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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

#31

Post by Eridrus »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

> Turning things around will require a huge infusion of cash I keep hearing this with zero justification. Why? I’m sceptical of New York’s public agencies asking for lots of cash. I assume there are legitimate projects, but the MTA has been horrible at showing the public this demanded money will be well spent.

There are two separate problems here: making the MTA meet demand and making it efficient.

You may not be able to achieve both goals at once. Tackling MTA efficiency will involve a lot of confrontations with the union. And you know they won't back down on a single thing, so service will degrade further.

Having said that, maybe now is the time, when things are crumbling to take them on, with the hope of having the popular will at your back.

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

#32

Post by bunderbunder »

weberc2 wrote: post #29
bunderbunder wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I haven't been to New York in a while, but I'm guessing that you were poorly informed. Usually when public transit networks start showing strain, it's during rush hours, when they're handling massive spikes in ridership. To give an example from Chicago: If you're trying to get on the train downtown at 6:00pm, you'll get on the next train, and probably get to sit in a seat. If you try to do it at 5:00pm, you stand…

> If you're trying to get on the train downtown at 6:00pm, you'll get on the next train, and probably get to sit in a seat. If you try to do it at 5:00pm, you stand a good chance of waiting 30 minutes for a train that you can even physically get on to. What line are you describing? I take the L every day from downtown around 5 and I can reliably get on the first train and it will arrive in < 10 minutes (and there's a…

The example I had in mind was blue line northbound from Clark & Lake.

Which is admittedly the worst scenario that I could think of, and I should have said that. It gets better quickly from there. I used to get on 2 stops further south, and, yeah, at 5 I usually had no problems and a decent chance of getting a seat, too.

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

#33

Post by nakedrobot2 »

WAthrowaway wrote: post #25
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #21

CLOSE THE SUBWAY MIDNIGHT-5AM and fix it Like most other civilized societies who have a functioning and well-maintained metro system. That is really all there is to it!

They are already doing this for several lines. The L wasn't running on weekends at all in November for them to do repairs. NYC is unique in that there are LOTS of people whose working hours fall into that range and they rely on the subway. Just shutting down the whole system is unfeasible.

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. ;-)

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

#34

Post by linuxftw »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

> Turning things around will require a huge infusion of cash I keep hearing this with zero justification. Why? I’m sceptical of New York’s public agencies asking for lots of cash. I assume there are legitimate projects, but the MTA has been horrible at showing the public this demanded money will be well spent.

> I keep hearing this with zero justification. Why?

I'm confident officials have neglected long term maintenance costs when planning and building all the various infrastructure of major cities. The modus operandi is always underfund the project, get people to rely on it (or at least make the case of not just throwing away the first $x when all you need is $y to complete it), beg for more funding.

Maybe the problem is NYC is an overpopulated crap-hole and there's no amount of money to fix it. Plenty of other real estate in the US that businesses and people can move to. NYC is obviously past carrying capacity if we have to resort to boring holes into bedrock to shuttle people around like rodents.

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

#35

Post by throwaway427 »

bunderbunder wrote: post #19
chmaynard wrote: post #2

> Critics say it is bad service that is driving people away. One datapoint: I live in Rhode Island. Recently I attended a concert in Brooklyn. The obvious way to travel there was Amtrak to Penn Station and MTA (train or bus) to the final destination. However, I was warned that MTA service is unreliable. I decided to drive. Next time I probably won't go at all.

So, I haven't been to New York in a while, but I'm guessing that you were poorly informed. Usually when public transit networks start showing strain, it's during rush hours, when they're handling massive spikes in ridership. To give an example from Chicago: If you're trying to get on the train downtown at 6:00pm, you'll get on the next train, and probably get to sit in a seat. If you try to do it at 5:00pm, you stand…

> If, like most concerts, it was starting a bit later, you'd very likely have experienced smooth service.

Unless it was on the weekend when there are a multitude of service interruptions and station closures.

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

#36

Post by throwaway427 »

ricardoreis wrote: post #18
dionidium wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delays, primarily. Overcrowding, secondarily.

Numbers, please. (That's what "metric" means, btw).

Numbers may not tell the whole story, obviously: https://outline.com/KLsxf3

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

#37

Post by codyb »

linuxftw wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

> Turning things around will require a huge infusion of cash I keep hearing this with zero justification. Why? I’m sceptical of New York’s public agencies asking for lots of cash. I assume there are legitimate projects, but the MTA has been horrible at showing the public this demanded money will be well spent.

> I keep hearing this with zero justification. Why? I'm confident officials have neglected long term maintenance costs when planning and building all the various infrastructure of major cities. The modus operandi is always underfund the project, get people to rely on it (or at least make the case of not just throwing away the first $x when all you need is $y to complete it), beg for more funding. Maybe the problem is…

Jesus dude, what??

NYC's fantastic. It's one of the safest major metropolitan areas in the world filled with a tremendous variety of culture. It's the most diverse place on the planet with only London even being at a comparable level.

And the level of contempt for people riding subways? Where do you get off? Not only are they better for the environment, they're one of the great equalizers. Any person can ride the subway for the same price as anyone else and get around the entire city 24 hours a day.

They get people to work during odd shifts, and allow those without so much to reach the same places those with so much can.

What a weird, haughty, better than thou comment.

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

#38

Post by codyb »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #21

CLOSE THE SUBWAY MIDNIGHT-5AM and fix it Like most other civilized societies who have a functioning and well-maintained metro system. That is really all there is to it!

That really hurts most a lot of poor people who work odd hours.

Then suddenly they have to find a way home or two work that will be much more expensive and eat into their earnings.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but "that's really all there is to it" will affect very negatively hundreds of thousands of people in NYC.

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

#39

Post by dionidium »

throwaway427 wrote: post #36
ricardoreis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numbers, please. (That's what "metric" means, btw).

Numbers may not tell the whole story, obviously: https://outline.com/KLsxf3

Yes, and it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes of thinking about the issues to realize that most of the commentary on the topic makes very little sense. Experiential measurements aren't so easily calculated, I'd say.

Just a few examples:

- Would you rather have a train that arrives one minute late every single day, for a 0% on-time record, or a train that arrives on time 3 out of every 5 times and then is 20 minutes late the other two? How many articles on the subway distinguish between the two types of lateness? It matters a lot.

- You might read that Atlanta's MARTA, for example, has a better on-time performance record than the NYC Subway. Well, that's great, but it's also got rush-hour scheduled headways of 10 minutes, scheduled off-peak headways of 20 minutes or more, and no service entirely at many stations after 9PM (no trains run at all after 2AM). So something that's "late" in New York City still comes before the scheduled train in Atlanta (when the trains there come at all). [0]

- The NYC Subway also has 10 times as many stations as MARTA and 17 times as many miles of track. They say the best camera is the one you have on you. Something like that applies here, too. What's the on-time record for a train that doesn't exist?

MARTA is a random comparison, but it's not uncommon for writers of screeds about the subway to offer up comparisons to other systems devoid of any of the kind of context I provide above.

So, you know: 1) comparisons are difficult; 2) especially if you want to capture what it's actually like to use transit in the cities you're comparing. All of which is to support my original contention that this story has been decontextualized by surly commuters and the idea that a tourist couldn't rely on the subway to get to a concert is nonsense.

[0] https://www.itsmarta.com/railline-schedules.aspx

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

#40

Post by bunderbunder »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10
dionidium wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both things can be true. 1) It probably does cost a lot of money to increase headways, run more trains, install positive train control, and otherwise upgrade and maintain tracks; but also 2) the MTA is a bloated, wasteful organization. I have no trouble holding both ideas in my head at once.

> Both things can be true I believe both are and will be. But to what degree? If it’s billions on bloat, then we need a cost cutter at the top (in addition to new funding).

I started my career working in the transportation sector, and that leaves me skeptical that it can be so simple. I've watched cost cutters at work in government transportation departments. Their MO seems to always be to cut the costs that are easy to cut so they can claim easy wins right away. Unfortunately, the costs that are easy to cut are typically things like skimping on maintenance. This leads to higher costs in the long run, but, hey, that'll take decades to come to fruition, and by then it'll be someone else's problem.

In short, the state of American infrastructure today is a result of decades upon decades of mismanagement by the cost cutters. I have a hard time believing they can also be the solution.

Maybe find an efficiency maven instead?

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