It's funny how pathetic America deals with any sort of public service. It's all about me me me.
Well isn't the whole point of public service to serve them in the first place? They are literally entitled to it.
NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
201–210 of 477 posts
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#202The MTA claims that New York City's transit system doesn't have enough funding to keep up with requirements. Critics of the MTA claim that the transit system has more funding than ever, and just isn't keeping up because of some vague inefficiencies or incompetencies. This is the exact same argument that we have when it comes to education, health care, defense, and so forth. Some argue that it's because government spe…
When I see stories like this one I take it with a grain of salt because I'll be the MTA and state legislature are basically just fighting their budget battle in the media. If the MTA makes a big stink in the media, they can swing voters to demand more funding and more restrictions on ride sharing. I'm probably being cynical but maybe not.
The US really does have a problem, and it seems to be related to particularly inefficient and uncompetitive contracting and caused by poor governance structures. The fact this battle has to happen in the media at all instead of having a clear chain of decision-making is evidence something is wrong.
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
> WiFi in the tunnels and installing flatscreen TVs ... less station closures, less delays, and less stopping-and-waiting-20-minutes because of track congestion Some of these are much easier fixes than others.
Fair point. How about a drain/pump system to prevent stations from flooding every time it rains? Or cleaning the tracks more frequently to reduce fires? Or fixing the broken intercoms in the cars, so I can at least be warned about surprise service modifications?
To do more cleaning you need more station closures and delays
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is wrong in many ways. * Unionized workers make very good money in New York. * Unions are a primary political driver behind those expensive contracts. * There's more to unions than conductors. Construction and maintenance, for example. * The unions routinely put up strong opposition to any meaningful expense or quality control. They also strongly oppose any modernization attempts that might threaten their jobs.…
* Unionized workers make very good money in New York.
I didn't believe a friend of mine who only finish college was making $218,000 a year basically for early morning train track cleanups (device to pickup trash, stay away from 3rd rail), until I saw his bi-weekly paycheck with my own eyes. He's been doing that for last 5 years and they hire more people to do the same. What an insult to anyone with MBA, PhD., anyone pretty much who doesn't work for Union.
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'll take issue with your thesis. I was once standing in Marin county overlooking the Golden Gate bridge, there I read a plaque describing how the bridge was built ahead of schedule and under budget - in the 1930s (no computers!). Behind the Golden gate bridge in the distance you see the Bay bridge, built with tremendous cost overruns and delays measured in billions of dollars and many years, respectively. I'll make…
It’s called worker safety, for one thing. Eleven workers died during construction, and this was considered better than average for its era!
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#206A ride in NYC is crazy cheap compared to other parts of the world. I live in Europe (grew up in NYC) and a single ride costs $4.50 where I am. But the public transport is clean, well-maintained and safe.
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
He means move to a commutable distance away : )
Better not go to New Jersey, those NJ Transit tunnels aren't up to much either!
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Hence why the NYC mayor is so intent on funding worthless streetcars and ferries I'm assuming you're using the "worthless" adjective only for the streetcars - I use the NYC Ferry regularly (a stop opened near my apt last year) and it's way better than the subway. I have to walk a bit further on the other side, but it's still way more comfortable.
It may be useful for you but in the grand scheme all the new ferries cover only a trivial percentage of the total number of daily trips.
And the ferries are heavily subsidized and very expensive to operate, and they pollute quite heavily.
They don't compare remotely favorably to the subway along any axis except start-up cost (it's cheaper to buy a boat and build some piers than to build a subway tunnel).
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#209The 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…
It's also interesting how people don't see public roads in the same way—people don't expect roads to cover their own expenses directly, expect free parking as a human right and bridle at toll roads or gasoline taxes. People need to see public transport as "roads that don't need cars".
And additional public transport reduces the need for roads and road maintenance as well.
Re: NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-s…
NYC subway fares are insanely cheap compared to the rest of the (developed) world. $2.75 single for any distance is incredibly low. In London that same fare in rush hour would be anywhere between $4 and $15+ depending on the length of the journey (and NYC has much higher GDP per capita than London, plus the £ is on its arse at the moment). Even Berlin is marginally more expensive, in a much smaller & less economicall…
It's not insanely cheap compared to the rest of the developed world. Paris metro costs 1.90 Euros or more likely 1.49 if you buy books of 10 tickets or whatever.
I've been to plenty of developed world cities where the cost is under $3.