What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#61

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #54

Nelkins wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very skeptical of the "required" money quoted by anyone who is affiliated with the MTA or state government in general. There's a lot of evidence that indicates the MTA is used as a personal piggy bank. Take, for example, this gem: "MTA wrote $4.9M check to three upstate ski centers in bizarre move requested by Cuomo officials" [1]. Or this one[2] (also part of this NYT series): "Subway workers now make an aver…

I remain confused about the pay figure the NYTimes gave for subway workers; I have a close relative who works in the subway and I know a number of subway workers, and none of them make anything close to that kind of salary, even counting overtime. So unless that counts something other than the hourly employees, or counts pension contributions as salary (in which case it is just an argument against pensions), I have a…

Normal government workers in NY cost about 150% of salary due to benefits and pension costs. A big part of this is that NY law requires that the pensions get funded... many states ignore pension contributions and operate at a lower cost.

MTA has other unusual issues... they have a very powerful union that has negotiated wacky deals over the years. In some areas, pretty much everyone retires with dramatically more expensive disability retirements. (See: https://nypost.com/2014/08/06/nearly-all-lirr-workers-have-d... )They also have the ability to "spike" pensions with overtime that most NY government workers outside of police and fire cannot do.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#62

Post by betterunix2 » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:19 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #29

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #9

I still don't understand why the signal system takes so long to upgrade. Can't they install most of the new system while the old one is still working on the same tracks? And isn't digital signalling available from contractors that have already done the work in other cities?

> I still don't understand why the signal system takes so long to upgrade. Can't they install most of the new system while the old one is still working on the same tracks? They could, technically, but the TWU won't let them. The TWU has used signal upgrades as a perpetual carrot for decades - anytime people talk about improvements, they say "well, we need to do X first, so we can upgrade to the most modern signal tec…

I call BS. The TWU has no say over signal upgrades and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system.

The more likely answer is that the MTA has hired shady contractors who did incompetent work for years.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#63

Post by chimeracoder » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #40

I find this situation incredibly interesting as an outsider. I live in the SF Bay Area where we have a Muni "subway", if you can even call it reminiscent of one and BART. They're both absolutely awful, between not having good/expansive coverage/timely service. A plethora of issues plague both. Both times I visited NYC this year I took the subway everywhere. Out of probably 40-50 subway rides, only a handful were dela…

> I found NYC's subway a pleasant improvement. Yet I keep seeing articles about how it needs to be fixed.

Decades of underinvestment means that it's not as good today as it was ten years ago, or as good ten years ago as it was a few decades before that.

That said, even with all its problems, the NY metro area still has far better and more extensive public transportation than any other metro area in the country. Over a third of all subway stations in the country are located within New York City's city limits, and that's not even counting the three separate commuter train options, Amtrak, bus service, or Staten Island railway.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#64

Post by chimeracoder » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #62

chimeracoder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still don't understand why the signal system takes so long to upgrade. Can't they install most of the new system while the old one is still working on the same tracks? They could, technically, but the TWU won't let them. The TWU has used signal upgrades as a perpetual carrot for decades - anytime people talk about improvements, they say "well, we need to do X first, so we can upgrade to the most modern signal tec…

I call BS. The TWU has no say over signal upgrades and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system. The more likely answer is that the MTA has hired shady contractors who did incompetent work for years.

> The TWU has no say over signal upgrades

The TWU has immense leverage over the projects that get prioritized. In fact, of the six suggestions that the article lists for fixing the subway, the TWU has actively fought against five of them.

> and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system.

This is an issue that's been going on for decades. Talking about what's happening in 2017 with the new signal network misses the entire point of why this project wasn't completed back in the 90s.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#65

Post by chimeracoder » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:31 PM UTC

bdhess wrote: post #53

chimeracoder wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being 24/7 just takes redundancy. If you have 2+ lines from A B, you can single track them during low demand times and with care take any part of the system offline without shutting down. Not all lines have four tracks (some only have two), and even for the ones that do, running trains while work is going on means incredibly slow and delayed service.

I don’t think you understood what parent meant by “single track”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-line_working

> I don’t think you understood what parent meant by “single track”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-line_working

I understand what they meant; I'm explaining that even when running trains on dedicated tracks (e.g. the local line is shut down for maintenance, but the express line still runs), it causes delays that many find unbearable. Running trains in both directions on a single track would degrade service even further. At that point, it may very well just be better to shut the entire line down temporarily, which is what they generally do.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#66

Post by gozur88 » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #54

Nelkins wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very skeptical of the "required" money quoted by anyone who is affiliated with the MTA or state government in general. There's a lot of evidence that indicates the MTA is used as a personal piggy bank. Take, for example, this gem: "MTA wrote $4.9M check to three upstate ski centers in bizarre move requested by Cuomo officials" [1]. Or this one[2] (also part of this NYT series): "Subway workers now make an aver…

I remain confused about the pay figure the NYTimes gave for subway workers; I have a close relative who works in the subway and I know a number of subway workers, and none of them make anything close to that kind of salary, even counting overtime. So unless that counts something other than the hourly employees, or counts pension contributions as salary (in which case it is just an argument against pensions), I have a…

>So unless that counts something other than the hourly employees, or counts pension contributions as salary (in which case it is just an argument against pensions), I have a hard time believing it.

Usually if the figure includes benefits (as it does in this case) the pension contributions are included. Along with things like medical,life, and disability insurance.

Usually when you total everything up it comes to around twice what people get paid. I worked at a place with federal civil servants, and the total cost to the government for a civil servant was costed out at 2.2x salary.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#67

Post by beisner » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

a-dub wrote: post #60

Why are they talking about moving stairs? Why is this first on the list? What is this madness? The stairs don't need to be moved. They simply need to add more brand new lines and stations and invest in infrastructure to improve reliability. That's it. The NYC Subway is not "broken" because the stairs are in the wrong place. The NYC Subway isn't even "broken."

Moving stairs is likely the only thing in the article that has a possibility of happening...

NYC politics is broken. Nobody is willing to spend money on important projects, the incentives for politicians simply focus too much on the short term. Changing the geometry of the stations at certain bottleneck points could have a significant effect on delays caused by overcrowding. I've noticed this sort of thing during rush hour, where a train has to sit in a station for an extra few minutes as people push in.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#68

Post by gozur88 » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #61

betterunix2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remain confused about the pay figure the NYTimes gave for subway workers; I have a close relative who works in the subway and I know a number of subway workers, and none of them make anything close to that kind of salary, even counting overtime. So unless that counts something other than the hourly employees, or counts pension contributions as salary (in which case it is just an argument against pensions), I have a…

Normal government workers in NY cost about 150% of salary due to benefits and pension costs. A big part of this is that NY law requires that the pensions get funded... many states ignore pension contributions and operate at a lower cost. MTA has other unusual issues... they have a very powerful union that has negotiated wacky deals over the years. In some areas, pretty much everyone retires with dramatically more exp…

Pension spiking happens everywhere. Here in California we had a retired fire chief drawing a $400k pension because he basically worked around the clock the year he retired.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#69

Post by ChrisBland » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

The more I think about our future with self driving cars/busses; I wonder at what point will subways no longer be needed? If you look at the capital cost of a new bus compared to the cost for the operator(s) who work it, we could greatly increase our fleet of bus services simply by removing the driver. If that and the cost per mile falls under $1/mile for uber and the like, I don't think we have a massive need for subways anymore.

Re: What Would It Take to Fix New York’s Subway?

#70

Post by betterunix2 » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #64

betterunix2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call BS. The TWU has no say over signal upgrades and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system. The more likely answer is that the MTA has hired shady contractors who did incompetent work for years.

> The TWU has no say over signal upgrades The TWU has immense leverage over the projects that get prioritized. In fact, of the six suggestions that the article lists for fixing the subway, the TWU has actively fought against five of them. > and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system. This is an issue that's been going on for decades . Talking about what's happening in 2017 with the…

You seem to think the TWU has power that it really does not have. The MTA has been consolidating the subway system's towers since the 1970s, closing a number of the electromechanical towers and replacing them with transistorized (and now computerized) equipment. In the 90s and 00s they had a grand plan to create a single control center for the whole system, but they hired incompetent contractors who failed to deliver, so now they are back to the old approach of building new towers to replace multiple old towers.

At no point has the TWU stopped them. All the TWU can do is stop the MTA from eliminating jobs, they cannot stop the MTA's plans to install new equipment.