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How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

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Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#81
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The platforms are fairly narrow and have no railings, and they aren't designed to hold two full train loads of people at the same time. It seems pretty unlikely that 100% of the people on the outbound train would use the app and trust the historical data to go to the platform early.

Once people see others walking towards a platform (particularly if they just checked something on their phones), they tend to do the same.

There are dozens of platforms going to different places. Picking a random stranger and following them isn't going to get you where you're going.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The platforms are fairly narrow and have no railings, and they aren't designed to hold two full train loads of people at the same time. It seems pretty unlikely that 100% of the people on the outbound train would use the app and trust the historical data to go to the platform early.

It doesn't have to be 100% - a significant number of waiting people will still present a safety issue. The platforms are very narrow for the LIRR tracks, so holding 200% of a train (outbound and inbound) would be sheer pandemonium, and would practically guarantee someone falls off the platform. Even holding 100% of a train (just inbound, disembarking passengers) is already straining the platforms and methods of egres…

People in that station actually talk to each other, so a few % of app users in the crowd might result in a large number of people knowing.

I'd hate to imagine what would happen during peak if a train came in on an unexpected track AND a different train on the expected track - it is not unusual for multiple trains to be announced at once. Then you'd have a pile of people trying to go up those narrow stairs while a pile of people were trying to go down.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#83
post #80
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once people see others walking towards a platform (particularly if they just checked something on their phones), they tend to do the same.

But there are lots of trains leaving at any given time going to different places. There's no way to know which train somebody is heading to without asking them.

There aren't that many leaving simultaneously - plus they tend to be slotted into the same group of platforms.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#84

I can see why the MTA wouldn't want you telling people to go to a track before it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one, clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be trying to use too. Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so that people can head straight to t…

Thing is though, they could be providing that data MUCH earlier both on the displays and to a phone app. It's not like they don't decide where a train is going until it gets to the station, that would be ridiculous, they'd have to know a while in advance to make sure the track is available, clear, operating correctly, and do all the necessary switching (and more importantly, do so in such a way that doesn't impact ot…

Given the other comments on this issue, it's not so much that MTA hates innovation, but that those who would be "disruptors" don't actually understand the entirety of the problem.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following some rules is dehumanizing?

Being treated like cattle shuttled down a narrow pathway. Being forced to wade into a compressed crowd of people who apparently forget all manners and will push and shove you. It's basically one of, if not the worst parts of every day. And there is nothing you can do to avoid it.

The alternative is having people actually end up squeezed in front of a killing machine (train) which I would think is more like "being treated like cattle" in the part that I care about than the "I have to walk down a small hallway.

Also, we treat astronauts like cattle. Squeezed into small areas, down tiny hallways. The Hugh-manatee.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is also dehumanizing.

Mass transit is dehumanizing. Cities are dehumanizing. A significant amount of the way that giant infrastructure works is making assumptions and rote; Turning the human problem of "how do I get here" into a mechanical process of "There are two ways to do so, X and Y, each of which follow these steps". This is great for efficiency - that's why it's done. It's terrible for humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity,…

> It's terrible for humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity

Your other points may be valid but I'm not so sure about this one. Artists tend to cluster in big cities, often with mass transit (and sometimes without, like LA). I sincerely doubt there's any sort of correlation between mass transit and creativity.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#88
post #65
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever taken a rush hour train at Penn Station? The alternative (i.e. current system) is everyone congregates on the concourse staring at the platform screens, and when a new one pops up hundreds of people flood in the direction of that platform in a mad dash. It's a mess.

This is absurd. After commuting for 1 year less than a year I knew which track to go to for any of the trains I ended up on. And more importantly where to stand on the platform to be at a door when the train pulled in. The idea that somehow it's unknown or occult knowledge as to which track to go to is silly, when they announce the track for the train over the PA, they sometimes say 'This is a track change', and the…

I think the idea is that having an app encourages more people to do it, not that it can't be done without an app.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#89
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass transit is dehumanizing. Cities are dehumanizing. A significant amount of the way that giant infrastructure works is making assumptions and rote; Turning the human problem of "how do I get here" into a mechanical process of "There are two ways to do so, X and Y, each of which follow these steps". This is great for efficiency - that's why it's done. It's terrible for humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity,…

Yet, at the same time, people living in cities with mass transit vs suburban sprawl (admittedly still not an 'ideal') prefer the cities for the increased sense of community, higher sense of dynamism, and more 'creative' things going on than what they might get in their their non-mass-transit suburban coutnerparts..

That's definitely debatable; I'd guess that many people globally live in cities because that's where the work is, not for any of the other aspects you mentioned.

Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass transit is dehumanizing. Cities are dehumanizing. A significant amount of the way that giant infrastructure works is making assumptions and rote; Turning the human problem of "how do I get here" into a mechanical process of "There are two ways to do so, X and Y, each of which follow these steps". This is great for efficiency - that's why it's done. It's terrible for humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity,…

I agree with your points. I am curious about your use of the phrase "tragedy of the commons" though, specifically how it relates to mass transit. I would think the "tragedy of the commons" would people who elect to drive a car during rush hour rather than taking a similarly viable mass transit option if one exists. Or are you using the term just in the context of overpopulation? Thanks.

I'm really not as convinced that mass transit is a good deal. Certainly, there are some places where it is, and some huge benefits. Less time/money/space spent on parking, for example. But the oft-cited statistics about energy-use-per-passenger-mile, while true, are far from the whole story - The human cost in additional time spent commuting and inflexibility of schedule are very real. It takes me twice as long to get to work by transit as by car. It's just barely on the cusp of not worth it - and significantly because SF lacks in parking. It means that I've got to time my comings and goings carefully - I used to work 40 hour weeks as 2x12-14 and then short days the rest, but I can't anymore, because if I stick around till midnight coding I can't get home. If you look at it purely from a "how much does commute cost" perspective, sure, mass transit looks cheap. But it costs humans real time to do. Time is money, and the hour a day I spend in additional commute time, trapped in a small box with smelly homeless dudes, is really not worth my time. It's only because of 'opportunity cost' that I bother with it - I couldn't spend that time making money, and it's value to me in additional entertainment is significantly discounted from my normal rate only because... well, I think I've just talked myself into quitting and getting a job literally anywhere else, because I'm utterly sick of the commute. And at 45 minutes each way, it's really not that bad!

To a certain extent, because it's so cheap to aggregate, we lose out on opportunities to differentiate. Rather than spreading out so we work close to home, we build giant throughfares that make for clear divisors - And then do insane things on top of that. Look at the commute times in and out of SF - the traffic is really bad flowing both into and out of the city, because lots of peninsula-working persons want to live in the city and lots of peninsula living persons want to work in the city. (I say this with great hypocrisy, living on the peninsula and working in the city, but at least I'm in Millbrae and not Sunnyvale).

The same thing has happened in manufacturing - It's so cheap to produce mass-market products, and they do enough in most cases, that it's basically impossible to find semi-niche products in many areas. You can buy cheap Chinese goods or pay 20x the cost for high quality American made, but there's no mid-market anymore. Every so often a product comes around that is mid-market, but when people flock to it, it inevitably goes down in quality. My example is Lands End jeans - In the 90s, they were great. Then they got popular, got bought out, and are now just another branding for cheap goods.

When working from home becomes more acceptable, cities are going to look like things of the past - Full of only collectivists who can't live without someone to praise them at every corner, and the poor and downtrodden who've gotten stuck in the ghettos. This is, of course, cyclical, and been given several names - "White Flight" being the current pejorative for one of the major cycles. But I'm looking forward to being a Solarian[1]; VR for interaction, Automated cars when I need to be somewhere or to transport goods, and high-bandwidth network links for everything else. I don't see anyone else arguing for lining fiber everywhere we run power to, but when I do, I will gladly vote for them.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria#Isolationists

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