
After Almost a Century, the 2nd Avenue Subway Is Close to Arriving - jseliger
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/nyregion/after-almost-a-century-second-avenue-subway-is-oh-so-close-to-arriving.html
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jseliger
Infrastructure costs in general remain bizarrely high:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/27/america_s_sky...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/08/27/america_s_sky_high_infrastructure_costs.html)
or [http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/04/7-reasons-us-
infrastruct...](http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/04/7-reasons-us-
infrastructure-projects-cost-way-more-they-should/8799/) or
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/09/public-
trans...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/09/public-transport-
costs).

~~~
honkhonkpants
The NYT article inadvertently addresses the problem: dozens of workers were at
the site.

Dozens.

Not hundreds or thousands. Dozens. With all that capital equipment laying
around and all the opportunity costs being ignored.

There's a road project near my home that's been going on for more than 90 days
now. Many days nobody is on the site at all, even though all the cranes and
other equipment are left on site at all times. When the site is being worked
it's by at most half a dozen people, five of whom are watching the sixth guy
work.

You'd think that lowest-bid contracting would have fixed this but for some
reason it hasn't.

~~~
ehnto
It reminds me of a story my father told me recently about a mining company and
a plastic dinghy.

They had a job to complete that required access to a caustic pond, so they
organised a small plastic dinghy to get out and take their measurements.

Even though it was just a dinghy, they still required a certified skipper on
board, plus a saftey officer and then the technicians to take the measurement.

They had estimated an 8 day job, not realising that the pond had shrunk by
half since the original satellite imagery.

So the technicians fly out and get prepared, but the mining company hadn't
organised half the things they needed to. So for the next 8 days the
technicians are waiting for saftey and job approvals and twiddling their
thumbs.

Meanwhile the skipper and saftey officer are back at the port awaiting the
technicians go ahead.

Now the dinghy, it was sitting on the grass at the boatyard. These resources
are all charged per day, and while they're booked for the job they are on
standby.

At this point, the dinghy on the grass and it's hardy crew had cost the mining
company $16000 just for standby costs.

Eventually the job goes ahead, it only takes 4 days because the pond had
shrunk so much, and the dinghy is only used for 2 days.

Total cost for the little plastic dinghy and crew was $25000. The mining
company was fine with this.

~~~
enraged_camel
I work as a consultant/developer in the B2B software space. Part of my job
involves documenting clients' existing processes and converting them to
requirements.

The type of inefficiencies you describe are EXTREMELY common. The fact of the
matter is that the _vast majority_ of American companies are simply stuck in
the 70s/80s (sometimes the 60s) when it comes to how things are done. Most of
their business processes are manual and paper-based and communication is
archaic, usually relying on many single points of failure, who happen to be
human operators. As a result, stuff falls through the cracks all the damn
time.

I've been thinking about how companies can manage to stay in business even
when they're run so poorly. I've come to the conclusion that it's because many
of them, especially the larger ones, face no real competition. All the other
companies in their space are run similarly. As long as a decent amount of
revenue keeps coming in, the leaders (many of whom are approaching comfortable
retirement) simply don't care.

I've also realized that, at the aggregate level, the primary reason the
American economy is so ahead of other economies today is due to the head-start
it enjoyed following World War 2, when most of the developed world had been
devastated while America was virtually untouched. If there had been any sort
of real competition, things would be very different today - and we're starting
to see that as other economies are starting to catch up.

~~~
keithpeter
Your work sounds interesting. Do you capture what _really_ happens in the
manual system (trust based work-arounds(1) and all) or do you work from what
the procedures _say_ should happen? Just wondering.

(1)E.g. An reference number is needed to set up X on a system. To get a
reference number you need to get Y to sign off. Y is notoriously slow, and I
have been doing this for years. Z lets me have a reference number on trust
knowing that Y will sign off because my paperwork will be in order. Someone
new would not get that trust until a few successful cycles. C.F. Lave and
Wenger, communities of practice.

~~~
enraged_camel
We capture what really happens in the manual system, as well as what should
happen. Sometimes the latter is pretty vague, or (believe it or not) simply
unknown, in which case we learn the very final goal (e.g. "all invoices should
be approved in under 24 hours") and work backwards to discover bottlenecks.
This can take many weeks, sometimes months, because it requires interviewing
subject matter experts.

Implementing the software comes at the very end, ideally when the underlying
process itself has been re-engineered. We found that you can't simply take an
existing manual process and implement it in software, because if you do then
you also capture many of the inefficiencies and bottlenecks.

~~~
keithpeter
Excellent answer.

One wonders how you identify the 'subject matter experts', and the extent to
which you rely on their answers to questions versus direct observation of what
they _do_.

My experience (anecdotal, informal) is that there can be quite a difference
between a verbal description and what actually happens, and the difference has
to do with situational knowledge (as in "oh yes, I forgot about Fred. With
Fred we do ZZ instead")

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melling
Next we extend the 7 Subway to NJ?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension#Proposed_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension#Proposed_New_Jersey_extension)

The Path stops about 2 miles from the airport. That would be a good project to
finish.

[http://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/2016/05/push_to_expand_t...](http://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/2016/05/push_to_expand_the_path_network_gains_more_support.html)

~~~
L_Rahman
Hong Kong Airport made me realize how idiotic it is that we don't have these
rail links:

\- PATH to EWR

\- 7 to LGA

Not only does Hong Kong have a subway terminating inside the main terminal, it
runs separate from their MTR line, takes 30 mins to get into Central and makes
a handful of stops at major MTR junctions along the way. It felt like public
transit working exactly as it should.

~~~
tedmiston
I've turned down 3-hour layovers before that required change of airport in NYC
because I'm not confident it's enough time.

On the other hand, I take the Chinatown buses in / out regularly. It's a
pretty smooth arrival experience in comparison.

~~~
greglindahl
There's an effective private bus that does NY airport transfers. EWR is not so
good, but I'd be confident about LGA/JFK.

Discovery _is_ a problem. When I only occasionally traveled to NY I didn't
know about this bus. My NY-based girlfriend told me about it.

~~~
tedmiston
Do you the name?

~~~
manacit
There are more than one around the city, but I usually take
[http://www.nycairporter.com](http://www.nycairporter.com) to get to/from
JFK/LGA and Manhattan when I don't want to take public transit (usually
because I have a lot of luggage).

I live within easy access of one of their pickup/dropoff stops in Manhattan,
so it's quite convenient.

------
shmerl
NYC is missing a lot of connecting lines for instance in Brooklyn. Most of
them run in parallel, and something like circular or orthogonal connecting
lines could be have been really useful.

~~~
dankohn1
That's why we need the Triborough RX.
[http://ny.curbed.com/2016/6/1/11830816/the-triboro-
regional-...](http://ny.curbed.com/2016/6/1/11830816/the-triboro-regional-
plan-association-proposal)

But MTA funding is controlled by the state, meaning that all subway funding
needs to be balanced by upstate highway funding, meaning that super high
return projects like this (which could probably justify themselves based on
the improvements in real estate values as Hong Kong does) are not happening.

~~~
shmerl
They should be building more railroads upstate. In general, trains feel
severely lacking in comparison with Europe for example.

~~~
dankohn1
There's not enough density to justify trains in upstate New York. But we
should be spending tens of billions to upgrade the Acela corridor (which runs
east of upstate NY) to something comparable to Europe's high speed trains.

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stomato
Paywalled so I can't read it.

~~~
webjunkie
Use private window.

~~~
stomato
Thanks! Had no idea I could use a private window to unpaywall!

