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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

#451

Post by icebraining »

deminature wrote: post #253
eric_h wrote: post #178

Earlier 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.

Streetcars aren't even necessarily worthless. They're called trams in Australia and Sydney has recently rolled out a network after seeing how heavily utilized they are in Melbourne, and how convenient they are for short-distance travel. Pretty much everyone who works in the city has a tram trip somewhere in their commute. Provided the tracks run past places people need to go, there's no reason they need to be worthle…

Same in Brussels. And in Lisbon they're also touristic attractions: http://www.lisbonstopover.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/lx-...

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

#452

Post by InclinedPlane »

fhdhehfhzhe wrote: post #333
InclinedPlane wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has kind of a similar problem. They can't just raise local taxes to pay for local transit. So instead the state has to decide on most Seattle transit projects (and their funding), and of course all of the conservatives east of the mountains bridle at the idea of their money being spent on those big city liberals instead of locally even though the balance of tax revenues and spending means money flows the othe…

Except for that $53 billion dollar light rail extension that was voted for and is funded by tax payers in the three counties it runs in.

Yes, and it was like pulling teeth to get it done, it should have happened much sooner.

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

#453

Post by InclinedPlane »

jorblumesea wrote: post #363
InclinedPlane wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has kind of a similar problem. They can't just raise local taxes to pay for local transit. So instead the state has to decide on most Seattle transit projects (and their funding), and of course all of the conservatives east of the mountains bridle at the idea of their money being spent on those big city liberals instead of locally even though the balance of tax revenues and spending means money flows the othe…

Seattle has no such issues, as the voters directly voter for initiatives that come directly from property taxes. The governor and Olympia have very little say in what Seattle area builds, which is a good thing. Contrast that with NY state, where the state legislature and governor can interfere with MTA affairs. Cuomo is a huge part of the problem.

Seattle's ST3 transit plan is funded from a mixture of tax sources including sales taxes and car tabs, it required a state wide initiative measure. It's not as bad a situation as NYC but it's still much less than ideal.

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

#454

Post by negativez »

repolfx wrote: post #448
ionised wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the most perfect way to gauge it's true economic value. Seems like an incredidibly narrow-minded way to gauge its economic value to me.

Well, why? The OP has asserted that NY transit delivers vast economic benefits that offset its loss making nature. Fine, I can buy that to some extent, but how big exactly are these benefits? How do we know they're actually so big and not in reality quite small? Well, we could do some one-off studies and hope that Excel is used properly, but why? We already have mechanisms that figure out the value of things and allo…

(This is all kind of beside the point that NY's transit problems are mostly due to localized cost absurdity, but...)

I don't disagree that it's hard to quantify the exact economic value, but you can't use a free market to solve coordination problems like public transit.

Coordination failure in stages:

1) A transit line that goes where you want, when you want for only a fraction of your trips means you need a second means of travel the rest of the time.

2) Having a second means of travel on hand (e.g. a car) means that you're less likely to use the transit line when it would work for you.

3) Lack of use of the transit line leads halted growth and reduced service.

4) Reduced service further drives users away

5) Evidence of failure causes a loss of investor/government support.

6) Transit line dies slowly to the extent that political inertia allows.

Or to put it another way, asking a transit line to pay to for itself is like saying "if human beings really wanted world peace they could have all just disarmed!", ignoring the fact that until everyone else is disarmed you'd be a fool to disarm yourself.

And if you succeed and build a critical-mass, sustainable system you've just swapped your market problem for a natural monopoly and have to use non-market techniques to deal with the monopoly service provider. (And now we're back to NY)

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

#456

Post by bobthepanda »

tellarin wrote: post #312
bobthepanda wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that they got there because at the time of development, the rail companies were able to buy up the surrounding land and develop that. They reinvested their real estate profits into more rail and more real estate, creating a virtuous cycle. (Hong Kong, one of the only other profitable systems, did something similar by having the government effectively transfer land for free initially.) American rail…

That’s actually the same model the Hong Kong MTR company applies for the subway lines it manages in mainland China (like lines 4, 14, and 16 in Beijing). Buy land right where lines will pass and near stations and develop it.

I don't disagree. But the MTR is able to do that in China because they already make money in Hong Kong.

No North American transit operator makes money, so they have no way to buy up land in the first place.

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

#457

Post by stale2002 »

geezerjay wrote: post #444
stale2002 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually matters quite a bit. If the potato trucks had to pay for the full cost of roads, then they would be incentived to drive that cost down. Aligning incentives is important.

> If the potato trucks had to pay for the full cost of roads, then they would be incentived to drive that cost down. More realistically, potato prices would go up to reflect operational costs.

At which point people would buy less potatoes, or buy more locally produced goods.

Which is the entire point. To incentivize people to change their behavior.

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

#458

Post by conanbatt »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #321
rayiner wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody expects the NYC subway to "break even or even turn a profit." The subway historically recovers less than 50% of its operating expenditures from fares, compared to 70% for Berlin, 88% for Amsterdam, and over 100% in Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio . MTA is broke because it costs several times as much for MTA to do anything compared to its counterpart…

Sorting that wikipedia table by recovery ratio, I see most of the profitable ones are in East Asia and distance based: Osaka (OMTB) 137%, Hong Kong MTR 124%, Osaka (Hankyu Railway) 123%, Tokyo Metro 119%, London Underground 107%, Singapore (SMRT) 101%, Taipei Metro 100%. Clearly it is possible to have profitable subways, so I don't think we should drop profitability as a goal.

Its true subways have lots of positive externalities not captured by the fares, that it would actually be better to have a deficit subway system than to not have it at all, both for economic reasons and plain welfare, but there's no need to abandon the profitability goal for that.

IT is possible to devise a tax system that will capture some of that positive externality and make the subway better. It should be intuitive that the properties that got amazing value increases due to the subway should have an increased tax burden on them. A subway-proximity tax could be enough to turn subway profitable: and to easily fund expanding it!

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

#459

Post by megablast »

Zhenya wrote: post #268
TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's likely referring to how (some) people enjoy driving because of the sense of freedom & control it gives them. But he is asserting that this is just an illusion. Honestly, I feel the same way, since most time I spend driving I spend sitting in traffic or something.

That's right (I'm the OP) - I love driving and work in the auto industry. The biggest pitch of the car(look at the commercials) is that your car defines you, and provides you a lifestyle and freedom. However, there really is an element of freedom. You can drive where you want when you want. It's just that the average person sits in bumper to bumper traffic.

I guess you just don't care about the 40,000 people killed every year.

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

#460

Post by culturestate »

afterburner wrote: post #416
culturestate wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm neither upset nor in China; just pointing out that if you expand your definition of the "developed world" beyond Europe and the US, the NYC MTA goes from "insanely cheap" to comparably priced or even mildly expensive :)

> My morning commute in Hong Kong > I'm neither upset nor in China The fuck

There’s an international border between Hong Kong and mainland China. A Chinese citizen needs a visa to come here and a Hong Kong citizen needs (what is basically) a visa to go there.
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