
How Cuts in Basic Subway Upkeep Can Make NYC Commutes Miserable - jseliger
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/nyregion/system-failure-new-york-subway-maintenance-misery.html?mabReward=CTM3&recid=0y1C7Vbd7V6qb02UQ5zYHiw4x64&recp=3&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine
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djsumdog
Other major cities around the world are moving to automated light rail.
Singapore and Kula Lumpar both have fully automated trains, London has several
of their lines automated with plans on slowly replacing rolling stock to
eventually go driver-less on more of its above ground lines.

American cities are so far behind. D.C. is probably one of the best metros,
but NYC and Chicago, while having quite extensive systems for very large
cities, have no budget to expand or move them into the future.

For cities that large, these systems have to be maintained. They cannot afford
to cut train lines, unless they want to end up with grueling traffic like you
have in LA.

~~~
delackner
While automation sounds elegant, it has nothing to do with the problems or
solutions here. The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management
culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring
quick fixes and short term band aids.

Many modern subway systems have similarly huge networks with far higher
traffic than NYC but manage to maintain low failure rates and CLEAN tracks
simply because they value and prioritize maintenance and quality of service.
Some are private, some are public.

It truly baffles me why NYC and actually the SF BART both fail so utterly to
even attempt to provide quality service.

~~~
concerned_user
I live in Europe and to me it seems that its a general American mentality of
everybody having a car, dislike of mass transit in any form (except planes)
and as a result mass transit is meh and makes people even more miserable.

~~~
CaptainZapp

      I live in Europe and to me it seems that its a general American mentality of everybody having a car
    

New York is different. Car ownership is extremely low and the subway is a
vital part of the city's transportation infrastructure.

The problem seems more attitude wise. We want great infrastrure while paying
low taxes. This contradiction, of course, isn't really solvable as can be seen
in the generally pretty rotten state of infrastructure in the US.

~~~
martinald
I think one of the core issues is the very heavy unionisation of the staff,
much more extreme than anywhere else.

Apparently union labor rates are 3-5x more expensive in transit than Europe.
Considering how labor heavy it is to do repair work on old subway lines it
means you need an insane budget to do any more work. And guess what, as soon
as the budget gets raised the union notice and want a larger slice.

So many examples of this. Another is the way NY subway cars have 3 staff
minimum. Whereas London, Paris, Berlin have one. Assume they make 3x the money
and you need 3x more than other cities and you have a 10x cost increase in
operational labor costs. Plus the complexity of ensuring you always have 3
people there with no sickness etc, as if you lose one you can't run the train
at all.

It's really insane and will take a mayor with serious backbone to fight.

~~~
ubernostrum
Unions are far more widespread and far stronger in Europe than they are
anywhere in the US. By your logic, then, transit maintenance in Europe should
cost unbelievable amounts of money.

(there are plenty of well-documented reasons why NYC comes up short on money
for its transit system, and "unions are the devil" is an insufficient
explanation for them)

~~~
rayiner
American unions are different. People from Germany have come to visit me in
Maryland and remarked on road construction sites and how many guys that are
just standing around. Here, you'll have multiple guys just standing directing
traffic. In Germany, they put up some cones and a signal light.

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adrianN
The technology on the NYC subway is so old that they have to pay through the
nose for replacement parts. I also assume that you have a hard time finding
people willing to work at a place where they learn few transferable skills,
because nobody else uses century old stuff. Especially if the pay is so-so and
you don't guarantee a job for life.

Yet upgrading the system to modern signals and interlockings is even more
expensive, especially since maintenance is extremely hard when the system has
to run 24/7.

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exabrial
Signals are expensive? That kind of blows my mind. A chaveut dj LED light that
responds to dmx commands can be had for a few bucks

~~~
adrianN
Signals are expensive because of their safety guarantees (and because of lack
of competition). That LED light you can buy for a few bucks doesn't guarantee
eight nines of uptime if you keep to the maintenance schedule. You also can
sue the manufacturer if a train runs a red because the LED broke. Signals and
other trackside equipment make up a large part of the costs of building rail.

~~~
jessriedel
The legacy parts manufactured half a century ago have eight nines of uptime?

~~~
adrianN
Relays are pretty reliable if you exchange them regularly enough. Just because
the stuff is old it doesn't mean that you can't build machines with enough
redundancy to make them very dependable. It's not so clear that complex
software solutions as in modern interlockings are more dependable than the
comparably simple electromechanical solutions of yore. Cheaper, yes, more
capable, sure, but more reliable?

~~~
jessriedel
> Just because the stuff is old it doesn't mean that you can't build machines
> with enough redundancy to make them very dependable.

I can do the same with 1-dollar modern parts.

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adrianN
That's exactly what the companies building these things do. It's not the
material that's expensive, it's all the paperwork necessary to prove that it
actually provides the guarantees that it does.

~~~
jessriedel
The context was you saying "they have to pay through the nose for replacement
parts" and exabrial's downvoted reply, to which you replied "That LED light
you can buy for a few bucks doesn't guarantee eight nines of uptime if you
keep to the maintenance schedule". I don't know anything about this stuff, but
your arguments have not been coherent.

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futurix
Ring-fenced yearly upkeep budget + years of sustained funding for improvements
= great subway system.

London Underground in the 1980s was like NYC Subway now - but after sustained
15-20 years of funding it improved immensely (while passenger levels more than
doubled, if not tripled).

Of course this could not last - with the current Conservative government
Underground is getting less and less money, so starting to defer upgrades...
Politicians are incapable of learning.

~~~
rayiner
That doesn’t help. The MTA’s problem is decidedly not money. The MTA’s
spending on subway is about double per passenger as Transport for London
spends on the underground.[1] Having a ring fenced budget wouldn’t do any good
as it gets eaten away by inefficiency and waste.

What the MTA needs to do is:

1) Disband the union

2) Cut service overnight to increase maintenance times

3) Double fares (Tube fares are 15-100% higher depending on distance; using
exchange rates from a few years ago, minimum Tube fare was like $5 versus
$2.75 for the NY subway)

[1] [http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-mayors-
budget-2017-18.pdf](http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-mayors-budget-2017-18.pdf)
(page 10) versus
[http://web.mta.info/mta/budget/pdf/MTA%202017%20Adopted%20Bu...](http://web.mta.info/mta/budget/pdf/MTA%202017%20Adopted%20Bu..).
(page II-A). Just look at the Underground versus the subway + the Staten
Island Railroad.

~~~
apostacy
> 2) Cut service overnight to increase maintenance times

Absolutely not! Overnight service is an _essential_ element of the NYC subway
system. It's what makes the subway go from being a convenience to being a
utility. Knowing that I can absolutely rely on subway, or at least a shuttle
bus, at any time of the night, is a completely different experience than
living in a city where I have to plan might night around the train. Even if it
very slow at night, I know it will be there. Like a road.

Besides, I doubt that shutting down all 400 miles of the network will
significantly improve maintenance efficiency. They already severely cut back
service to a few trains an hour, and they coordinate with maintenance crews
pretty well, and crawl past them at 5mph. And the system is big enough so that
they can shut down parts of it.

I think the only time the city completely shut down service was during 9/11,
but they had partial service again a few hours later, to areas that did not
pass through the neighborhood.

But I can tell you that proposing we shut down all service after a certain
hour is as ludicrous as saying we should close most of our bridges after a
certain hour. The subway is not an add-on for NYC like in it is in most
cities, it is an essential feature.

~~~
Larrikin
The subway shuts down in nearly all the major cities with much better and
often times more expansive systems than NYC, Tokyo in particular stands out.
People against shutting down the subway usually argue against it because they
just want to be able to go out drinking at night and not have to pay for a
Lyft or Taxi back home.

Theres a few things that NYC could do that would easily alleviate this:

1\. Run a night owl bus service that replaces all or most lines like Philly.
Don't know why this isn't more common. Theres less traffic at night, so the
people relying on the subway for work will not be inconvenienced
significantly.

2\. Have overnight service Friday and Saturday for the party crowd. Apparently
there are systems in Europe that do this.

~~~
chimeracoder
> The subway shuts down in nearly all the major cities with much better and
> often times more expansive systems than NYC, Tokyo in particular stands out.
> People against shutting down the subway usually argue against it because
> they just want to be able to go out drinking at night and not have to pay
> for a Lyft or Taxi back home.

Or, you know, people who actually have to travel those hours for work or other
reasons. NYC is a 24-hour city in a way that cities like London are not.

> 1\. Run a night owl bus service that replaces all or most lines like Philly.
> Don't know why this isn't more common.

Bus service, even with optimal traffic, is _way_ slower than subway service.

> Have overnight service Friday and Saturday for the party crowd. Apparently
> there are systems in Europe that do this.

Yeah, London just introduced this. It's pretty terrible compared to what we
have in NYC. I wouldn't trade it for what NYC has now.

~~~
rayiner
> NYC is a 24-hour city in a way that cities like London are not.

I highly doubt that’s true.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I highly doubt that’s true.

Having lived in New York for a decade and also spent time in London, there's
absolutely no comparison. Heck, even just looking at the nightlife: pubs in
London shut down before midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. That's completely
unheard-of in most of NYC, even bars in the relatively residential areas.

NYC also tends to have other businesses open earlier and close later than
London (or most of Europe). In order for that to happen, it's necessary to
have people who work the early/late/graveyard shifts, and those people are
incredibly dependent on overnight service.

It's unfortunate that you're mixing in overnight service with the rest of the
points you make, because you're correct about the rest - the fares are a
little too low right now, and rampant corruption at the TWU wastes what little
money they do have.

~~~
Larrikin
So you admit that you want to go out drinking and this is the only reason you
want the trains to run all night? Bars, izakayas, and clubs in Tokyo also stay
open extremely late like in NYC and yet the city doesn't grind to a halt when
the subway system closes.

~~~
chimeracoder
> So you admit that you want to go out drinking and this is the only reason
> you want the trains to run all night?

I guess that's a way you could interpret my comment, if you read only the
first paragraph and ignore the sentence that literally comes next.

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free652
For MTA: labor expenses are higher than revenue, there is no easy way out.

~~~
Fej
How are they paying for everything?

~~~
djsumdog
It's important to note that no train system in the world is covered by fairs.
They are always subsidized by the state. In most cities, fairs make up 20% ~
30% of costs (tolls are about the same for toll roads).

Cities with expensive transit typically have mandates that x% of costs must be
paid by fairs. In Wellington, NZ and Chicago, US, this is 50%, leading to some
pretty high fares or low service.

Just having transit makes revenue though, in taxes from the increased
commerce. Access to transport is also the single largest factor in escaping
poverty. It's difficult to measure those numbers in revenue though.

But transport always must be subsidized by the State, going back to the roads
of Rome.

~~~
jopsen
Kind of why I wish public transit was just made free..

Once the rail lines are paid for, the cost per passenger is very low. Hence,
we should maximize value by making it free.

~~~
icebraining
Now I'm wondering what a Freemium transit system would look like.

~~~
closeparen
Easy: sell seats to commuters who want to get work done (currently seats are
allocated to those who board closest to the beginning of the line).

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Shivetya
Do not that this is a problem nationwide with rail transit. Both heavy and
light rail variants suffer the same issue, deferred upkeep. Throw in the
elevated expense in deploying such solutions and the money just vanishes.
While NYC has issues specific to it many cities slight their bus travelers to
support rail lines to the point of changing bus routes to be less
advantageous. LA lost nearly four bus riders for every new rail rider because
they cut routes to pay for the train.

when it comes to deferred maintenance, if you were to look into the 2015 DOT
reports there is nearly a hundred billion dollar backlog on rail maintenance.
This is on top of the tens of billions spent building it and building new
rail.

the estimates to bring just DC's Metro system back up to maintenance date is
over twenty billion.

Just remember in the US most transit rail lines are for the purpose of
politicians to cut ribbons.

~~~
heisenbit
But roads are faring so much better? Or water infrastructure (Flint)? Or
electricity infrastructure (PR)?

Our western society seems to find ways of fund investments but when it comes
to maintenance there is a void. Why the US is particularly bad at this and
what needs to change across the board is the question. The current course is
not sustainable.

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1ba9115454
I always wondered what would happen if you just remove the trains and the
track and just let people cycle through the tunnels.

~~~
Joe-Z
That sounds awesome. Maybe paint some landscapes on the walls and have nice
lighting in there too. Underground bike lanes for the win!

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pcr0
Why does such a troubled metro still run 24/7? Most of the best-performing
metros in the world (HK, SG, Tokyo) close at midnight.

~~~
futurix
Because the city itself is 24/7?

~~~
lagadu
Yeah but at night there's significantly less traffic, so it's ok to stop the
trains and rely solely on the bus network because it has enough capacity to
handle night traffic.

Where I live is an example of that: during weekdays the light rail closes IIRC
between midnight and 6, they only keep it running on weekends because of all
the people going out at night (the metro always runs but that's fully
automated). Just because the bus system isn't enough to handle a city's peak
load, it's usually fine for handling the load on periods where the load is the
smallest.

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notyourday
Dude. Not moving a "sick passenger" off the train is the biggest issue of NYC
subway commute.

~~~
untog
It really isn't. It _is_ an issue, sure, but decrepit signals have far more of
an effect every single day.

~~~
notyourday
No, this is the issue. A sick passenger on union sq on N Q R in a rush hour
means for twenty minutes trains are stopped. A sick passenger on the L, means
trains are stopped in both directions. It takes hours for the train service to
get back to normal. This happens nearly daily. If we still had Gothamist, we
would have still had daily articles about what caused the delay.

~~~
untog
No, it is _an_ issue. In any case, a new signal system would allow the subway
to recover from a sick passenger much quicker, and allow it to run many more
trains per hour than it currently does, which would cover many sins. The
decrepit signals are a far bigger issue, and a far more solvable one (how do
you solve sick passengers?)

~~~
notyourday
> and a far more solvable one (how do you solve sick passengers?)

You _move them off the train_ ( 2 minutes ) and let the train continue moving.

Improving signal system won't fix delays. The article is about what about
makes commute terrible. MTAs customer does not give a flying f!ck about _why
there are the delays_. MTA customer wants to have no delays. MTA's solution?
Contractless payments! New L cars with folding seats!

Subway in NYC runs on electricity. It is not possible to run more trains on
most of the lines than already run. MTA got a stupid grant from feds of
several hundred million dollars to upgrade one of the L substations. It will
add _two_ or maybe _three_ additional trains in the rush hour when trains
already come every 3-4 minutes. No improvement in switching infrastructure
would fix it. A train stopping for twenty minutes on Bedford St would affect
the system for hours because of the idiotic 8th St design.

Oh how about someone having an episode in a tunnel, followed by a dumb-ass
passenger pulling emergency brake. In a tunnel. Guess what happens? The
conductor has to check _every car before the train moves forward_ even though
he or she knows where the emergency brake was pulled. So you now have a sick
passenger in a tunnel and entire system again stops. Fun, huh? But sure,
through the magic of signal system improvement we will totally address dumb
design ideas.

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Endy
Now they're also talking about stopping the L train for a year or more. And my
major issue is, these people who have the time to go out and protest - and the
city literally is not allowed to say, "You want this to get fixed? Either
convince the rich folks to actually pay their taxes, or be willing to
volunteer and do the work we need done down there."

~~~
jopsen
> and the city literally is not allowed to say, "You want this to get fixed?
> Either convince the rich folks to actually pay their taxes, or be willing to
> volunteer..."

That sounds like an excellent campaign poster.

The city is a public institution it shouldn't have opinions. But the
politicians who govern it are very much encouraged to do so.

I suggest you try to run on a political platform of taxes and better services.
Then you'll see of Americans want that.

~~~
notyourday
No need. The current tax bill exposed the positions of American limo liberals
quite well - no one wants their "but i already pay taxes in New York so of
course I deduct them from my federal tax liability" to go away.

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loup-vaillant
One thing that shocked me when going to the US, that still shocks me now, are
those adds: "Injured? Cellino & Barnes".

Apparently, when you're injured in the US, the first thing to do is _not_ go
to the hospital, but _call your lawyer_. I'm not sure what to think of it, but
it does make me feel uneasy.

~~~
sonthonax
America's courts unlike the UK routinely award punitive damages. Suing someone
for causing you injury in the UK may only net you the cost of your medical
bills (which might be negligible) and the cost of missed work.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Given the US health care system, I understand why someone might _need_
punitive damages.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Needing punitive damages is a contradiction by definition. If you could show
injury then they would be normal damages The point of punitive damages is that
they're not necessary to compensate the injured party but to send a message
that a certain behavior is not acceptable.

For example: "$person was burned by your hot coffee so we're awarding them
$smallnumber for medical expenses, lost wages, suffering, etc. and $bignumber
in punitive damages because you shouldn't be serving coffee that hot in that
manner in the first place"

~~~
loup-vaillant
I know what "punitive damages" mean. I was just pointing out that in the US,
one might lose one's ability to get health insurance at all because of an
injury (many conditions will cause most insurance company to refuse your
application).

The possible prejudice for that can range in the _millions_. Even if those
aren't punitive, they sure feel like it.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>I was just pointing out that in the US, one might lose one's ability to get
health insurance at all because of an injury (many conditions will cause most
insurance company to refuse your application).

That is no longer true as a result of the ACA.

~~~
loup-vaillant
I didn't know about the affordable care act, that's wonderful news! Anyway, I
stand corrected, thanks.

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frandroid
Andy Byford has his work cut out for him.

