
How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways - jseliger
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-system-failure-delays.html
======
notmtaemployee
The MTA's problems begin and end at a weak senior management unwilling to
standup to Cuomo's frivolous micromanagement and a transit union unwilling to
modernize.

Politicians should be pushing for serious procurement and labor work rule
reforms, otherwise the systemic managerial and operational deficiencies will
ensure that the deterioration of service we see now will repeat it self in 5
to 10 years, regardless of how much money or technology is poured into the
MTA.

London and Toronto have been able to modernize much of their transit systems
in last 5 years and its not because they have more money. Once you fix the top
everything else will fall into place.

Look what Andy Byford has been able to do in 4 short years at the TTC. His
5-Year Plan to modernize the TTC focused on transforming corporate culture and
updating internal processes, in addition to new equipment. The results of
these changes have been overwhelmingly positive with the TTC recently being
named best public transit agency in North America and The TR Class of TTC
subway cars in May having a MDBF of over 924,000 miles.

If your interested in getting involved with transit activism in NYC I highly
suggest you follow @2AvSagas on twitter.

~~~
flexie
When is the last time America built any impressive infrastructure? I'd say in
the 70s.

Most airports, most of the interstate highway network, most subway systems,
bridges, tunnels, and dams were built from the 1930s and on to the 1970s. The
railroads are even older.

And after that; Silence. It's like you didn't even care to maintain it.

First time I arrived in America, I was taken aback by how old and run down
everything was. The only places in Europe I had seen worse roads were in
Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of the Wall. In the middle of Manhattan
some streets were in a state that in Europe you would only witness in the
Balkans or in rural areas. The airports and the link from airports to the city
were even worse. The subways didn't even have info tables saying when the next
train would arrive. At the same time in Europe, many cities were switching to
driver-less trains.

Clearly, the US could afford to expand and maintain the infrastructure. And
the US is usually on the forefront of technology. So it's about priority, more
than ability. Public infrastructure is just not prioritized that much in the
US.

~~~
stult
Well, you're ignoring massive swathes of infrastructure types.
Containerization has led to a complete revamping of US ports during that
period. The electrical infrastructure has been massively upgraded, including a
huge decrease in coal fired plants. While passenger trains haven't been
improved at all, freight train usage has grown rapidly and the already very
extensive rail lines have been maintained (conflicting demands between
passenger and freight being one of the major limitations on high speed rail).
The entire internet was built during the period you specify. As was a
nationwide cell network with nearly universal coverage in populated areas,
despite a much larger area and lower population density than comparably
developed European countries. The GPS constellation was deployed and opened up
to the public. Automated banking and payment systems. Etc etc.

Not all infrastructure consists of roads, bridges, and tunnels.

~~~
flexie
Containers, cell phone networks, the Internet, internet banking etc is
infrastructure that has been built and implemented in the rest of the Western
World as well, many places to a higher degree or more advanced than in the US,
while still maintaining and expanding roads, rails, electrical grid, subways
and airports.

You are right that the US has lower population density than most of Europe,
but Canada doesn't and it doesn't have the same lack of infrastructure
maintenance as the US.

~~~
Bartweiss
> _the US has lower population density than most of Europe, but Canada doesn
> 't_

Population maps of the US [1] and Canada [2] highlight the problem with this
argument, though. Canada has low _total_ density, but it's overwhelmingly
concentrated around the southern border of the country. The US concentrates
population along three coastlines and the Great Lakes, and has more population
to support in the low-concentration areas. (For example, Salt Lake City and
Las Vegas exist.)

So southern Canada has better-than-US infrastructure at higher-than-US
population density, while much of northern Canada has exceedingly limited
infrastructure. Outside of Alaska, there's no territory in the US comparably
written-off to much of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

An example: US highways are nationwide [3], while Canadian highways simply
_stop_ [4]. And despite the look of that projection, that's more than a
quarter of Canada which is further from a highway than _any point_ in the
continental US.

[1]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_popul...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_population_map.png)

[2] [http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-
sa/97-...](http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-
sa/97-550/vignettes/img/map-2006-pop-density-canada-sz01-en.gif)

[3] [https://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/usa-maps/usa-road-
map.jpg](https://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/usa-maps/usa-road-map.jpg)

[4]
[https://www.tc.gc.ca/media/images/policy/NHS_2007.jpg](https://www.tc.gc.ca/media/images/policy/NHS_2007.jpg)

~~~
flexie
If you exclude tiny Prince Edwards Island, the most densely populated Canadian
province is Nova Scotia (with 17.4 Canadians per km2). More than 90 percent of
Americans live in states have higher population density than the densest
populated Canadian province. Only Maine, Oregon, Utah, Kansas, Nevada,
Nebraska, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and
Alaska are more empty. Those 13 states account for less than 10 percent of
Americans.

So - on a state by state / province by province basis, Americans live more
close together than Canadians and should have better opportunity for
maintaining infrastructure.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_populat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density)

And just like Canadians tend to cram together close to the coasts and the
Great Lakes, Americans also cram together close to the Great Lakes and their
coasts. Go 50 miles inland from either coast, and it's vastly less populated
than near the coast, with the rivers as an exception. Take a drive from
Buffalo to NYC, and you'll see that it's populated near Buffalo (Great lakes),
somewhat near Albany (Hudson river) and again once you get near NYC (East
Coast). The rest of NY State is rural.

Take a look at this map of US population density by county:
[http://i.imgur.com/hY8tpOn.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/hY8tpOn.jpg)

~~~
Spooky23
Statistics don’t tell the story. Look at a population density map of Ontario.

30% of Canadians live in Ontario. About half of Ontarians live in the Toronto
metro area alone. Overall about half the population lives in the top ten metro
areas.

[http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-
sa/97-550...](http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-
sa/97-550/vignettes/m1o-eng.htm)

~~~
rayiner
Statistics do tell the story, but you gotta use the right statistics. Using
the population of arbitrary geographical regions (provinces and states) isn't
a useful measure. For transit and rail, a useful measure might be something
like "population density of a region encompassing 50% of the metro area
population."

A single rail line from Quebec City to Winnipeg, through Ottowa, Toronto, and
Calgary, with a spur to Edmonton, would cover all eleven of Canada's largest
cities, with 30% of its whole population. That's _within those municipalities_
( _i.e._ , people can take local transit to the inter-city rail line). You
cannot draw any similar line that encompasses anywhere near that percentage of
the U.S. population. Even if you connected America's 11 largest cities, you'd
only have about 26 million people (about 8% of the country).

A big reason is that most people who live "in Dallas," for example, don't
actually live in the city. Dallas and Ottawa are similar-sized cities of about
a million people each. But Ottawa encompasses 70% of its metro area, while
Dallas encompasses less than 20% of its metro area. Look at a satellite map of
each city. Dallas is sprawl for about 40 miles in each direction from the city
center. 40 miles from Ottawa is nothing in every direction (and for the most
part, so is 20 miles).

~~~
Bartweiss
Yes, thanks for this. I mentioned a few particularly empty provinces, but I
think working from state/province level or even county level is a
fundamentally misleading approach.

The obvious question is how many infrastructure hubs (cell towers, train
stations, highways, etc.) are needed to cover X% of the population. And
following that, how closely connected those hubs would be.

Suggestions like "Canadians live near the border, but Americans live near the
coast so it's similar" completely ignore that reality. The Acela corridor
(D.C. to Boston, including Philadelphia and NYC) is the most efficient
population-coverage route I know of in the country, but it can't possibly
touch the efficiency of that Quebec City to Winnipeg line. Among other things,
America has _two coasts_ , and also vastly less urban density than Canada.

------
rayiner
I don’t understand why American governments are so bad at providing public
services. Money often isn’t it. The NY subway has an operating budget of $8
billion for about 1.7 billion riders per year ($4.7 per rider per year). The
London Tube has an operating budget of (2.2 billion pounds—$3.5 billion pre-
Brexit) for 1.4 billion riders ($2.5 per rider). The systems are in extremely
similar cities, are almost exactly the same route miles, and are similarly
old. Yet NYC’s system costs almost twice as much to run.

~~~
slg
>The systems are in extremely similar cities, are almost exactly the same
route miles, and are similarly old. Yet NYC’s system costs almost twice as
much to run.

There is one fundamental difference between the two systems and that is that
the London Tube stops service overnight while the New York City Subway remains
open 24/7/365\. Having a nightly maintenance window of several hours in which
they can do preventive maintenance is likely a big factor in keeping costs
down. Throw that in with the reduction of labor with limited hours of
operation and I bet those two make up a solid portion of the difference in
cost per rider.

~~~
spyspy
MTA liberally shuts down service for hours/days at a time. I wouldn’t chalk it
all up to not having enough time to do maintanence. It was 24/7 back when it
was functioning more consistently as well.

~~~
slg
Which is the exact type of things that leads to customer complaints. Customers
have to be inconvenienced in order to do maintenance on the NYC Subway. In
turn the bar to require maintenance will be higher than it is in London. The
natural result of years of delayed maintenance is for the system to get worse
and worse as time goes on.

~~~
inferiorhuman
I disagree that maintenance is more difficult in London than in New York. I
spent about two weeks in London about a decade ago. The first thing that
struck me is that when you arrived at the tube station in Heathrow you'd get
all sorts of information about which lines were in service that day. In trying
to navigate London there was a constant shuffle about which stations or lines
were out of service. Plus it took about two hours to get from Heathrow to
Victoria due to signal issues (the wrong kind of snow is also an issue,
apparently).

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
That is not remotely a representative experience of today’s Tube.

------
harryh
IMHO the real source of a lot of these problems is that the subway system is a
city resource that is primarily payed for by city taxes (and fares of course)
but it's actually administered by the state government (which the MTA reports
into).

If it was a city controlled thing it would be a huge huge issue in every
single mayoral election. But it gets somewhat drowned out in governor
elections.

~~~
notmtaemployee
The subway used to be controlled by the city which lead to politicians keeping
the fairs intentionally low to gain popular support. In 1968 the city could no
longer afford fund the subway and it was transferred to newly created
Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority, which was renamed to today's
Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The city retaking control of subway raises the question of who will pay for
the operation and capital costs. The MTA derives allot of its funding from
tolls through the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority which generated $1.8
Billion in 2016. It's unlikely the state will give TBTA back as well.

------
matt_wulfeck
> _”... hundreds of mechanic positions have been cut because there is not
> enough money to pay them — even though the average total compensation for
> subway managers has grown to nearly $300,000 a year._ ”

I know this isn’t the primary reason the subway is falling into disrepair, but
it’s clearly a symptom of a system that lacks real accountability. There has
to be some reasonable push back to compensation (backed ultimately by the tax
payers of New York) that is tied to real performance and efficiency.

~~~
joering2
Its gets worse than that; if you read further the reasoning is that "Its hard
to buy apartment for less than $800,000 in Brooklyn".

Great excuse next time they interview you for the job; check how much is
average housing, divide roughly by three, and here is how you have reasonably
arrived at your salary.

If they look at you odd, just refer to NYT article.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
It's absolutely ridiculous.

I mean, median household income in Brooklyn is $45k.[0] That's household. The
average household size in Brooklyn is 2.75. There'll be some kids in there,
but likely the average adults per household is 1.5.

So here you have a guy earning close to $300k, likely has a partner with
supplemental income too, which is easily 6-8x the median household
income...jeez.

I mean hell, country wide there's a common 30% income spent on rent rule.
Median rent in Brooklyn is about $36k a year, for a 120k salary. These guys
are way beyond that.

It's obviously not a matter of 'do I earn enough for a decent life?'. They
could earn half, say 140k, and still earn a decent life in NY. So it becomes a
question of, is there anyone willing to do these jobs for say 180k, instead of
280k, and if so, the unions are no longer working in the best interests of
ordinary folks.

When there's a small number of rich disproportionately salaried guys making
public goods and services hugely expensive for ordinary folks, I think the
Union's raison d'etre has died. (or changed into something awful).

0
[https://www.census.gov/censusexplorer/censusexplorer.html](https://www.census.gov/censusexplorer/censusexplorer.html)

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _the unions are no longer working in the best interests of ordinary folks_

Haven't the unions always worked in the best interest of the union members?

------
greggman
I know this isn't a popular idea but any thoughts on why privatizing them is a
bad idea? It works in Japan. There are at least 10 train/subway companies in
Tokyo alone. JR, Tokyu, Keikyu, Keio, Odakyu, Eidan, Seibu, Tobu, Toei, Keisei
and they seem to be best in class by most measures.

~~~
AznHisoka
On that same idea, I would love to see private buses replace the subway. There
is a large van that takes 15-20 people from Queens to Chinatown that runs
everyday 12 hours a day and it costs under $5.

Would love to see similar systems for Queens -> Times Square or Brooklyn ->
wall street.

~~~
mjmahone17
Yes, let’s have more deadly, congestion-inducing, loud and smog-producing
private buses filling up our streets, rather than making a cheap, electrified
mass transit system better.

The Queens to Chinatown bus fills a gap in services from Flushing to
Chinatown. If that bus is really transporting multiple subway trains worth of
people each day, that in my mind means we ought to build better mass transit
between those two places. Not that we should cannibalize our working people-
moving infrastructure for something worse.

~~~
cgmg
> Not that we should cannibalize our working (!) people-moving infrastructure
> for something worse.

> Cannibalize

What's wrong with cannibalizing a system that's fundamentally broken?

~~~
maksimum
Subway isn't fundamentally broken; mis-aligned management incentives are...

------
AznHisoka
NYC has one of the highest combined state/city tax rates.. what the heck are
we paying for, if not convenient, reliable subways. and they dare increase the
fares.. ok that is fine IF you decrease the tax rates. You can't have your
cake and eat it too.

~~~
nihonde
You’re paying for guys who tear up the same street all day, every day, for
years, and then leave it looking like a patchwork of sloppy, half-finished
jobs. I lived on that street for ten years.

------
kevin_thibedeau
What's most obscene is that no effort is made to compensate for lost trains on
partially shutdown express/local lines. The mayor could fix that immediately
by just demanding more service on the sections that run rather than forcing
everyone into sardine cans. It's pretty clear that MTA is using repairs as an
excuse to cut spending on service and are unlikely to ever run it at full
capacity.

The system carried more passengers in the 40's. They did it by running trains
more often. It's not rocket science.

~~~
nerdponx
To be fair, the 4/5 between Union Square and 125th St is a sardine can from
7-10 AM and 5-7 PM daily even when they run every 3 minutes or whatever the
rush hour gap is.

~~~
thriftwy
Moscow Metro does 40 of trains per hour (doesn't save from sardine can effect
tho) so one per 3 minutes is not a hard limit.

~~~
Arnt
The hard limit is a function of stops, layout, train length and
acceleration/deceleration ability, and finally the signal system.

Each train has to approach a station, brake, stop, wait while people enter and
leave, start and accelerate, all at safe distance to the trains in front and
behind. Braking, standing still and starting easily add up to a minute, so a
two-minute cycle time is hard even if the track layout is friendly (evenly
spaced stations, no mutexes in the central area, etc).

Ninety seconds is really impressive.

~~~
tialaramex
40tph is rarely achieved in practice, systems which are intended for 40tph
usually actually end up running somewhere in the 30-36tph range as it
basically just takes one little old lady being a bit slow or one tourist bag
stuck in a door to ruin the synchronisation. Still 36tph basically already
feels like there are trains "all the time" and passengers learn to just "let
it go" as you would with an elevator - you know another one will arrive
shorty.

Getting rid of absolute block helps, a moving block system can allow the
following train to enter immediately, rather than waiting until the tail of
train A leaves the far end of the station before the front of train B can
begin moving. But that's not exactly something you can just drop in on a
Tuesday afternoon, you'd usually have to shut the whole railway, add new
signal technology, re-train staff, maybe even buy new rolling stock.

~~~
Arnt
Are there others that try to operate >30tph? Which ones?

I've only travelled with one 30tph (two-minute) system, it was really
relaxing. As you say, it felt as if the next train was coming immediately.
Quite subjectively, it felt as if the wind pushed by next train could be felt
while the previous train's lights were still visible in the tunnel.

~~~
Symbiote
The Victoria Line in London runs 36 tph. The Jubilee Line is 30, but will be
36 by 2019. The Central Line has 35tph in the morning.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_line#Service_and_roll...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_line#Service_and_rolling_stock)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_line#Service_frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_line#Service_frequency)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_line_(London_Undergrou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_line_\(London_Underground\)#Services)

------
camillomiller
New York's transport is baffling to me. The lack of a proper subway or special
express train option to get quickly to the airports is doubly baffling. I
guess the cross-state jurisdiction is one of the issues with Newark, but the
AirTrain solution over at JFK is way subpar if compared to other major cities.
I've been there twice in a few months and it's simply a disaster. 2.5 hrs by
car to get to Newark from Williamsburg at 2pm on a Friday. I wonder what rush
hour looks like.

~~~
crazygringo
What are you talking about?

From Penn St you take the NJ Transit train to Newark airport, or the LIRR
train to Jamaica where you transfer to the AirTrain which brings you to your
desired terminal at JFK.

LaGuardia doesn't have a train option though.

But yeah, taking a car from Newark to Williamburg in the afternoon, I guess
you've learned not to do that again. :) NJ Transit is your friend.

~~~
mlrtime
From Manhattan, you need to take 3 trains to get to EWR. Subway, Path (NJT),
shuttle.

LGA: None

JFK: Subway,AirtRain

Compare this with HKG or LHR, it is pathetic.

~~~
apaprocki
I'm very familiar with NYC's options and with LHR. You compare JFK with LHR,
not EWR or LGA (I suppose you'd compare EWR to Gatwick and LGA to City). To
get to any reasonable business destination in London (City) area, you take
Heathrow Express and then transfer to at least 1 or more tube. That is
directly analogous to taking the AirTrain to an express train. When I leave my
office on 59th & Lex, I walk to the 53rd street subway station and I'm at
Terminal 8 in JFK in exactly 50 minutes, consistently. How is that any worse
than LHR?

Just like when you're booking a ticket to/from "London", you don't pick Luton
if you really mean Heathrow. If my destination was Williamsburg I would pick
LGA if at all possible, otherwise JFK. Picking EWR and having to go across the
city is not a good plan to start with.

~~~
camillomiller
True, but business trip, I wasn’t booking personally

------
leifaffles
I think politicians in places like New York should lead by example and show us
that much-hyped, long-awaited "smart government" _before_ they angrily demand
I support the latest government program.

------
fencepost
I think a good response to the guy asking "What do you want, for us to make
$15 an hour?" would be "No, but bringing you down to $50 an hour might be a
reasonable starting point."

~~~
StudentStuff
$50 an hour is $104k a year, figure MTA has not been hiring many people as
their effective budget has shrunk, so what started as a low $100k salary has
risen as their workforce ages.

------
nova22033
>The pay for managers is even more extraordinary. The nearly 2,500 people who
work in New York subway administration make, on average, $280,000 in salary,
overtime and benefits. The average elsewhere is $115,000.

I know this is NYC but wow..

------
dzonga
I have always said America is a rich 3rd world country. The politicians in NY
are no different from Mugabe's Zanu PF in Zimbabwe.

~~~
obmelvin
While it is bad, it is an insult to people suffering from true 3rd world
problems to make that comparison

~~~
vinay427
I can't agree enough. GP should visit a country where if you're killed in a
hit and run by a relative of a politician, it's expected that your death will
be a suicide and you will receive no compensation. Or even a country where
that's a milder event.

~~~
jpatokal
The victims of hit & runs in third world countries typically _do_ received
(some) compensation. The culprits just magically avoid prosecution.

One example from Thailand, where even killing a _cop_ isn't enough to get the
wheels of justice turning: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-39427291](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39427291)

------
dajohnson89
DC's system is pretty bad too. this morning I had to choose between a 50
minute commute via metro for $4, or a 20 minute Uber ride for $10. I'm so so
glad I got the Uber.

~~~
rhino369
I make the same choice and it is ridiculous. I live a block from a station and
work from a block from another station on the same line. And somehow average
commute time is 45 min. And it's only ~4 miles away.

Lyft costs under 10 bucks and takes under 15 minutes if I leave after 9:45.

~~~
francisofascii
Metro has its problems but avg. commute time of 45 min. for 4 miles seems high
to me. Unless you mean Bethesda to Silver Spring.

~~~
dajohnson89
For example, take Columbia Heights to Foggy Bottom. 2 transfers (yellow/green
-> red -> blue/orange/silver). Red line is red line, expect 10 minutes on the
weekends if you're lucky. The B/O/S at metro center are frequent enough
(except when they're not; I've seen 20minute headways enough times that I'm
leery of even trying), but the Green/Yellow lines I see an average wait time
of 10-12 minutes on the weekends. That's about 20-30 minutes of _waiting_.

------
leifaffles
"Make government programs work": An issue politicians seem incapable of
prioritizing over giving the government dominion over more areas of American
life.

------
theYipster
The Europe vs US road/rail infrastructure debate is misinformed, woefully
tired, and generally meaningless.

It's all state by state, or country by country anyway, and when we are
specifically talking subways, it's city by city. It's at the city level that
the debate leaves out of consideration the one city that is orders of
magnitude above and beyond any other city in the world in terms of complexity
and operational performance: Tokyo.

Forget the NY Subway, forget London's Tube, forget the Paris Metro or the
Berlin U-Bahn, or the Hong Kong MRT for that matter... Everyone's attention
should be focused on really understanding the Tokyo system and how it works.

NYC has 25 services over 20+- lines (depending on how you count.) That doesn't
include PATH nor does it include Airtrain or any of the commuter lines that
connect to the system and are part of the greater transit network.

Tokyo, when you really look at the whole interconnected system of rapid
transit, and not the small part that is arbitrary, and IMHO incorrectly,
called the "subway," (referring to the Tokyo Metro and Toei lines generally
situated within the Yamanote circle,) you have hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of services over hundreds and hundreds of lines...

The fact that all of these lines run on time to the second, with well
maintained trains, with well maintained stations, with clear and up-to-date
communications, with service focused on the passenger... Tokyo should be the
model for the world.

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
I was riding the NYC Subway a year or two ago, when my brother in law asked me
if I noticed anything strange about it.

After thinking it through, I realized that I had ridden that exact same subway
car in the past.

It was a recommissioned car from Toronto!

So they're obviously doing something to try and save money.

It really made me question my own city's transit system as well.

How could NYC make do with something that Toronto thought was worth getting
rid of?

~~~
oasisbob
It could make sense if you consider different car series, in the same way that
airliners will move between carriers depending on what kinds of fleets they
want to run.

Or, old OEM parts.

------
victor106
I take the subway almost everyday since the past 7 years and its been getting
worse.

NYC should learn something from Toronto and London. They have the best subway
systems IMHO.

~~~
mabbo
Everyone in Toronto loves to complain about the TTC, but the few lines we have
here are pretty reliable.

We just need to expand the system further. The Eglinton line and the Finch LRT
will help.

~~~
Froyoh
I'm quite shocked people think Toronto's transit system is on par with London

~~~
mabbo
It's a matter of population and density, imho.

Toronto has mostly low-density housing, with spots of very high density-
generally, around subway stations. From a plane the other day, I noticed you
can see all the subway lines from a very far distance just by looking for
lines made of tall building clusters. This is a feedback relationship though-
where there is density, we put subway lines, and where there are subway
stations people build more density.

London, by contrast, has more of a medium-density everywhere. You could put a
tube station just about anywhere in London and you'd have a large number of
people who can and would walk to it.

Still, I'm quite happy with the _quality_ of the lines we do have. I just hope
that as we build more, that can be maintained.

------
melling
“17% of the budget is to pay down debt”

~~~
trothamel
Is that bad? The real problem is when you're stuck only paying the interest,
and the debt increases. If you were to buy something on your credit card,
you're spending most of your money to pay down the debt - but that's not
particularly a problem unless you're living above your means.

The alternative - to wait until you've accumulated enough cash to build a bus
depot - seems kind of a bad idea.

~~~
barney54
One reason it's bad that MTA is only paying interest is that the
transportation world is changing. Autonomy, Uber/Lyft, and other technologies
may mean that subways systems like the MTA is in a death spiral where fewer
riders means less fare revenue and less ability to even meet interest
payments. In places like Washington, DC it looks like the death spiral is well
underway.

~~~
umanwizard
I guarantee no amount of self-driving cars, Uber, or any other car-related
technology will make people stop taking the subway in New York.

The car bridges and tunnels into and out of Manhattan are at full capacity all
day long. It is vastly faster to take the subway in most normal cases.

~~~
candiodari
I've often wondered though why companies like the MTA don't transform their
networks into things like Elon Musk's boring company type network

~~~
isostatic
Because the passengers per hour is far lower under musk's scheme.

~~~
StudentStuff
We're talking 25k to 45k passengers an hour on a train versus ~1000 people per
hour with Elon Musk's Boring company. It isn't even vaguely competitive.

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pattle
I've never been to New York and I've don't know much about the subway system
but I was watching a documentary recently that showed they were building some
new platforms underneath Grand Central station. I think from memory they were
also building new lines to cope with the massive stress the service is under,
so it looks like these problems are trying to be resolved?

~~~
matt4077
That's a different problem. They're building a new line, yes. But the problems
are more with the reliability of the existing infrastructure.

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chmaynard
On return from a trip to Norway last week, I was shocked at how shabby, dirty,
and poorly-maintained JFK is in comparison to the Oslo Airport. No doubt the
New York subways are in serious trouble, but I'd encourage journalists in New
York to take an even broader look at the deterioration of public assets and
services throughout the city.

------
apexalpha
>In one particularly egregious example, Mr. Cuomo’s administration forced the
M.T.A. to send $5 million to bail out three state-run ski resorts that were
struggling after a warm winter.

What? Do American State-level governments not have checks in place for this
kind of stuff?

This sounds like something Mugabe would do for his private ski resorts, lol.

~~~
matt4077
As your quote points out: these are state-run businesses. I'm sceptical of the
sate running ski resorts. But ignoring that for a second, it's not out of the
ordinary to cover a loss that was the result from extraordinary events such as
a warm winter.

Presumably, they didn't have to bail them out in other years, meaning they ran
a profit in other years.

~~~
lmm
The state central government bailing out a state-run business is fine. Getting
the state transport authority to bail out a business unrelated to transport
seems obviously wrong.

~~~
freeone3000
Okay, so instead the money should go into general fund, and the money from
general fund should pay for the ski resort? I don't see a practical
difference.

~~~
lmm
It makes it a lot clearer to voters what money is going where.

------
kingkawn
I’ve lived in Nyc on and off my entire life. The train’s are completely
utterly normal, everyone has just become impatient and whiney. You’ve always
had to plan extra time, there’s always been an unmanageable mix of politics,
the Unions have always been Riddled with negotiation-PTSD and can’t give an
inch anywhere for fear of exploitation, the governor has always siphoned money
away to pay for other things, all of this is the same old shit. It’s never
gonna be whatever suburban mall everyone is comparing it to, nor will it be
like other major urban areas whose transit systems were built decades or half-
centuries later.

Chill out and ride the train. It’s a good excuse to be late that nobody can
argue with.

~~~
untog
Every piece of data we have disagrees with you. They all show that train
reliability has been tanking and on time performance has suffered as a direct
result.

------
dogruck
After reading that article, it’s hard not to have the angry reaction of “wow,
those idiots!” Right!?

But, really, we should look inward. For example, where was the New York Times
when all of these bad leadership decisions were made? Were they publishing op-
eds with clearheaded prognostications of gloom, and alternative solutions?

And, what about the voters who elected these politicians?

Most importantly, where do we go from here?

~~~
spyspy
Yes let’s blame the victims first. That’ll solve everything.

~~~
dogruck
Ah, I see how my comment could be interepreted that way. Wasn’t my intention.

At this point, it doesn’t feel constructive to wail at decades of obvious
mismanagement.

------
mychael
The MTA is a government mandated monopoly. What they need is free enterprise.

~~~
MBCook
Are you suggesting other companies build their own subways?

A subway seems like a natural monopoly to me.

~~~
jabretti
You could contract different lines out to different companies. I think Tokyo
does this.

At the very least, though, you could contract out the running of the whole
system to a company for five years a time and let different companies compete
for the contract every five years.

This isn't a panacea, but it can sometimes help if the main problem is
corruption-induced inefficiency as it seems to be for most major cities in the
US.

~~~
rtkwe
You'd need some kind of long term planning guidance behind that though because
anything beyond the most surface level changes or additions to the system is
going to take longer than 5 years and what contracting company is going sink
millions of dollars into a system they're only guaranteed to be running for
the next couple years?

------
f_allwein
If I remember correctly, London Underground was similarly run down in the
1980s, which is one of the reasons it was renationalized. This is also debated
for commuter trains now:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/11/trains...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/11/trains-
buses-nationalised-london)

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
London Underground was state-owned in the 80s too.

