Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
theatlantic.com
Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
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Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
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Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#3Well, if all they're after is a system to inform the ops where a train is... put active microwave beacons on the train ends, and recievers in regular distances in the tunnels. Problem solved.
Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#4The meat of the story is that the MTA purposefully allows their system to remain crippled to drum up public money.
> That’s why the MTA has tried to associate CBTC [a enormous overhaul of the signal system for the subway] with countdown clocks. New York riders crave realtime information about trains. They don’t care how they get it. So when Transit wants to drum up support for an obscure, costly, many-decades-long capital project to upgrade to CBTC, they always point to the clocks. (“Sustained Investment Makes Real-Time Information Possible,” declares one 2012 press release.) Reporters, struggling to make sense of a half-dozen interrelated projects, follow the MTA’s lead and assume that realtime train-location information depends on signal upgrades.
> But that would make for some pretty expensive clocks, and it would make them awfully long in arriving. The F train, for instance, if it had to wait for CBTC to get realtime arrival information, wouldn’t see it until 2035.
>It’s a misleading narrative. You can get countdown clocks without touching the signals. The MTA knows this.
The analolgy with the ACA website comes at the end:
> I keep thinking of Healthcare.gov. Everyone knows that the initial project was a costly disaster, but less well known is that a small team came along and saved it. The story includes this remarkable fact: The old system cost $250 million to build and $70 million a year to maintain. The new system—which actually worked—cost about $4 million to build; its yearly maintenance was about $1 million.
Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#5[deleted]
Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#6It's worth pointing out that the Bernard S. Greenberg mentioned in the article in connection with NXSYS is the celebrated Multician who ported Emacs.
Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#7The meat of the story is that the MTA purposefully allows their system to remain crippled to drum up public money. > That’s why the MTA has tried to associate CBTC [a enormous overhaul of the signal system for the subway] with countdown clocks. New York riders crave realtime information about trains. They don’t care how they get it. So when Transit wants to drum up support for an obscure, costly, many-decades-long ca…
That's one way to spin it. But as a regular subway rider, that's not how I read it. I wouldn't say that crippled is a good way to describe not having countdown clocks. Instead I'd call crippled the status quo subway system -- subject to frequent breakdowns and delays due to an ancient signaling and control system in poor repair.
CBTC, without the unnecessary legacy system kept around who-knows-why and without the overstaffing kept around because of union contracts, should be the desired end state. And there's no great reason it has to take another 175 years or cost another $20B. To bring that end state modestly closer I'm happy to wait a little longer for arrival clocks -- YMMV.
To me this story is one of poor political oversight, terrible middle and upper management both in terms of day-to-day operations and in terms of bidding/ working with contractors, and overly powerful public sector unions. To anyone familiar with the MTA none of these come as any real surprise.
Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#8I'll take the New York Subway system any day over what Boston has (MBTA).
Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#9In Russian metro there are count-up timers. Not that this is a big deal, though, when intervals between trains are shorter (2-4 minutes in St.-Petersburg; less in Moscow).
Re: Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
#10The meat of the story is that the MTA purposefully allows their system to remain crippled to drum up public money. > That’s why the MTA has tried to associate CBTC [a enormous overhaul of the signal system for the subway] with countdown clocks. New York riders crave realtime information about trains. They don’t care how they get it. So when Transit wants to drum up support for an obscure, costly, many-decades-long ca…
That's one way to spin it. But as a regular subway rider, that's not how I read it. I wouldn't say that crippled is a good way to describe not having countdown clocks. Instead I'd call crippled the status quo subway system -- subject to frequent breakdowns and delays due to an ancient signaling and control system in poor repair. CBTC, without the unnecessary legacy system kept around who-knows-why and without the ove…
Personally, I think this sort of ends-justify-the-means political wrangling is bad, not the least because it requires dishonesty on the part of individuals. (And I rode the NYC subway daily for 2 years.)