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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

#161

Post by jkaplowitz »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #151

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 ne…

The ideas you're saying are quite common in the West, as you say, but that's not the attitude in NYC. Everyone realizes it's worth funding and fixing. The disputes are about the who, what, how, and paid by whom.

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

#162

Post by sxp62000 »

JPKab wrote: post #7

“The subway service and the bus service has become unreliable enough for people to stop using it. If people aren’t using it, there’s less money, and they have to keep raising fares without delivering better service.” I was a daily rider of the DC metro for 8 years. This is exactly what happened there. Reliability plummeted, then ridership, and all the while major fare increases.

The ridership is definitely not plummeting. A lot of people have started moving to deeper parts of Brooklyn and Queens because the rents are rising, so they depend on trains even more. The only people who've stopped using trains and buses on a regular basis, are people who can afford Uber or Lyft.

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

#163

Post by [deleted] »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #151

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 ne…

[deleted]

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

#164

Post by cascom »

chadlavi wrote: post #63
exabrial wrote: post #55

> Drastically cut service or increase fares There's another option: disband the MTA Union, the primary driver of operations costs. They have blocked technology and safety upgrades for decades to keep 'those darn computers and robots from taking jobs from poor workers just trying to make a living'.

Paying conductors a living wage isn't nearly as expensive to the agency (and the state, and we the taxpayers and riders) as mismanaged and corruptly nepotistic multi-billion dollar contracts for construction.

Employee costs are 60% of the expenses for the MTA [1] and employees are making $30/hr + generous pension and medical benefits[2], I'm not sure how you can possibly justify your position.

That being said, paying union construction workers $1k/day (!) to do nothing is pretty egregious as well [3]

[1] http://web.mta.info/news/pdf/MTA-2019-Final-Proposed-Budget-... [2] https://www.empirecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/MTA-... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

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

#165

Post by dwighttk »

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?

DFW airport and Las Vegas airport both have trains that seem to operate autonomously. There might be a remote operator as far as I know.

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

#166

Post by MFLoon »

asah wrote: post #66

serious q: what alternatives exist besides buses and taxi/rideshare? Is walking/scootering a material number of people? If not, why about taxing rideshares to fund the subway?

Most NYC residents don't have walkable commutes, especially those living in middle or lower income neighborhoods that are generally further from the city center. The city is too large, and not particularly pedestrian friendly in the outer boroughs.

FWIW Biking has become more viable in recent years, with a good amount of bike lane coverage even in the outer boroughs, but that's still not viable for the less physically able, and I don't know if it's actually cheaper than public transit once you factor in bike equipment/maintenance costs and increased travel times. Also the weather gets fairly extreme in both the summer and winter.

Taxing rideshares sounds like a good idea, though I'm sure Uber would fight like hell against it.

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

#167

Post by cascom »

endorphone wrote: post #112
jseliger wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When even the NYT is willing to implicitly criticize unions, you know it's gotten bad: Even in the face of the financial crisis and budget shortfalls, the M.T.A. has given concession after concession to its main labor union. Members of the Transport Workers Union got a total of 19 percent in pay raises between 2009 and 2016, compared with 12 percent for the city’s teachers union over the same period. The labor contra…

The NYC MTA has a lot of workers who do enormous amount of overtime, which explains the high pay. Add that a good percentage of employees will be relatively specialized trades. A cursory search shows a train driver making $31/hr, which doesn't seem excessive. I am also wary of the tactic of showing MTA workers as over-paid compared to a notoriously underpaid profession (e.g. teachers, who in this case held barely abo…

you mean $31/hr + medical + pension and medical in retirement...

again for teachers you are forgetting the fact that they have similar generous benefits and only work 3/4 of the year...

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

#168

Post by closetohome »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #151

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 ne…

Absolutely -- and you can see this even in the article. They talk about raising fares and cutting service, with no acknowledgement that their primary source of income shouldn't be fares, and their primary budget cuts shouldn't come from reduced service.

This article from last year does a much better job of covering how things have gotten to the state they're in - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

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

#169

Post by romed »

rangersanger wrote: post #69
exabrial wrote: post #55

> Drastically cut service or increase fares There's another option: disband the MTA Union, the primary driver of operations costs. They have blocked technology and safety upgrades for decades to keep 'those darn computers and robots from taking jobs from poor workers just trying to make a living'.

You have a source for any of that? It's one thing to say labor costs are a primary driver of costs. It's quite another so say Labor Union costs are the primary driver.

Unions are definitely the primary driver. Construction unions in New York are using current contracts to pay for their pension liabilities. In other words, taxpayers today are paying for work that was done 30 years ago. This guy is sort of irritating if you have to read him for more than a few hours, but his blog is full of evidence and analysis on this topic.

https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/an-open-se...

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