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New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

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Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#61

Post by potatolicious »

Mythanar wrote: post #50
cujo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I buy this as a viable alternative. The first problem that pops into my head is transportation for disabled people who are visiting the city or that commute in for whatever reason. Providing them access to the disabled-taxi-program is problematic.

How so? Order Uber/Lyft ride, send a CC receipt to NYC gov with a disability proof. Get money back. Any complications I am missing?

This is literally how it works - except it's paid for directly by the city government, rather than an expense-reimbursement situation.

This is important since ParaTransit is pegged to the regular public transit fare ($2.75 a ride as of right now), and it'd be unreasonable to expect someone with low income to float a large expense ($20+) until they are reimbursed.

Nor would it be reasonable to expect the government to reimburse arbitrary amounts of money incurred for travel from parties unknown to the government.

The complication is that wait times for this service is awful, because the incentives do not encourage a sizable accessible vehicle fleet. The service advises users to be prepared for up to an hour's total wait + travel time to go less than 3 miles.

In contrast, in the same amount of time an able bodied person can take the subway 20+ miles.

It'd be unreasonable to expect a handicapped person to be able to travel as easily as an able-bodied person, but the disparity is pretty extreme.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#62

Post by Mythanar »

potatolicious wrote: post #56
Mythanar wrote: post #39

I highly suspect it is plain cheaper (and more convenient) to just subsidize private car rides for disabled people than making entire transit infrastructure in huge city to account for them. Better yet, take the money that government would otherwise spend on building all the wheelchair accomodations, and just distribute that between wheelchair users. I am sure many of them would prefer that over subway improvements w…

> "I highly suspect it is plain cheaper (and more convenient) to just subsidize private car rides for disabled people" This is true, and also why NYC has ParaTransit for disabled people, which amounts to an on-demand car/minibus service that is paid for by the transit agency. The service levels are pretty terrible, though, because it turns out the private operators that actually provision these rides don't have a lot…

ParaTransit specifically is a non-profit organization. "Non-profit" and "incentives" generally don't mix well. Better service would require paying market rates - by the city, or partly by the city.

And it'd still be cheaper than building accessibility over existing subway infrastructure.

You make a very good point that disability is not binary; there is an entire spectrum from Michael Phelps to Steven Hawking. In some ways, having three kids on your back can be considered a [temporary] disability ;) My main point is that going down the percentage of affected population drastically changes the ROI of changing the infrastructure as a whole versus addressing the people involved individually. And wheelchairs specifically is fairly far down that scale.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#63

Post by potatolicious »

Mythanar wrote: post #62
potatolicious wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I highly suspect it is plain cheaper (and more convenient) to just subsidize private car rides for disabled people" This is true, and also why NYC has ParaTransit for disabled people, which amounts to an on-demand car/minibus service that is paid for by the transit agency. The service levels are pretty terrible, though, because it turns out the private operators that actually provision these rides don't have a lot…

ParaTransit specifically is a non-profit organization. "Non-profit" and "incentives" generally don't mix well. Better service would require paying market rates - by the city, or partly by the city. And it'd still be cheaper than building accessibility over existing subway infrastructure. You make a very good point that disability is not binary; there is an entire spectrum from Michael Phelps to Steven Hawking. In som…

ParaTransit does not operate vehicles themselves - ParaTransit is simply a program that purchases these services from private, for-profit operators (like, say, Uber), and manages eligibility checks as well as payment to providers for rides delivered.

> "Better service would require paying market rates - by the city, or partly by the city."

This is what happens. The riders themselves pay the "regular" transit fare of $2.75, and the agency (which is actually a state agency, but partially funded by the city) pays the rest. The service is operated at private industry rates.

The problem here is there is simply very little incentive for cab company or driver to service this demographic. Accessible vans are expensive and they reduce "normal" passenger capacity. Accessible customers require more time - both traveling to pickups, as well as getting in/out of the vehicles, which is time the driver is not being paid.

The small size of the customer base also means drivers spend much more time than usual traveling to a pickup.

The natural equilibrium state of this market, given the cost of providing the service, and the size of the customer base, results in very sub-par service levels. We can improve this somewhat by paying dramatically more for these rides, but that undermines the ROI argument pretty badly.

> "My main point is that going down the percentage of affected population drastically changes the ROI of changing the infrastructure as a whole versus addressing the people involved individually."

I agree - but my contention is that modeling the accessibility issues with the NYC subway as "permanently wheelchair-bound population" vs. "everyone else" is very incomplete. The ROI on accessibility improvements to our infrastructure must take into account all users of such features, not just the most extreme/permanent users.

The beneficiaries of, say, elevators in stations is the union set of [pregnant people, elderly people, wheelchair-bound people, crutch-bound people, people carrying large amounts of cargo, ...] - plus probably more categories I've missed. The union of these sets is pretty darned large, and a heck of a lot larger than simply the wheelchair-bound population.

The ROI argument only works if we assume a much narrower pool of users than it would be in reality.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#64

Post by metaphorm »

leonatan wrote: post #44
randyrand wrote: post #42

Given that 1 in 10,000 people in NYC are in wheelchairs, I really think it would be orders of magnitude more cost effective for the government to pay for disabled persons cab fares than to make public transit accessible. Has anyone run the numbers?

Would there also be interest paid for time lost in traffic? New York roads are tight and always busy, something the public transit system is supposed to workaround.

why are you suggesting this? transportation delays affect everyone, disabled or not, and there are delays on subways and busses too.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#65

Post by metaphorm »

grardb wrote: post #3
popopobobobo wrote: post #2

I think MTA should also consider putting a barrier on the edge of the platform. So that we won't get dozens of people being pushed off to the rails.

Do you have a source for how often this happens? I can't find anything specifically about subway pushers in NYC. As far as I can tell, it's a very rare occurrence. That being said, I see fairly high numbers of deaths in general, mainly attributed to suicides and alcohol/drug use. How would this barrier work? Would it withdraw once the train pulled up or something?

have you ever seen the tube system in London? it's a fully blocking barrier with a set of sliding doors that lines up precisely with the doors of the train cars when they pull in to the station.

that's probably the ideal solution, but not practical for New York because the system was never designed with precision stopping points on the platform in mind. there's a margin of error that is at least a meter or so in either direction right now.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#66

Post by ed_balls »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #54
Mythanar wrote: post #39

I highly suspect it is plain cheaper (and more convenient) to just subsidize private car rides for disabled people than making entire transit infrastructure in huge city to account for them. Better yet, take the money that government would otherwise spend on building all the wheelchair accomodations, and just distribute that between wheelchair users. I am sure many of them would prefer that over subway improvements w…

Remember that it's not just people in wheelchairs who benefit from accessibility though. The elderly, injured infirm, people with small children etc. also find accessibility helpful. Modern accessibility policy is focused in a large part around allowing people with accessibility requirement to live as normal a life as possible. It's not going to change overnight, but by making sure that all new construction and refur…

And also the delivery of goods.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#67

Post by maxxxxx »

When we were in Paris last year my girlfriend broke her foot and I had to push her around in a wheelchair. It's a real pain to see that some elevator is not working and you have to walk half a mile to find the next one. Since then I have much more respect for people who have to deal with this every day.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#68

Post by e_hup »

codq wrote: post #31
virtuexru wrote: post #15

Yet they are slated to raise the prices again next year. It's already $2.75 for a regular swipe. FeelsBadMan.

As someone who recently moved to NYC from the SF Bay Area, it's a pleasure to swipe for a ride, even at $3. That's a static fee to go anywhere . In the Bay Area, your BART ticket fee is dependent on where you want to go--at it's most extreme, can be up to $20/ride. $2.75-$3 to get anywhere in NYC is an absolute bargain.

The maximum one-way fare on BART is ~$15 and that's if you're going between OAK and SFO (which I imagine is very uncommon). Non-airport rides max out at under $8

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#69

Post by setr »

leonatan wrote: post #44
randyrand wrote: post #42

Given that 1 in 10,000 people in NYC are in wheelchairs, I really think it would be orders of magnitude more cost effective for the government to pay for disabled persons cab fares than to make public transit accessible. Has anyone run the numbers?

Would there also be interest paid for time lost in traffic? New York roads are tight and always busy, something the public transit system is supposed to workaround.

Public transport is supposed to alleviate congestion on the road. That there exists those unwilling or unable to make use of it is irrelevant, so long as a sufficient percentage of the driving population can and do use it over driving themselves.

There is no reason to imagine that compensating those not using it (for any reason, be it disability or in a niche area in the city, or simply unwilling) would be a part of the goal of providing public transportation.

It is not a gift to the people from bottom of the government's heart, that they would try to offer an alternative gift to those unable or unwilling to partake in this wonderful service.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#70

Post by greenyouse »

Mythanar wrote: post #39

I highly suspect it is plain cheaper (and more convenient) to just subsidize private car rides for disabled people than making entire transit infrastructure in huge city to account for them. Better yet, take the money that government would otherwise spend on building all the wheelchair accomodations, and just distribute that between wheelchair users. I am sure many of them would prefer that over subway improvements w…

I don't want this to come off as harsh but it's a huge city with lots of money that has a pretty large disabled community. They've been really slow upgrading their train stations but their lack of action doesn't make it OK to never fix the problem.

Keeping people from riding the subway because they're disabled is a form of discrimination under ADA. IANAL but I think cities like NYC need to have a plan for upgrading accessibility features and show progress month over month. Failure to make any progress would probably leave them liable for violations of the ADA + Rehabilitation Act (that's what happened to Boston's MBTA). With the threat of a lawsuit, it's probably cheaper to just get a plan and start upgrading stations. Plus, it helps people.

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