coordination on multiple fronts: politics, bureaucracy, technical-know-how, civic sacrifice. In the old days when all this infrastructure was built in the first place, we showed our ability to do so. But now, we've gotten to the point…

I don't disagree with this sentiment, but it's worth pointing out that nearly all transportation projects from the "old days" around the world were done by private companies, and often met a swift end in bankruptcy. Creditors lost a lot, but the assets were then picked up by others, and refined through years of trial and error into endeavors of modest profitability. Only our sepia-colored glasses and the survival bia…

[deleted]

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#154

Post by adrianratnapala »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #130
whack wrote: post #99

This is a really depressing story to read. I've always believed that a good indicator of a country's health, is its ability to tackle complex large-scale projects. Projects that require coordination on multiple fronts: politics, bureaucracy, technical-know-how, civic sacrifice. In the old days when all this infrastructure was built in the first place, we showed our ability to do so. But now, we've gotten to the point…

I don't disagree with this sentiment, but it's worth pointing out that nearly all transportation projects from the "old days" around the world were done by private companies, and often met a swift end in bankruptcy. Creditors lost a lot, but the assets were then picked up by others, and refined through years of trial and error into endeavors of modest profitability. Only our sepia-colored glasses and the survival bia…

> it's worth pointing out that nearly all transportation projects from the "old days" around the world were done by private companies, and often met a swift end in bankruptcy... Only our sepia-colored glasses and the survival bias of remaining parts makes it look like people back then had it figured out, and we don't.

This is true, but only part of the story. The private railroads (and indeed much internet infrastructure) had two phases. In the first, early entrants made big profits by picking the low hanging fruit (i.e. most profitable opportunities) in a new market.

This created investor euphoria just as the opportunities for "easy" profits were drying up. So things turned towards speculative, even fraudulent investments that left the investors out of pocket. But, as you point out, even the second phase left some infrastructure on the ground that could be operated at a profit once bought at firesale prices.

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#155

Post by the_duke »

dgzl wrote: post #72
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop this unique snowflake claim about NYC :+) It's another huge City. Besides having a horribly mismanaged public transport, it's not unique. Except that it's, you know, the center of the universe of course. ;-)

You're sadly mistaken if you think a New York, one of the largest and busiest cities in human existence, is "just another large City", and that the solution to their transportation woes is to just lock it down and work on it.

New York is the 28th largest city, with another 10 within one million.

So while it is one of the largest, it's hardly unique.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities]

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#156

Post by untog »

j-c-hewitt wrote: post #111

Cities like NYC are overcrowded and dysfunctional, but our financial system allows dysfunctional and failing systems to continue to operate up until the point to which they physically collapse and start either entering prolonged periods of obvious mechanical non-function and/or killing people in embarrassing numbers. Without all the bailouts, the MTA would have failed decades ago and would have had to have been restr…

> NYC is a machine for fleecing young people who want to move there with heads full of movies and TV and rich foreign potentates with more money than sense.

Eh, I'm actually not so sure about that. Salaries in NYC are a lot higher than in other parts of the country, so provided you're doing well (say you're in tech, perhaps!) you're not being fleeced at all.

I am a little more optimistic than you are that the subway may one day be fixed. Unfortunately its fate rests in the hands of New York State, not the city, and many in NYS government couldn't care less about fixing it (Cuomo, here's looking at you). But it feels as though we're reaching a breaking point where citizens will demand change without anyone needing to die.

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#157

Post by JumpCrisscross »

JimboOmega wrote: post #137
huebomont wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If something's not working well, abandon it" is pretty pathetic advice. There are very clear ways to fix the problem, the only cause for pessimism is whether the people in charge will do the right things.

There are very clear ways to fix the problem Are there, though? You can play armchair city planner all you want, but where is the political, legal, regulatory, etc, environment that allows this "very clear" fix to proceed? Who's to say that even with a big fare increase and a lot of money pushed in, that money won't mysteriously disappear while things don't get any better - as has happened historically? Sometimes an…

> Are there, though?

I live in Manhattan. Love it. The MTA fucking up is still miles ahead of every other American city on their best days in terms of transit and density. Most New Yorkers’ stories of nightmarish delays find parity with the daily commutes Americans across the country put up with as a matter of course.

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#158

Post by nerfhammer »

wefarrell wrote: post #88
exabrial wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when conductors aren't needed or necessary. Having a fully autonomous rail system is a much simpler problem than autonomous cars.

Are there any currently in existence?

The JFK AirTrain line

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#159

Post by MFLoon »

rmason wrote: post #80

I think what everyone reading this story is missing and that the opportunity. Betting someone clever on HN could invent a new signalling system for far less than $40 billion, perhaps $4 billion. Once it's proven in New York you could roll it out anywhere in the world.

>Betting someone clever on HN could invent a new signalling system for far less than $40 billion, perhaps $4 billion.

Is this a satirical comment? It doesn't matter how easily a clever HN reader could devise a new, greenfield signaling system, you can't just build and cutover to a new subway signaling system in one of the world's densest cities, atop an existing subway with over 100 years of accrued legacy signaling technologies. The MTA has tried to modernize it's signaling system twice, and each initiative was a multi-decade, multi billion dollar morass. It's just not a problem that can be solved by throwing a shiny new framework at it - not that many real world problems can be.

Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say

#160

Post by zanny »

jimnotgym wrote: post #73

$2.75 sounds really cheap to my British ears. How far can you go on that?

Public transit shouldn't be expensive. It shouldn't pretty much ever run outside the red. The whole point of it is to incentivize its use and promote efficient means of travel. The only reason to charge at all is to disincentivize unnecessary consumption of it.

If you are doing city planning you want as many people on the Subway as you can get. It enables greater density at ground level and is much cheaper to maintain (if you maintain it) than overcongested road networks and the required parking.

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